The hidden
Fiona Snyckers
Publisher: Pan Macmillan South Africa (February, 2024)
ISBN: 9781770108660
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In The hidden Snyckers tackles another contentious subject: a right-wing, survivalist cult living in a forest on the fringes of a city in the Pacific Northwest of the USA.
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The hidden is a taut thriller written by one of my favourite South African authors, Fiona Snyckers. Snyckers has delved into serious subject matter before in her work, most notably with her novel Lacuna, which won the Sala Novel Award and the Humanities and Social Sciences Award. Lacuna told the story of Lucy Lurie, the victim in JM Coetzee’s most lauded work, Disgrace. Lucy talks about how her experience of being raped was the driving force behind the novel, yet she as a person was obliterated and ignored in his narrative. The clever conceit of an unfilled space (the lacuna allusion in the title) made for a powerful novel.
The hidden by Fiona Snyckers (Publisher: Pan Macmillan South Africa, 2024)
In The hidden Snyckers tackles another contentious subject: a right-wing, survivalist cult living in a forest on the fringes of a city in the Pacific Northwest of the USA. Their story is told from the point of view of two of the characters, a mother in the cult, Rebekkah, and her son, Meshach. Then there is the story of Becca, a suburban mother, wife and digital cartoonist living in Monterey with her husband Michael, teenage children Rachel, Felix, and a severely disabled son, Petey. Her point of view and (sometimes) Michael’s are the driving force behind this plot line. The third plot line is told from the viewpoint of Special Agent in Charge, Aalia Knox, a no-nonsense FBI agent. When a right-wing militia group attacks the Cascade Valley Business Park in Anderson, Oregon, killing hundreds of people, her job is to track down the perpetrators as quickly as possible, no matter what it takes. The attack is blamed on a right-wing military cult which calls itself the Patriot Fathers.
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Snyckers writes with an engaging facility, taking you into the hearts and minds of each character. From the first few pages the reader becomes engrossed in the narrative and eager to know where it is going. This is a page-turning thriller, one where plot twists aren’t easy to spot.
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Snyckers writes with an engaging facility, taking you into the hearts and minds of each character. From the first few pages the reader becomes engrossed in the narrative and eager to know where it is going. This is a page-turning thriller, one where plot twists aren’t easy to spot. It’s difficult to say more without spoilers, but even though I’m usually very good at pre-empting storylines, there was one surprise in particular which took my breath away.
Snyckers is one of South Africa’s most accomplished authors and this new book in her oeuvre is yet another landmark novel in her already illustrious body of work.
Janet van Eeden spoke to Fiona Snyckers about The hidden, her new thriller novel.
Fiona Snyckers (Photo: provided)
This is your first novel which isn’t set in South Africa, am I right? What made you decide to set it in the USA?
Yes, this is my first traditionally published novel set outside of South Africa. This is a story that could only be set in the USA. The combination of survivalist cult, ultra-right-wing white supremacists and federal authorities could only take place there. That was the story I felt compelled to tell, and that dictated the setting.
The novel is a taut thriller which I think is a new venture for you if I’m not mistaken. You have written a page-turner which is intriguing and complex. Your subject matter is quite different from work you have done before. What inspired you to take this new angle in your writing?
I enjoy reading thrillers that are full of plot twists and turns, so I wanted to try my hand at writing one. In my previous novels, Now following you and Spire, I ventured into suspense/thriller territory, but this was the first procedural-type narrative told partly from the point of view of law enforcement officers that I have written. I had read about survivalist communities in the Pacific Northwest of the USA. I wanted a rural and remote setting, which the Oregon Basin certainly is. Then I also needed a suburban setting fairly nearby, so I settled on Monterey. Because I was writing the bulk of the book during lockdown, I used such online resources as Google Maps, Google Street View and Google Earth to get a sense of the terrain and the distances involved.
Hidden is full of detail about the workings of the FBI and also of a particular cult. You cite a particular source for your information on the FBI, but how did you come to grips with the world of an isolated cult? What research was the most rewarding for you?
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The most rewarding research for me was reading first-person accounts by women who have escaped from cult-like situations. This includes memoirs, blogs, and social media posts. Some were written by brave South African women who risked a lot to tell their stories.
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The most rewarding research for me was reading first-person accounts by women who have escaped from cult-like situations. This includes memoirs, blogs, and social media posts. Some were written by brave South African women who risked a lot to tell their stories.
There are a number of very specific medical details relating to one character in particular. Again, you must have done a lot of research to nail down the specifics of the condition and its complications. Can you talk a bit more about it?
I thought my research into the medical aspects of my character’s condition was both thorough and accurate, but fortunately my publisher asked her husband, who is a medical doctor, to fact-check it for me, and there were a number of errors that needed to be corrected. I was very grateful for his intervention.
You’ve written a serious and hard-hitting novel before in Lacuna. Did you enjoy venturing into this new genre which also deals with the darker side of humanity but not in the same way as Lacuna did?
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I felt compelled to write both novels due to a deep-seated conviction about certain social justice issues. In the case of The hidden it was my concern about the threat posed to society by the ultra-right that pushed me to write it.
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It is interesting that you compare this novel with Lacuna. I felt compelled to write both novels due to a deep-seated conviction about certain social justice issues. In the case of The hidden it was my concern about the threat posed to society by the ultra-right that pushed me to write it.
There are a number of plot twists which I don’t want to mention in case they are spoilers. I saw one of them coming just before it happened, but the final one caught me off guard. Well done for that! How do you ensure there are no clues along the way? Do you and your editor scour the text to make sure you’ve given nothing away, or is it just down to being a good writer?
I was trying to surprise the readers rather than trick them. I hope that readers will look back at the plot twists and see that the clues were there all along. I wanted to write in good faith, rather than resort to a parlour trick.
You mentioned in one of your early podcast that you are now writing a film script. Is it based on this book? Has it been optioned yet and will it go into production? (I hope the answers to the last questions are yes and yes! Well done if this is the case. It’s the hardest thing to get a film made.)
A South African production company bought the screen rights to both Lacuna and The hidden. I have been working on a screenplay version of Lacuna for them. It has been a steep learning curve for me. Your book on writing for the screen, Cut to the chase, was incredibly helpful in this regard! But I remain unconvinced that I am the best person for the job.
Work on The hidden hasn’t begun yet. As you know, no film can be made until the money is in place, so it is all up in the air at the moment.
The inevitable question: What are you working on now, or can’t you bear to think of your next project yet?
I am writing a sequel to The hidden. It ended on a surprising note, and the sequel will take those plot points further. Because I like to work on more than one project at a time, I am also writing a more literary book that is set in South Africa.
Thank you, Fiona, for your answers and for the excellent novel.
Also read:
Inter-review with Fiona Snyckers, author of The school gates – light with a bite