I did not stumble upon Joe Hill. Amazon and WeReads recommended the author’s novel, Heart Shaped Box. After about a year of the suggestion popping up in my profile, I finally downloaded the ebook. I like the first chapter so much that I ordered the audiobook from my local library.
I enjoyed Heart Shaped Box immensely. The story began innocently as a ghost story and ended as a complicated love story. I could write that it was a story of revenge and love or a story about redemption and love. I will not. It was a creepy story that, had it ended any other way, would have left me scarred for life.
So, of course, I sought out his most recent novel, Horns. You can find an excerpt here
One hundred or so pages in, I was so creeped out that I decided to take a break and Google the author.
Joe Hill is no ordinary creepy author. Hill’s famous father, Stephen King, has been creeping us out for years. Since I have read no King books, I really did not know what to expect. I could not use King’s novel based movies as a standard. Why would I?
Armed with the information, I went back to reading my book.
Okay, it has a creepy factor of 9.7 out of ten. Totally creepy.
The events of the story take place over a week or so but the author filled about 30 or more tracks with flashbacks.
Back to the summary. There is the whiny guy named Ig Perrish who has lived a righteous life. His rich family have respectable positions in the community. His girlfriend’s murder continues to haunt him as the anniversary of her death approaches. Despite having lived a virtuous and respectable life in the small town of Gideon, everyone thinks he is a rapist/murderer.
The grieving man visits the site of her death to be near her. Not to repent anything just get shitfaced and cry. A few hours later, Ig wakes up from a drunken stupor with a set of horns erupting through skull. He follows a logical path.
First, he reviews what he can remember; Got drunk, Pissed on a statue of the Virgin Mary, Did not go home…..
Next, he determines that he is not hallucinating. He heads to the apartment that he shares with the local bad girl, Glenna. Yes, she and other people see the horns. No hallucination, but his problems have just begun. People start to tell him their deepest, darkest, and disturbing secrets. He cannot stop them. He tries but his horns affect a cleansing therapy that everyone wants to experience when they are near the horns.
"You think you know someone. But mostly you just know what you want to know."
— Joe Hill (Horns)
Then we follow Ig as he seeks out people whom he feels have no dark secrets, he knows all their secrets, or whose secrets would be banal. He visits places all over his little town just to learn that he knew absolutely nothing about the true desires of his family and friends. It was sad, really. I kept thinking to myself, he should just stop. Like bad plastic surgery.
After a day of this, he slips into a depression and seeks a place to be alone with the horrible confessions and memories of people he loved and respected. That place turns out to be near the murder site. He is not alone. He is visited by hundreds of snakes. Then the pontificating about God, evil, forgiveness, death, and love begins. His thoughts move the story along with the exhausting flashbacks.
The novel kept me interested although to quote the words of another reviewer: “it meandered a bit.”
At one point, I began to suspect that the author and the editor were lovers. Hill indulged himself with metaphors and extended flashbacks so much that I said at least once to myself, “enough already.” I fast forwarded whole minutes of audiobook narration. I laughed after the 50th metaphor or so. I just wanted some plain writing by the end of the book. Hill and a thesaurus are a dangerous liaison.
The narrator did not have a lot of distinctive voices for the various characters. I followed the story by figuring out who was talking. Despite this, Fred Berman, did an excellent job with his characterization of the Glenna. He took a minor character and fleshed her out for me. I began to listen for her appearances in the novel. I do not know if I would have connected so well with the character if I had read the book.
Finally, this is not a whodunit novel. It is not a story about a man turning into a demon. Not a love story with snakes. Not a tale of unholy revenge in a small town. It is just good story telling with dashes of spirituality, love, and betrayal. Or maybe it just a monster tale. You decide.
My score A- with a dash of creepy.
"The best way to get even with anyone is to put them in the rear view mirror on your way to something better."
— Joe Hill (Horns)
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