One of the things I love about working in publishing (more than the copious amounts of free diet coke I swig during the day) is the fact that just down the hall from my cubicle there is a bookshelf stacked high and mighty with books and advance review copies (ARCs) that one can snag at will. About two months ago, during my daily perusal of this blessed font of stories, I came across a copy of Heart-Shaped Box, by Joe Hill. This book came on sale day-before yesterday, and I started seeing references to both book and author everywhere.
So here’s my take on it.
First off, the word has now been out for a bit that Joe Hill is actually Joe Hill King, Stephen King’s son. And yes, Hill has purposefully made that distance between him and his father. They aren’t published by the same company, and Hill was long-ago proving he had a strong style and great stories to tell before anyone knew who he was.
Heart-Shaped Box is raw. It is vicious. If you don’t like horror and are easily creeped out, well, support Hill by buying the book at least, but just give it to a friend who likes the stuff, or put it on a shelf and enjoy the cover art. The story is intense: Jude, an aging rock star who has a rather morbid collection of death-themed paraphernalia (skulls, nooses, etc.) comes across an online auction where a woman is selling the ghost of her recently deceased father. But when the ghost turns out to be all-too-real, and possessing of an inescapable sense of vengeance, Jude must revive his own tattered past, as well as that of the deceased man, to find some way to get rid of the powerful spirit before he gets killed.
Even though I started out disliking Jude, as he comes across as an egotistical, selfish loner who is basically throwing a lifelong pity party, by the end you get to see his noble side emerge as he takes control of a life that was, up until the ghost came along, sliding listlessly toward the grave. And the ghost? Despite what some might think, not all ghosts come back to avenge a wrongful death or to make up for past misdeeds. Even the dead have secrets–some of them very ugly ones. It was a fast read, even for me. It has a gritty style and some scenes that will force you to get pliers to detach your fingers from the binding once you’re done. A great read that shows Joe Hill is in a category all his own.
I see that smile.