Hill, Joe: Heart-Shaped Box
Heart-Shaped Box
Writer: Joe Hill
Genre: Horror
Pages: 374
I never had too much interest in reading this book myself, though from the blurb I thought it'd be a book Greg would like, so I steered him appropriately. He bought it, read it, liked it, and subsequently bought Hill's other works, 20th Century Ghosts (a collection of stories) and his comic book series, Locke & Key. I, for one, decided to go ahead and read Locke & Key, and the first story arc was really, really good. Somewhere in all of this buying and reading, I learned that Joe Hill is actually Stephen King's son, which kicked up my respect a notch or two. NOT because he's Stephen King's son, but rather because he's not using his dad's name and reputation to make his own, which I find highly admirable. The guy's also randomly commented in my LibraryThing, and he's cool. So I decided that since I liked his comic book series so well, I should give his horror debut a shot.
The premise: Judas Coyne is a retired death metal rocker who likes to collect the strange and weird of the world. Fans have sent him all kinds of crazy shit, but once in while, he stumbles upon an item worth getting for himself. This time, it's a woman selling the her stepfather's ghost on the internet, a ghost that's attached to his Sunday suit. Jude can't resist, even though he figures it's a hoax, and doesn't think any more on it until the suit arrives and he starts to see the old man everywhere. Worse, the old man's no benign ghost--he's out to kill Jude and everyone Jude loves. How do you escape a ghost who can get inside your head and make you do things to yourself and others that you'd never dream of? Jude doesn't know, but he sure as hell isn't going down without a fight.
Spoilers, yo.
When I first read the product description, I'd made an assumption that Jude really wasn't going to be a likable character. But somehow, he is, despite the fact he sleeps with girls far too young for him and treats them like shit. And by that, I don't mean he beats the snot out of them or abuses them in any way, except perhaps verbally, as he says things he knows will hurt just to see how long these girls will put up with them. For example: he calls his girls not by their first name, but the state they hailed from. Currently, his girlfriend is Georgia.
And the book revolves all around Jude's past behavior. There was a girl right before Georgia, Florida, whom he spent nine months with. The girl, whose real name was Anna, suffered from severe depression, among other things, and Jude reached a point where he couldn't take it anymore (and you can't really blame him as his past with Anna is revealed) and sends her home to her family. Except once home, she commits suicide, and her surviving sister and step-father want revenge.
Enter the ghost, who's actually the step-father, who passed away shortly after Anna. The sister drummed up the auction and made sure Jude couldn't help but notice it, and essentially tricks him into buying the step-dad's ghost. That's the trick: the ghost can't be GIVEN away, it must be bought willingly.
Craddock was a hypnotist in life, and knew the very way to haunt Jude and ensure Jude suffered for what he put Craddock's family through. But as the book goes on, the reader learns more and more about Jude's past with Anna, and discovers that Anna's past isn't quite as clear as it seemed to be. There was a root to her depression: Craddock would hypnotize Anna and her sister so that he could fuck them at his leisure, and Anna, due to her condition, kept remembering, hence her mental problems. It's never clear if the older sister knew what happened and stood by (it's implied she did) or if she's hypnotized into believing it never happened, or both, but by the end, we learn that Anna's death was hastened by the fact she threatened to use Jude to take her family to court. Because Craddock was doing the same exact thing to Jessica's (the older sister's) daughter, and there's pictures to prove it.
So there's quite a complex background and motivation for what's happening to Jude and Georgia, whose real name is Marybeth. Marybeth isn't exactly the most likable girl at the start--we see her through Jude's eyes, as the stereotype Goth chick who can't get enough of rockers and hangs all over them. But both Jude and Marybeth begin to develop and grow as characters as the book progresses, and it doesn't take too awful long before both become sympathetic. In the meantime, there's the creepy ghost of Craddock to worry about. I really loved how Hill describes the old man and his ghostly-movements. As a hypnotist in his former life, Craddock knows how to make people listen to his voice, and the scenes where he's whispering into someone's ear are the most eerie in the book, as are the descriptions of how the ghost actually moves. I absolutely loved how Jude's dogs became a shield of protection, how their spirits where able to attack Craddock's ghost. That was awesome.
I was a little puzzled as to just how Craddock managed to communicate through every and any piece of technology. The radio made sense. The television, not so much: we saw future news stories, and I had trouble wrapping my head around the idea that Craddock could create such an illusion. More difficult to believe was Craddock's ability to reword his own obituary on the internet while Jude was reading it. Admittedly, I'm no expert on ghosts, and maybe they're known to be able to DO these things, but I had a little trouble swallowing that.
And I gotta say, the first 130 pages are pretty brutal with the confrontations with Craddock and Jude trying to fight the ghost's planted suggestions. I kept looking at the length of the book thinking there'd be no WAY I could read a nearly 400 page novel if it was as brutally packed as this. Fortunately, it's not. Jude and Marybeth hit the road with dogs in tow, and the book becomes more than just a horror story, it deepens and reveals to us more about our character's pasts and gives us some relief from the horror of Craddock himself. Oh, he pursues, and there's some memorable confrontations, but nothing near as bad as the start until we get to the end, which has all kinds of wonderful imagry: Craddock planting his lips against Martin's and throwing himself inside Martin's dying body, possessing Jude's abusive step-father and coming after Jude and Marybeth. Marybeth flinging her knives at Martin's possessed body in an effort to save Jude. There's some great stuff here.
The great thing about this book is that Hill actually makes readers care about characters who, on the surface, don't seem worthy of our sympathy. At first, you don't care if Marybeth, for example, dies. By the end, you're really hoping she's gonna make it, even though you know she's got a snowball's chance in hell. Hill also does a great job wrapping up loose ends: what happened with Jessica Price and her daughter (appropriate and satisfying) and we see Bammy once more, with a few brief lines that make us realize that Jude and Marybeth get married. Great stuff. If anything, the very, very end is the weakest part, as if Hill wasn't sure what kind of note he wanted to end on and simply stopped. It's a note of forboding, and when I finished the book, I told Greg that in theory, Hill could write a sequel if he wanted (after all, Jessica had her stepfather's knowledge of hypnotism and could conceivable come back to haunt someone once she dies), but I really hope not. Or, if he does do a sequel, I hope it focuses on Reese, the daughter, instead of Jude, because let's face it: Jude goes through hell and back in this book. Hill doesn't pull back the punches, and it shows.
My Rating
Worth the Cash: though it might be a must-have. It's hard for me to judge since I'm not a regular reader of horror, but this definitely is a cut above the horror I usually read (save for Cherie Priest perhaps), and therefore definitely worth the cash. Hill takes what appears to be a simple slasher story and really deepens it into something more, just as he takes what appear to be unsympathetic characters and makes them into people you really root for at the end. It's an impossible situation, and Hill is nothing if not brutal, especially at the start and the finish. Thank God for the rest period in the middle, where the bulk of the story is built, because I'm not sure I could've handled a near 400 pages of the pure horror we got in the first 130. But what I really admire and appreciate about this book is the tight, compact story. This all happens in a matter of days (maybe a week?), and it kept me on my toes. Hill proves he knows how to tell a solid, creepy ghost story (I already knew that thanks to his Locke and Key), and I look forward to reading more of his work.
Next up:
A Scent of Shadows by Vicki Pettersson