Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill

The pace of Heart-Shaped Box is relentless.  Jude is an aging rock star living a quiet life with his much younger significant other, Georgia.  Jude buys a ghost online, is promptly haunted, and begins fighting for his life; go figure…  The tension runs extremely high, and pages go by really fast; too fast for my liking.  We are so caught up in the cinematic suspense of Jude and Georgia's encounters with the ghost, Craddock, that Hill has completely forgot to make me care about their fate.  

The first third of the book does nothing to establish character.  Jude doesn't feel grounded.  He is more or less a prop for Hill to display his ability in creating some truly creeping moments of insubstantial fluff.  Not to mention the length at which chase and near suicide scenes goes on.  It was a fun gimmick once, and Hill does it extremely well, but his nuance became a nuisance.  While I was never desensitized to the intensity of these repetitious moments, if the action had been intermittently broken up and if I were given a chance to find something substantial called a story (beyond what I've already mentioned) I think the affect of these scenes would have been even stronger.

Luckily, (at least in this case) I'm stubborn and I didn't put the book down.  Eventually we get backstory and exposition and while those aren't things I generally crave in a novel, Hill presents a good example of what happens when they aren't present.  His writing is clean and anything but confusing, but there was no gravitas to any of the action; it all felt superficial and surface level at best.  It was only after identities were established, motives hinted at, and events beyond, "Run!  Run for your life!" were described that the story started to have some presence.  

To make a musical analogy (music being another quasi-repetitious element in the book) I felt the novel happened in sonata allegro form (a structure that can certainly be linked to literature and drama) where the development came before the exposition.  While what was being developed was amazing, I was unaware as the material had never been presented in it's basic form.  (And with that, I win the battle for most pretentious and esoteric literary review analogy!)  

We learn of Jude's past and a previous girlfriend with some disturbing family problems and a connection to the ghost that wants him dead.  Hill does a great job of keeping you guessing if Jude is the bad guy and the Craddock the avenging angel--or vica versa--right up until the end.  Ultimately the novel works, but felt to me as if the author were trying too hard.  There's action aplenty and it will only take a few days to read as the pace is supercharged.  It's not for the weak of heart and certainly has to power to disturb a good night's sleep.  Heart-Shaped Box is fun, however no where near as convincing as his short story writing.  

20th Century Ghosts by Joe Hill

The title of this book is terrible, but that is about the only thing you'll hear me complain about.  Joe Hill is the unequivocal Crown Prince of Modern Fiction, but his parentage and my pretense aside; boy oh boy does he deliver.  

This short story collection certainly has circumstances that will put your nerves on edge, but it's not horror fiction.  It is at times scary but more due to a sense of the unknown created by the author than any abject descriptions of gore.  It's also laugh out loud funny, outright charming, and unabashedly sentimental at times.  There is great variety here and a whole lot to like.

"Pop Art" is a story that is, quite literally, too good to be in any collection.  Everything else pales in comparison--no matter how good--to this story of an inflatable boy, his trials at school and growing up, and a surprising friend he makes.  Upon finishing this story I remember asking myself out loud, "Did Peter S. Beagle write this?"  What better compliment can I make?  "Better than Home" is in the same vein and so sweet as to be saccharine, yet never infringed on the grounds of cloying.  There is a very bright kid with some serious nervous conditions that finds he doesn't need special treatment, medication or facilities, for none of these aides eases his anxiety like the attention of what is certainly one of the greatest father's in fiction.  Hill treads the waters that separate melodrama and heightened emotional realism with profound skill and the affect on the reader couldn't be stronger.  However, not all is sweet and tender in this collection.

There are plenty of stories involving children in peril.  "In the Rundown" is a nice take on 'wrong place at the wrong time' as is the all too visceral (and, unfortunately, disturbingly tangible) story of child abduction in "The Black Phone."  It's in these story that Hill jolts the reader the most.  Things don't usually happen the way we want, nor are the endings fully explained; it's the issues that go unknown to the reader--what we 'fill in the blanks'--that enables these stories to stick in our minds as long as they do.  

Despite Hill's originality (which is generously on display in this collection), he also nods to past writers' works.  Francis Kay, wake up one morning as a very large insect in the Kafka-esque story "You Will Hear the Locust Sing" and "Abraham's Boy's" is the most unexpected Van Helsing telling you may ever come across.

The only down spot for me was "Dead-Wood."  At only four pages it was the shortest in the collection but I don't feel there was enough material here to expand on and what was present was too weak to be included.  It turns out angry, non-sentient trees who loudly rustle their leaves as the wind blows really isn't that disturbing… or at least not to me. 

"Voluntary Committal" was without doubt the strongest in the collection, with the exception of the previously mentioned "Pop Art."  The story of boy, Morris, who is a bit slow and retains his penchant for building forts into adulthood.  There are missing people who are never found and none strong enough to see where the cardboard tunnels of Morris' creation lead.  The combination of clever writing and unexpected scenarios make the mundane feel fresh and left me thinking, "How have I not come across this guy before?"  

The title is as misleading as it could possibly be with the exception of the first story, "Best new Horror."  I can suggest a host of better titles: "Joe Hill's Ass-Kicking Fiction;" "Read this Book;" "Damn!;" and those are just off the top of my head.  I'd say this book were criminally under-read if it sold fifty million copies.  Simply put, Joe Hill is a manifestation of everything that's great about fiction.    

      

I'm Struggling...

"Killian left the blanket on Gage--didn't want it--and left Gage where he lay on a rise above a little creekbed somewhere in eastern Ohio."

The Widow's Breakfast by Joe Hill opening sentence

Anyone else have trouble reading that sentence?  By the end of this weekend I hope to have posted my glowing review of 20th Century Ghost by Joe Hill (it exceeds awesome), and in three-hundred plus pages of fiction this was my only gripe.  I think I read it about six-eight times before it clicked.    

Perhaps it's just me.  

Thoughts on Fiction

This is a short passage I came across today in Joe Hill's 20th Century Ghost.

He had been drawn to horror fiction... because it took the most basic elements of literature and pushed them to their extremes.  All fiction was make-believe, which made fantasy more valid (and honest) than realism.  (Page 14)

Interesting thought don't cha think?