 Horns
by Joe Hill
reviewed by Drew Williams
Joe Hill's got a knack for writing characters that you really shouldn't like - that, by brief description, seem more like total wastes of humanity - yet somehow still manage to be both likeable, and, in the end, salvagable. His Judas Coyne from his debut, Heart Shaped Box, was an aging rocker who cared so little about the groupies he intermittently shacked up with he refered to them by the states - inevitably Southern - where they hailed from, rather than whatever their names might be. Ignatius Perrish begins Horns as a similarly murky character, the wastrel son of a successful celebrity father, implicated - but not convicted - in the death of his beloved girlfriend a year or so ago. Everyone in his hometown thinks he's guilty of the deed, and he doesn't do a particularly good job of dissuading the reader that he might be, either. Of course, that's exactly what Hill wants you to think.
The novel starts with its odd premise bold-faced on the very first page: Ig wakes up after a bender he can't remember the end of, and he's growing horns, and his new girlfriend - mostly in love with Ig, who's really only with her because she sort of cares about him - is asking him to sanction her worst impulses. This doesn't stop with her. Strangers Ig has never met start confessing their darkest secrets to him, or asking him to condone some horror lodged in the deepest parts of their subconscious - the sort of things we all think about, but would never actually voice aloud, let alone act on. It's because Ig is turning into a devil, you see. And that's not even what the book is about; it's a device to let Hill worm himself into the darkest corners of the human soul, places where Ig has resided since the day his beloved Merrin was murdered. Because that's the question Hill wants us to contemplate: if you went from powerless to nearly omnipotent after having everything you loved taken from you, what would you do? Where is the line between revenge and justice?
As the day progresses, more and more fiendish abilities begin to crop up, but they all serve the single narrative purpose of bringing us closer to Merrin's killer, and punishing him. Hill presents Ig - and, by extention, Satan - as less of a villain and more as a vigilante, his exclusion from society allowing him the leeway he needs to punish the wicked: a Black Peter to Heaven's Santa Claus. The Prince of Darkness plays out here less like God's immortal nemesis, stewing in the lake of fire, and more like the trickster deities of Native American or Norse myth, his mission to punish the wicked actually more or less in line with the big guy's duty to reward the good. It's heady stuff; Hill manages to swap Heart Shaped Box's drumbeat tension for Horn's moral dilemmas nicely, crafting a horror novel that's less about horror, and more about the nature of evil. He takes a couple of dangerous narrative leaps as well, abandoning Ig for long sections devoted instead to other characters, mostly on the night Merrin was murdered, until it finally pays off as we peer into her murderer's mind. Merrin herself remains an enigma for most of the book - most of the reason Ig is suspected in her death is that they fought, loudly and in public, on the night she died - but why they fought, and why she made certain decisions, remain opaque for much of the novel's sweep. It's a gamble that, again, pays off tremendously, allowing Hill to give us that one tidbit of information that turns the narrative on it's head. It's also the only complaint I have about his sophmore effort - it's a great trick, but it's the exact same one he used in Heart Shaped Box, and two novels in is too early to begin repeating yourself.
That said, Horns is a great read, already a dead cert for my best books of the year list in December. Hill is perfectly aware that you need to buy his out-there premise to buy the story, so he sells it quick and fast, using a horror icon as a starting place, rather than an endpoint. Truth be told, it's hardly a 'horror' novel at all, but a fantastic look at guilt and redemption, and an interesting twist on an old religious icon, as well.
-Drew |
Next SigningClaire Datnow
will be signing
 Wednesday
February 15
1:00 - 3:00 pm Little Professor Bookclub |
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