Hex

The narrative in HEX incorporates several of Tyler Grant’s “Open Your Eyes” blog posts. Examine how this structural choice creates tension between the community’s official narrative of containment and the younger generation’s desire for exposure and truth.

How does the novel’s motif of eyes and sight—from Katherine’s stitched eyes to the HEX surveillance network and Steve’s self-mutilation—develop its argument about the relationship between seeing, knowing, and terror?

Discuss how HEX functions as a critique of institutional control. Compare the formal, technological oppression of the HEX organization with the informal, chaotic violence of the mob. Which form of control does the novel portray as more dangerous?

HEX can be read within the literary tradition of folk horror, which often explores the dark underside of isolated communities. In what ways does the novel use or subvert conventions of this genre to comment on the anxieties of a modern, technologically dependent society?

Is Katherine van Wyler a monster, a victim, or a force of nature?

The woods surrounding Black Spring are more than just a backdrop. Analyze how the novel uses this setting as a symbolic space where the town’s repressed history and primal fears manifest.

Explore Jaydon Holst’s role as both a product of communal trauma and a perpetrator of new atrocities. How does his character challenge a simple binary between good and evil in the novel?

Analyze the literary techniques Heuvelt employs in scenes of mob violence, such as the public flogging and the lynching of Jaydon. How do these techniques depict the loss of individuality and the creation of a collective, monstrous consciousness?