Have you ever read a book and after the first 15 pages say to yourself, "Well, he's pretty much done everything I can think you can do with this idea. What's he gonna do now?" and then you read and read and you're not sure if anything else is really going on but you're enjoying anyway?That's Horns in a nutshell. For me, anyway.
I really enjoyed Joe Hill's first novel, a twisted slice of New England horror called Heart-Shaped Box (reviewed here, as a matter of fact) that may have tread the familiar territory of his famous father's past, but did so in a fresh and current voice that managed to trump Dad's last of couple of books. So when Horns was released in a flurry of publicity (the movie rights sold for a bundle before the book was finished, let alone released) I dove in, excited by the simple high concept: one morning after a vicious drunk Ig Perrish wakes up to find he has grown a pair of horns on his head.
So right there I'm in. When Ig talks to people, they're compelled to tell him their darkest thoughts and desires, desires he finds he's able to "push" just a tiny bit, with a expectant thrumming pleasure that travels up and down his horns. To say more spoils the book - as I said, within the first 20-30 pages you know the basic setup, the conflict, and even the adversary. The rest of Horns deals with Ig's childhood, his relationship with Merrin, brutally murdered the year before the horns appear, and how Ig slowly starts to change as he deals with the knowledge of how Merrin died, by whose hands, and what he's going to do about it.
There's some great ideas - Ig is our hero, but how do you root for someone who's slowly turning into the Devil? - and the nature of evil, of the concept of God, and our quests to be good, even when we know we won't. Things tend to wander a bit, and I think a little tightening would have helped Horns be a bullet instead of some fine quality buckshot, but it's a solid second effort, and proof that Joe Hill's got a lot of skill around words.
Here's to the next one: may it burrow under our skin sooner rather than later.
4 comments:
I need to read this, it's just such a great idea! I mus admit I prefer Hill to the famous father any day of the week.
I tried to read his first one and threw it down in disgust before I turned the first page because of the "olde English" seventeenth century or whatnot "witch confession" where the first person confessing used a verb conjugated for third person. Now maybe the guy in the story had been cheated with a fake, but since he was such a collector, I suppose that couldn't be very convincing. I hate that kind of arrogant ignorance -- and his editor sucks, too, if they didn't catch that SIMPLE and GLARING error
Of course, I'm probably the only person who would care about that thing. I did pick it up again and try to give it a fair chance, but I was bored within a few pages. Oh, the weary life and difficulties of the rich and famous. How they suffer!
Kate - don't know, he did have fakes in his collection, he was an arrogant idiot rock star, not a historian, he just collected to make himself cool. He is also deliberately an annoying and unpleasant character I think.
I loved the story but I don't mind reading characters I dislike potentially get their just rewards. ;)
Being forced to spend so much time around people I dislike, I am not eager to spend my leisure time with people for whom I have no sympathy. They don't have to be angels -- Liz Hand is brilliant at creating deeply flawed characters that you like and hope will find a way out of the messes they've got themselves into and dig out a little dignity while they're at it. Kinsgley Amis has made me enjoy books about terrible people because they're gut-bustingly funny. Hill did nothing for me. Eh.
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