“What did you see in those terrible places?”
In John Hart’s evocative novel, The Hush, readers follow Johnny Merrimon, a now-grown man residing alone on the six-thousand-acre expanse of Hush Arbor, North Carolina. When people venture into The Hush and never make it out, Johnny uncovers long-buried secrets that threaten to destroy everything he has ever known.
Set in the same world as Hart’s preceding novel, The Lost Child, The Hush follows up on the adolescent adventures of Johnny and his best friend, Jack Cross. Readers who have followed Johnny and Jack from the beginning are invited to explore their evergreen friendship 10 years later, but if you’re like me and have not read The Last Child before— do not worry! It was a pleasant surprise to receive all the necessary context and backstory to understand the events of The Hush.
As the reader travels deeper into the dark history of The Hush, it becomes clear that Johnny is anything but alone while living there. A distant relative of Johnny’s signed the land over to freed slaves who once worked it, and once their bloodline flickered out, it was given to Johnny—and to the family it originally belonged to.
The land is charged with a supernatural, eerie, and foreboding energy, which projects itself onto the individuals through inexplicable symptoms including random cold chills, an impending sense of doom, sleepwalking, black pupils, and visions. While Johnny refuses to acknowledge the sinister happenings, Jack, a level-headed and logical attorney, urges his beloved friend to see all the alarming occurrences plaguing those courageous enough to enter.
While Jack understands his friend’s need for privacy, he is deeply concerned about his seemingly tangible connection to The Hush. Why is he so connected to it? Why can’t he leave? What does it mean to him? After all, “terrible things happen in The Hush,” many of these including the deaths of those who dare to wander inside. Because Johnny is notorious for scaring unwanted intruders off with a shotgun, he becomes a prime suspect when people start showing up dead on his land.
The deaths unfold into a series of investigations, searches, and an ongoing battle over who is truly righteous in owning the land. An integral aspect of this novel is the emphasis on the heinous history of slavery and the complicated relationships between slaves and their owners. Through characters such as William Boyd, Creola Freemantle, and Luana Freemantle, Hart explores the enduring legacy of slavery and its impact on generations of families both black and white.
However, for me, the novel seems to fall short in the way it approaches such a sensitive topic. The use of supernatural phenomena to explain a very real occurrence became quite extensive towards the conclusion of the story, seeming to continuously be drawn out and elongated. While slavery historically does have spiritual, supernatural elements, it is important to not let these aspects overpower the magnitude of what real people endured while captive. It made for some loose ends I had hoped would be tied up more tightly.
Otherwise, Hart’s novel is a haunting, suspenseful read that showcases his storytelling abilities. While it leaves some readers like me wanting more, it was definitely a read that was well worth my time, and I hope to read more of Hart’s work. If you’re looking for a dark, atmospheric mystery, The Hush is a story I would absolutely recommend.
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars