by
Thomas Olde Heuvelt
400
pages, Hodder
Review
by Pat Black
Vampires
do well out of books. They’re comfortably top of the monsters leaderboard. In
browsing for books online, you’d go into a hall of mirrors just to avoid seeing
the buggers for a while.
Werewolves
don’t do quite as well, but there’s still plenty of interest in our
not-so-friendly four-legged friends. I didn’t realise this until I punted out a
werewolf novella on Amazon. It was like a junior school wolfie kid, in its wee
uniform. I was a big wolfie mama, tearfully watching the little one scamper in
on its first day.
I
also discovered you could trip up on sexy werewolves/shapeshifter scud stories.
They’re like a great big shaggy doormat.
But
you don’t see so many witches. I’m surprised by this. They lend themselves so
well to all facets of the horror genre. They can be scary; they can be sexy;
they can summon demons and dish out curses. Most importantly, they’ve got some
kind of grudge. In this, they’re relatable. But away from fairy tales, there
aren’t too many in literature.
On
the big screen there’s the Blair Witch, but of course, we never really saw her.
The closer we get to that movie’s 20th anniversary, the more I see
it for the con it was - and I applaud its makers all the more for that.
There
was The Craft and Charmed, but one was a high school Mean
Girls-style revenge drama (a very good one), and the other packaged witchcraft
as a lifestyle choice. I’m looking at witches as Big Bads, here, not Buffies.
Step
forward Dutch novelist Thomas Olde Heuvelt with Hex. Rewritten for an American market from the original Dutch
version, this book is set in Black Rock, a modern-day town in upstate New York suffering
a great big hangover from the days of the founding fathers: it is cursed by a
witch.
Katherine
Van Wyler was tortured and executed for perceived witchcraft in 1664, and her
children perished, too. But she never really died. Now, Katherine – an undead
physical entity, wrapped in chains with her eyes and mouth stitched up – dots
around the town as she pleases, appearing and disappearing in seemingly random
places.
She
could materialise in the bathroom while you’re seated and pre-occupied. She
could appear at the bottom of your bed just as you’re putting a move on your
partner. She could pop up in the seat behind you at the movies, nudging you every
couple of minutes with her big buckled shoes. Why do people do that? Stop it!
“Why
don’t they just kill her?” Not so fast. She’s got skills. If anyone tries to
harm the witch, horrible things happen. She can trigger aneurysms and heart
attacks by remote control, killing people at random in the town if anything
happens to her. She’s a cardiovascular killer. She’s a walking fish supper,
basically.
Then
there’s her most insidious trick: whispering. If you listen closely to what the
witch mumbles through her sewn-up lips, you instantly want to kill yourself.
Many people have.
“Why
don’t they just leave?” They can’t. Anyone who gets too far away from Black
Rock wants to kill themselves, too. Once you’re there, you’re stuck. Or you
die.
The
town of Black Rock copes. Fully backed by the US government, which does not
want the menace to escape, or for the rest of the world to find out about her, the
town has an elaborate system – HEX – set up to ensure no-one leaves town, and to
manage the witch’s appearances as far as possible. Led by Robert Grim and
answerable to the mayor, this taskforce cleans up the witch’s messes and makes
sure no news of Black Rock’s unique resident leaves town. In the internet and
mobile phone era, this is an increasingly difficult prospect.
Hikers
are turned away by deputies monitoring the town’s wooded borders, citing
various made up public order or health and safety problems. More difficult to
persuade to leave are the people looking to buy property in Black Rock. Every effort
is made to dissuade folk looking to settle in a seemingly pleasant arboreal
town - including harassment. For those really, really stubborn people who can’t
take a hint, they have to become Black Rock residents. They are given an
induction; they are trained in the ways of this supernatural nightmare which
must become part of their life. They become fully immersed in the town, unable
to communicate the problem to wider society… and unable to leave.
Welcome
to the Hotel California.
The
author is about 30, though going by the dust jacket photo, if someone had told
me he was 10 years younger I’d have bought it. How god-damn disgusting is that? These young and
talented bastards, how dare they? But the main thing that struck me about Olde
Heuvelt’s work was that we are now into a third generation of people who grew
up under the spell of Stephen King.
Although
its original version was set in the Netherlands, Hex is dripping with King’s Big Mac-style secret sauce recipe. It
features small town America with all its little kinks and hang-ups - the
country in microcosm - which we’ve seen time and again in King’s fiction. The book focuses on regular families and
ordinary Joes battling unearthly forces, the everyday turned horrific. Imagine
trundling your trolley around Lidl, and you turn a corner into the “Death Star
turret” section where all the booze lives, and oops – that’ll be your 350-year-old
witch, blocking aisle four.
There’s
a lot of potential for humour in this scenario, and Hex gleefully exploits it. Hallowe’en sees the witch used as a
decoration, and people pose for pictures with her. Imagine how annoyed she’d be
to come third in the “best witch” contest?
But
there’s not too much laughter, as the Black Rock witch isn’t a thing of comedy.
She’s terrifying, and her sudden appearances give you something to think about
before lights out. The book is not short on scares – there are a load of “well
you can shove that up your poky hat!” moments.
Hex is
almost a brilliant novel. It has an eye on many of the town’s residents – I
particularly liked HEX chief Robert Grim, who seems to be an uptight rule book
junkie at first, but turns out to be a decent, principled man doing a difficult
job. The story comes into sharp focus with one doctor and his family. The
doctor’s son, Tyler, is a senior student at high school. He and his friends
find a way to circumvent Black Rock’s internet black-out, and, armed with
GoPros and camera phones, they humiliate the witch in a series of escalating
pranks, Jack-Ass style.
It
looked like the gang were going to use brand new technology – video, blogs, vlogs,
whatever – to break an ancient curse. This is a barnstorming idea, setting up a
clash between the very old and the ultra-modern, but it doesn’t quite happen. In
the service of his plot, Heuvelt abandons this terrific idea. It seems that the
boys’ ultimate goal isn’t to destroy the Black Rock Witch, but to be guffawing
arseholes. Though this is painfully true to life, it wastes a great concept.
The
unfolding drama is triggered by Jaydon, one of the more troubled boys in
Tyler’s group, who takes things a little bit too far with Katherine. “Fancy
seeing a witch’s tits?” I didn’t need a crystal ball to foresee problems
brewing with that one.
Already
something of a vindictive soul, we might assume, Katherine’s retribution for the
indignity she suffers is terrible. In turn, it triggers something unpleasant in
Black Rock’s residents as they look to punish the teenage miscreants.
Another
parallel with Stephen King is how convincingly Heuvelt writes young people. (As
well he should, as he looks as if he’s still at school... terse grumble.) He captures the teenage boys’ interaction and their
casual cruelty with switchblade-sharp precision. You’re having a good time with
Hex, getting invested in the characters
and family relationships, until Jaydon breaks a taboo.
The
story escalates, and increasingly tragic events occur. There’s one death in
particular which felt almost too raw, too close to the real thing, for comfort.
It makes people lose their minds.
Hell
follows, but it seems that Black Rock’s residents – like the good people of
Jerusalem’s Lot, or Derry, Maine – might want to look to their own behaviour
before they condemn the wicked witch.
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