Set mainly in 1976, Andrew Michael Hurley’s novel The Loney (2014) follows two young men, Smith and his mute brother, Hanny, as they travel from Saint Jude’s Church in London to a small village on the coast of Lancashire called the Loney. Following a pack of church congregants on a pilgrimage, they begin to perceive some of the horrors that lurk beneath the surface of faith. In the suspicious seaside town, they are met with suspicion by the locals, who, exposed to the sea and myth, are deeply in touch with forces resembling the mythological old gods of H.P. Lovecraft. Hurley’s novel illuminates the fear and uncertainty in religious myth. The novel begins as Smith and Hanny embark on a pilgrimage to the Loney with a group of religious pilgrims. It is less than a day’s journey from London to the stormy, insular coastline, where they plan to visit a religious shrine to cure Hanny’s muteness, which has plagued him with learning disabilities. The story is told from Smith’s perspective, who, as a young boy, was pressured into church life by their mother, in the hope that it would also help protect Hanny. The story is also a retrospective: at the time of its writing, Smith and Hanny are middle-aged, one a museum worker and the other a preacher. The journey is planned by Father Bernard McGill of St. Jude’s, who takes along the brothers, their parents, “Mummer” and “Farther,” an elderly couple named the Belderbosses, and Ms. Bunce, the recently deceased priest’s personal aide, and her partner, David. Hanny is relieved from an extended stay at a care facility to join the journey. As they approach the Loney, their bus breaks down. Two nearby farmers notice their plight and come to repair the vehicle. Once at Moorings, their retreat house at the Loney, the church group meets its caretaker, Clement. Smith overhears Mummer and Farther discussing the schedule. When he returns to his room, Hanny fires at him with an unloaded rifle, setting a tense tone for the trip. Over the next few days, the constant storms over the Loney keep the group inside. Ms. Bunce clashes with Mummer over their mutual desire to be the most pious. Mummer opines that Father Bernard is not as good a priest as the previous one. Farther finds a secret room that used to be a nursery. Meanwhile, Smith continues to eavesdrop, learning about his party’s strange behaviors and histories. Mrs. Belderboss claims to have put sleeping pills in her husband’s drink to calm him. Mr. Belderboss says that he saw a naked woman drunkenly stumbling at the previous Father’s grave. The boys also discover a dilapidated mansion while playing outside, meeting a girl inside, who gives Hanny a kiss. One day, a strong gale of wind opens a previously locked outhouse in the backyard. It contains a number of taxidermy animals that belonged to the previous owner. The group goes to church the next day; after getting past the doors, which, strangely, were locked, they discover that a statue of Jesus has been destroyed. Meanwhile, Mummer tries different rituals to heal Hanny’s disability. On Easter, Mummer forces Hanny to drink polluted holy water from the well of the shrine. He chokes, causing Miss Bunce and others to leave the retreat, appalled. Farther learns that the secret room in the house used to be a medical quarantine where children were stored as they died. Hanny runs away one night to meet Else, the girl from the mansion. Smith follows him but is discovered by a group of men from the village. The men reveal that they each had once been afflicted by a different illness, but cured it using dark magic. They drag the two boys into the mansion, shooting Hanny in the thigh during a struggle. They carry him downstairs and seem to heal him by ritually transferring his injury onto Else’s baby. At the novel’s conclusion, Hanny’s muteness suddenly vanishes. The other members of the journey rejoice and thank their god. Smith tells Father Bernard that he read the late father’s diary, which reveals an incident three years before in which he saw a boy drown and lost faith in God. Finally, Smith reveals that Hanny had murdered Else’s baby, not Clement, one of the men who believed in the power of dark magic. Smith confesses he had changed the narrative to protect Hanny in case it was read. Hanny has begun to remember the events of the Loney but seems not to realize that he murdered anyone. The Loney thus chronicles the human horrors that take place under the surface of a religious pilgrimage, suggesting that disorder, dysfunction, and fear are endemic to any fervent organized religion.

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Andrew Michael Hurley

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