Horns: A Novel
Registered by SpedBug of Wilmington, Delaware USA on 7/26/2013
This book is in a Controlled Release!
This book is in a Controlled Release!
1 journaler for this copy...
From the list "14 Books to Read Before They Hit The Big Screen" that my daughter brought to my attention.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/ariellecalderon/books-to-read-before-they-hit-the-big-screen
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I’ll begin my review by posting the full text of Chapter One from Horns.
“IGNATIUS MARTIN PERRISH SPENT the night drunk and doing terrible things. He woke the next morning with a headache, put his hands to his temples, and felt something unfamiliar, a pair of knobby pointed protuberances. He was so ill--wet-eyed and weak--he didn't think anything of it at first, was too hungover for thinking or worry.
But when he was swaying above the toilet, he glanced at himself in the mirror over the sink and saw he had grown horns while he slept. He lurched in surprise, and for the second time in twelve hours he pissed on his feet.”
Did that grab you? If so, welcome to Horns, a book that keeps you flipping pages in awe, horror, and fascinated disbelief. Joe Hill, son of Stephen King, has his own unique brand of writing talent, but there’s a family resemblance here that can’t be denied. There’s nothing florid or complex in Hill’s writing to make the reading cumbersome or difficult. He and his father have the same economy of description. They also have the uncanny ability of pushing their thumb right into the most tender part of whatever subconscious bruises you may carry.
Ig Perrish’s girlfriend, Merrin, is found raped and murdered. This is the girl he fell in love with as a young teen and with whom he had planned his life with - all the way up to naming their children. And, although Ig is walking free in his hometown, he remains the prime suspect. An accident in the lab destroyed the evidence that would have damned or freed him. His alibi is as weak as a wet, bargain brand paper towel, and everyone – even some of his family – believe he did it. Since the day she was found, Ig spends most of his days drunk and wallowing in grief.
One evening, Ig gets gloriously wasted and wakes with more than a hangover – he discovers he has horns growing out of his temples. Along with the horns comes a strange and disturbing new phenomenon as well: people he comes in contact with begin making dark confessions to him, spewing up the dark thoughts and desires no sane person would dare share.
As Ig comes into this new, devilish facet of himself, his abilities grow. During his journey, he learns what really happened the night Merrin died. It is a truth so unexpected and devastating, it is nearly as transformative as the newly acquired horns.
Horns is well-written, addictive, and thoroughly disturbing. A bonus to all this is a companion tale at the end of the book, a short story titled The Devil on the Staircase. I fell completely in love with this short tale (this is saying something because I usually don’t care for short stories) as well as the format in which it was written.
I’ll end my review with a couple of quotes from the novel which I picked up like seashells and put in my pocket.
“You think you know someone. But mostly you just know what you want to know.”
“It was something... the way a person's life picked up speed, the way a life was like a bullet aimed at one final target, impossible to slow or turn aside, and like the bullet, you were ignorant of what you were going to hit, would never know anything except the rush and the impact.”
And finally, I very much enjoyed Hill’s personal explanation of how a writer presents a story -
”Most writers – both the ones who are worth reading and the ones who aren’t – don’t have anything like a single clear vision . . . Instead, the writer is a dude with a battered Star Wars lunchbox full of precious junk. He carries it with him everywhere he goes, and he can’t resist opening it and occasionally taking his things out to look them over . . . In story after story the writer opens his lunchbox and takes out the mementos and sets them in a row and admires them in the light. He smells them (they smell like himself). He touches them. He studies them. He moves them around to observe them in different order. He puts some things away, takes other things out. Each variation is a new story. The writer, it turns out, is not peddling his grand philosophical insights after all. He is instead selling tickets to a private exhibition of personal fascinations and oddities.”
Personally, I'm far more interested in being taken through the exhibition rattling around the author’s Star Wars lunchbox than being preached a philosophy, so thank you Joe Hill for this particular tour. The price of admission was more than fair.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/ariellecalderon/books-to-read-before-they-hit-the-big-screen
_____________________________
I’ll begin my review by posting the full text of Chapter One from Horns.
“IGNATIUS MARTIN PERRISH SPENT the night drunk and doing terrible things. He woke the next morning with a headache, put his hands to his temples, and felt something unfamiliar, a pair of knobby pointed protuberances. He was so ill--wet-eyed and weak--he didn't think anything of it at first, was too hungover for thinking or worry.
But when he was swaying above the toilet, he glanced at himself in the mirror over the sink and saw he had grown horns while he slept. He lurched in surprise, and for the second time in twelve hours he pissed on his feet.”
Did that grab you? If so, welcome to Horns, a book that keeps you flipping pages in awe, horror, and fascinated disbelief. Joe Hill, son of Stephen King, has his own unique brand of writing talent, but there’s a family resemblance here that can’t be denied. There’s nothing florid or complex in Hill’s writing to make the reading cumbersome or difficult. He and his father have the same economy of description. They also have the uncanny ability of pushing their thumb right into the most tender part of whatever subconscious bruises you may carry.
Ig Perrish’s girlfriend, Merrin, is found raped and murdered. This is the girl he fell in love with as a young teen and with whom he had planned his life with - all the way up to naming their children. And, although Ig is walking free in his hometown, he remains the prime suspect. An accident in the lab destroyed the evidence that would have damned or freed him. His alibi is as weak as a wet, bargain brand paper towel, and everyone – even some of his family – believe he did it. Since the day she was found, Ig spends most of his days drunk and wallowing in grief.
One evening, Ig gets gloriously wasted and wakes with more than a hangover – he discovers he has horns growing out of his temples. Along with the horns comes a strange and disturbing new phenomenon as well: people he comes in contact with begin making dark confessions to him, spewing up the dark thoughts and desires no sane person would dare share.
As Ig comes into this new, devilish facet of himself, his abilities grow. During his journey, he learns what really happened the night Merrin died. It is a truth so unexpected and devastating, it is nearly as transformative as the newly acquired horns.
Horns is well-written, addictive, and thoroughly disturbing. A bonus to all this is a companion tale at the end of the book, a short story titled The Devil on the Staircase. I fell completely in love with this short tale (this is saying something because I usually don’t care for short stories) as well as the format in which it was written.
I’ll end my review with a couple of quotes from the novel which I picked up like seashells and put in my pocket.
“You think you know someone. But mostly you just know what you want to know.”
“It was something... the way a person's life picked up speed, the way a life was like a bullet aimed at one final target, impossible to slow or turn aside, and like the bullet, you were ignorant of what you were going to hit, would never know anything except the rush and the impact.”
And finally, I very much enjoyed Hill’s personal explanation of how a writer presents a story -
”Most writers – both the ones who are worth reading and the ones who aren’t – don’t have anything like a single clear vision . . . Instead, the writer is a dude with a battered Star Wars lunchbox full of precious junk. He carries it with him everywhere he goes, and he can’t resist opening it and occasionally taking his things out to look them over . . . In story after story the writer opens his lunchbox and takes out the mementos and sets them in a row and admires them in the light. He smells them (they smell like himself). He touches them. He studies them. He moves them around to observe them in different order. He puts some things away, takes other things out. Each variation is a new story. The writer, it turns out, is not peddling his grand philosophical insights after all. He is instead selling tickets to a private exhibition of personal fascinations and oddities.”
Personally, I'm far more interested in being taken through the exhibition rattling around the author’s Star Wars lunchbox than being preached a philosophy, so thank you Joe Hill for this particular tour. The price of admission was more than fair.
I'm sending this book along with two others to a friend.
