Terror Beyond Progress: On Thomas Olde Heuvelt’s HEX
While gothic novels of old trickled information to the reader slowly, gradually building suspense before introducing the monstrous, Thomas Olde Heuvelt showcases this from the very beginning. In HEX, the town of Black Spring, a settlement in New York State nestled by the Hudson River, is home to its very own witch – the vengeful spirit of Katherine Van Wyler who had been brutally executed in 1644 under suspicion of witchcraft. However, Katherine doesn’t slink in the shadows; in fact, she appears on the first page being unceremoniously ‘run over by an antique Dutch barrel organ’. Later in the chapter, she looms in the background of a family home where they refer to her as ‘Gramma’ and hang an ‘old dishcloth’ over her face. For Black Spring, a witch’s haunting is business as usual, and a business it certainly is.
The town employs an extensive security program aptly titled HEX, with employees ensuring the town’s secret stays hidden and the witch doesn’t cause any trouble. Most progressive in the security detail is the use of technology, as townspeople use an app to pinpoint Katherine’s whereabouts and feed the information back to HEX headquarters. Of course, a technology forward security operation isn’t exactly synonymous with the Gothic and seems rather unexpected in a novel about a haunted town. Yet, the absurdity of the witch’s presence and the measures the townspeople take to conceal the secret is what makes Olde Heuvelt’s novel so striking. This melding of classic Gothic tropes with technology and macabre humour places the novel firmly in the territory of Postmodern Gothic, with these sensibilities becoming increasingly marked as the novel progresses.
From the ridiculous rendering of the witch’s introduction, you would be forgiven for thinking that she is a toothless antagonist, yet, as the story unfolds, we learn that she is anything but. Olde Heuvelt employs a gradual change in tone that sees the witch progress from a town nuisance, to an apocalyptic harbinger of Black Spring’s collapse. We learn that her whispers compel one to take their own life and, likewise, if any Black Spring resident remains outside the limits of town for too long they are plagued with hallucinations urging them towards suicide. Once you decide to live in Black Springs, you can never leave, with the townspeople forced to confront the sins of their Puritan predecessors every day. Even the town’s control over Katherine is tenuous, with their relative rein over the witch made possible from her eyes and mouth being stitched closed, purportedly by church elders after her first sighting in the year 1713. Katherine is literally silenced, unable to fully enact her vengeance on a town whose regressive ideals destroyed her. As the head of HEX, Robert Grim explains to shaken new residents of the town:
‘Stitching her up has made her mostly harmless… we have every reason to believe that if her eyes open and she starts muttering her spells, we will all die…Katherine is a paranormal ticking time bomb.’
(Olde Heuvelt, 2016)
It is the threat of what the witch could do that keeps Black Spring constantly on its toes, with superstition changing the very fabric of the town and eventually shattering the illusion of progress and civility.
This dichotomy between superstition and progress is central to the novel, made literal through the tension between the neo-puritanical ‘council’ and the modern outfit of HEX. Ran by the elderly Colton Mathers, the council is responsible for dolling out punishments straight out of the 17th century, much to the distress of Robert Grim and other progressive townsfolk. Also on the side of progress are the town’s stifled teenagers who concoct a plan to expose the witch in true 21st century fashion, by causing her to go viral through a vlog series which, as one can imagine, does not go well. This subplot is the catalyst for the novel’s catastrophic climax, signposting the disconnect between advancing in the shadow of historical guilt. This dichotomy is particularly notable as the protagonist recalls the disconnect between voting in the 2012 U.S elections for Barack Obama, a relatively progressive candidate, while Katherine – the embodied representation of the nation’s brutal past hovers nearby.
From these themes of guilt and hidden secrets, it seems like Olde Heuvelt was aiming for a contemporary reimagining of American Gothic, indebted to the likes of Nathaniel Hawthorne and Edgar Allan Poe. However, Olde Heuvelt is in fact a Dutch author, with the original 2013 novel set in the Netherlands which has markedly less national guilt and a lack of known Gothic tradition. Translated in 2016 by Nancy Forest-Flier working in tandem with Olde Heuvelt himself, the English edition was localised to New York State with the ending also changed in the process. The fact that a Dutch writer can position themselves with ease into another nation’s literary tradition speaks to cultural fluidity that comes from globalisation and postmodernity. The U.S’s lingering historical guilt is firmly in the global consciousness with its Gothic potential still translating wonderfully to literature.
The translation also goes down a more obviously postmodern path as Olde Heuvelt employs self-reflexivity and ambiguity to better suit his foray into American Gothic. While the original Dutch version ends with the witch as the undoubted evil of the town, the Americanised edition suggests that the real evil is the town itself. When the threat of the witch’s eyes being opened becomes real, the town is quick to cannibalise itself. Looting, child sacrifice and ritual murder ensue, showing just how illusory progress and civility are. The witch opens her eyes but is not responsible for a single death, looking on in confusion as the townspeople give into superstition, showing their similarity to their puritan ancestors. As the head of HEX’s security and the last bastion of tolerance, Robert Grim makes explicit the absurdity of the regression:
‘Madness. Yesterday afternoon these folks were still ordinary, mild mannered twenty-first century Americans…’
(Heuvelt, 2016)
This new take on the haunting of the past makes HEX a worthy addition to contemporary Gothic and it’s creeping, apocalyptic tone makes it a befitting read for these troubling times (although I wouldn’t blame you for just sticking to Netflix right now) Most importantly, HEX shows that the Gothic doesn’t need to retreat into the shadows to terrify. The monstrous can be allowed into the open, into your home, even into your phone – and still give a good scare.
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