Publications: Reviews

HUSH by Tim Lebbon and Gavin Williams

Razorblade Press 2000 213pp £8.99

I came to Hush expecting great things of it. Razorblade Press has published much excellent fiction in the last two years or so, and Tim Lebbon, at least, has deservedly made a name for himself. And so I found the great things that I was expecting.

Hush begins like any one of many miserablist horror novels around at the moment (and it’s none the worse for that). And then, suddenly, the reader is pitched into something so much greater, not to say cosmic. The gritty reality of the main character, Jacob’s, failing relationship, and his angers and obsessions is apparently left behind as a story of Lovecraftian proportions and import rapidly unfolds.

We try to follow what is going on through a series of reality distortions and redesignations worthy of Philip K. Dick. When anything is beginning to come clear, then Lebbon and Williams undermine it and change everything, thus keeping the story moving fast, and the reader’s assumptions challenged and any notion of what is to come is up for grabs.

Hush abounds in sharp observations and striking metaphor, and it is nothing if not visceral. And yet...as whatever it is that is going on -- some sort of war and invasion from Outside -- there is a core of humanity that persists in Jacob and his friends. Whatever they are, and whatever he is.

H P Lovecraft’s dictum that a weird tale should be about setting and incident, and try to put over the sense of something scratching at the edge of the cosmos is at one and the same time borne out in the story’s vaguenesses, and contradicted by its character and relationship driven cast. Few stories have been as Lovecraftian as Hush, while having so few of the obvious trimmings.

Hush is a triumphant phantasmagoria, a headlong journey containing much that will long linger in the mind. (Also, Razorblade Press is gradually getting the hang of how to lay out a page! Next time, please, lads?) This novel adds to Razorblade’s reputation as a quality publisher, and one that likes to take risks. Reading Hush is a risk that will surely pay off. You know it makes sense.       

Copyright (c) 2001 John Howard