USA TODAY International Edition
Dylan Farrow finds her voice in her first novel ‘ Hush’
Dylan Farrow’s debut novel “Hush” may not take place in 2020, but it opens with something that could have appeared in this year’s headlines: a vivid description of a pandemic. • “This book was already pretty much signed, sealed and delivered by the time COVID hit, so it’s really coincidental that an actual plague managed to surface right as this book is hitting the shelves,” Farrow tells USA TODAY. “I promise I had nothing to do with it.” • Though Farrow swears she’s no oracle, her young adult fantasy novel, out Tuesday, still speaks to our world today, beyond just the pandemic.
“There are definite tethers to reality, but I think, in a way, that’s the goal of all fantasy,” she says.
In “Hush,” Farrow weaves a world where some are gifted with the power of Telling – a mysterious and dangerous ability to literally shape reality with words. Those who have this power train to become Bards, an almost entirely male group that rules Montane. That is, until a 17- year- old girl named Shae discovers a knack for Telling herself.
According to Farrow, Telling in Shae’s world speaks to the struggle to discern truth in our own.
“We are living in a time where information is getting manipulated and weaponized, and we are constantly bombarded with it,” Farrow says. “How do you find the truth in that information, in that quagmire? Where does it reside? Who gets to control it? And how far is too far in the pursuit of that truth?”
Grappling with these questions, Shae embarks on a journey that involves speaking truth to power, holding onto reality in the midst of gaslighting and claiming her own voice.
It’s a journey Farrow says she knows well.
In 2017, Farrow’s allegations against her estranged adoptive father, director Woody Allen, received renewed attention in the wake of the # MeToo movement, which went viral following her brother Ronan Farrow’s reporting on Harvey Weinstein. The author has long maintained that Allen molested her when she was a child, discussing the alleged assault in articles and on camera. Allen has always denied the allegations and has never been criminally charged.
Without mentioning Allen directly, Farrow, who has become an advocate for sexual assault survivors, describes how her family “was assaulted by a powerful individual dedicated to ruining our lives and our credibility” in an author’s note at the end of her novel.
“Using the overwhelming power of a verbal campaign that was supported only by obfuscating legal documentation, an entire generation was led to
believe in a false narrative,” she writes. “This is a story about the importance of holding fast to one’s own voice and sense of justice in a climate where it’s easy – normal, even – to be gaslit and deceived, not just by a single predator or even a loved one, but by entire institutions, even the ones we have entrusted to keep us safe.”
And, according to Farrow, it’s not a story that belongs just to her.
“When you examine (“Hush”) under the lens of the # MeToo movement and how these struggles, particularly those of women, have been coming to light recently, I feel Shae is not a character who is particularly unique to me,” Farrow says. “She faces a lot of challenges that a lot of women can relate to.”
Though Farrow says Shae started from “a template of my own feelings and emotions,” she adds that the character took on a life of her own the more she wrote Shae’s story.
“Part of the challenge for her, for Shae, is conquering problems that arise in her own head,” Farrow says. “I wanted to create a relatable character in a story that holds a mirror up to the world that we live in.”
Part of making Shae relatable was ditching tropes associated with the young adult genre, which is often “very saturated with romance drama,” says Farrow. Rather than reducing Shae to just the object of a boy’s affection, Farrow explores relationships not normally seen in YA fantasy. For instance, one pivotal relationship in the book involves two strong women who don’t see eye- to- eye.
“The concept of two women being pitted against each other and that kind of antagonism that shapes their relationship and how it grows and evolves under the circumstances was something that was a lot more fascinating to me than setting up a love triangle, or hooking Shae up with a boy or a girl,” Farrow says.
Farrow isn’t the only writer in her family. “Catch and Kill,” her brother Ronan’s book about his Weinstein reporting, was a bestseller, and her mother, actress Mia Farrow, penned her memoir, “What Falls Away,” in 1997.
Though Farrow says her mother has a copy of “Hush,” she joked she’s too nervous to ask her family what they think of it.
“I know my mom has the book, and I’ve been too scared to ask,” she says with a laugh. “But yeah, I hope they read it. I hope they enjoy it, but I have not asked yet. I’m still a little nervous.”
But Farrow has always had a passion for writing, even as she worked as a production assistant at CNN and in graphic design – neither of which she found to be her calling. Now, at 35, Farrow says she’s ready to share this talent with the world – and what better way to do that than with a story about a girl finding her voice?
“I guess, in a meta- sense, it’s like, is this book a telling?” Farrow says with a laugh. “I guess it depends on your perspective. The telling is as fascinating as it is kind of terrifying, so I suppose in that sense, yes. But also, I think it’s very important to me as a creator, as a writer, to put forward something that people can forge their own connections to and see their own lives reflected in. Not just mine.”
“The concept of two women being pitted against each other and that kind of antagonism that shapes their relationship ... was something that was a lot more fascinating to me than setting up a love triangle, or hooking Shae up with a boy or a girl.” Dylan Farrow