HILL, Joe, Horns, Gollancz/Orion Publishing
Group/Hachette UK, London, 2010.
Octavo;
paperback; 437pp. Wrappers and text block edges well-rubbed; spine creased.
Good.
The
novel distinguishes itself from the novella due to the fact that it
springboards from more than one single event. Although, often, there may be
only one apparent spur to action, the novel explores widely from its central
events and encompasses thoughts on society, the human condition and other
matters central to its main points of plot. A novel mostly has more than one
theme to delve into: a short story has but one idea which it plays out; a
novella takes the single concept and fleshes it out a little more fully than
that.
Some
time ago, I reviewed Joe Hill’s short story collection Twentieth Century Ghosts and gave it an enthusiastic two thumbs up.
Since then I have read his other print offerings (not, as yet, his graphic
collaborations, but I’ll get there), and I’ve come to the idea that Hill’s best
work is contained within the “shorter” writing forms rather than the extended
sandpit which the novel represents. This is not to say that he is a bad writer
– far from it: his style and eloquence is truly masterful. I just feel that his
comfort zone becomes somewhat breached in a longer format.
Heart-Shaped Box, Hill’s other excursion into the novel
realm, had a great premise: an aging heavy metal rock star indulges his cash
and whims by assembling a collection of morbidly-associated artefacts – a
serial-killer’s snuff video is one item – and buys a ghost over the internet to
add to the assemblage. It arrives in the eponymous box and mayhem ensues. While
this is a good read, it feels like a novella that outstays its welcome: the one
central idea is well-and-truly thrashed out by the end and a series of
anti-climactic set pieces – excruciatingly tying up all the loose ends – lends
a distinct sense that Hill had no idea how to end the tale. Like Tchaikovsky
trying to find that right terminal chord. Going into Horns, I was desperately hoping that this would not be a repeat
performance.
It
is, therefore, with a mixture of pleasure and relief that I can report that
this is not the case.
The
story contained in Horns is,
superficially, one of revenge. Ignatius Perrish wakes up after a particularly
intense bender to discover that he has grown a pair of horns on his forehead.
Although he can see them quite distinctly, other people somehow fail to fully
acknowledge them and soon forget having seen them; their presence however, comes
with an interesting side-effect. People suddenly begin to tell Ig their darkest
desires and impulses and seek for him to grant them permission to act upon
them, whether it’s gorging themselves on doughnuts or telling friends exactly –
exactly – what they think of them. In
time, Ig learns to control this effect, forcing people to do what – or nearly
what – he wants them to do, and he discovers that he can learn everything there
is to know about a person simply by touching them. As the horns grow, other powers
manifest: fire heals him of any damage that he sustains; he begins to breathe
smoke and flames; he can control snakes. In short he turns into the very
personification of Satan.
The
point of all this is a slow reveal. A year previous to the novel’s opening
date, Ig’s girlfriend Merrin was sadistically raped and murdered (possibly not
in that order) and Ig was arrested as the prime suspect. Released due to lack
of evidence, the small town of Gideon in New England where the story is set,
has firmly made up its mind that Ig is to blame and that time will tell. Ig’s
famous family is torn between wanting to help and salvaging their public
personae and they settle for him just keeping his head down and laying low.
Thus rejected, Ig begins a self-destructive downward spiral which culminates in
the fateful bender from which he awakens a devil incarnate.
Much
of the first act of the story involves Ig working out how to use his new-found
super-powers. Along the way he encounters the main players in his tragic zeitgeist – most of them pillars of the
small-town community of Gideon – and learns how empty, dark and hollow his
world actually is. Hill plays many of these set pieces for black laughs and is
shrewd enough to not overplay the tactic: while occasionally funny these
visions into the despair of small-town souls are truly bleak and horrifying.
After
many shocking revelations regarding those he thought were on his side, Ig
finally learns who is actually responsible for Merrin’s death. From here on in,
the path to vengeance rolls forth and Ig sets his cloven hoof upon it. A
set-back occurs when he discovers that his nemesis is somehow immune to his
Hellish powers and justice is postponed until this hurdle can be overcome.
Along
this desperate ride, there are flashbacks to earlier, less-well-informed days,
when everything in Ig’s life was bright and cheerful. We learn how he met
Merrin and how he became friends with Lee Torneau, the school outcast, after
Lee saved him from drowning during a riverside daredevil stunt as a teenager.
We see the childhood bullies who hassled Ig and later encounter them as the
grown-up bullies who haven’t yet found better targets for their self-loathing
and aggression. Throughout these scenes we gain a growing sense of Merrin and
her relationship with Ig: Hill handles her development gracefully, never
letting her climb fully up onto the pedestal where Ig obviously wants to put
her, and in this way allows her reality to shine forth. The lovers’ bond strays
sometimes uncomfortably close to the treacly side of things, but Hill never
lets the relationship become maudlin.
As
to the conclusion, things come to an end; unlike Heart-Shaped Box, the climax and denouement get to where they’re going and add a few unexpected
twists en route. Satisfyingly, these
don’t just leap out of a void, but are flagged at the book’s beginning and
again during the body of the text so that, while still a surprise, they’re of
the “oh yeah!” variety rather than the “what the...?” kind. In this way the
book holds together as a crafted story rather than a train ride to an
inevitable conclusion.
If
I have beefs with this book, they’re small ones. Ig is the scion of a celebrity
family and there’s just a touch of whining about the status that such a life
can impose: I’m guessing that Hill is airing some personal issues here but, as
the son of Stephen King, I guess he’s writing what he knows, and that’s what
they always tell us to do. A bigger issue is the fact that Hill is a natural
short story writer and, whereas there are things that you can do with a short
story, they don’t work as well in a novel:
In
a short story or novella, things are a little more emphasised, somewhat larger
than life; techniques such as symbolism and metaphor are short-cuts to
transmitting a message to the reader and their use is natural to the format.
That this story is treading a veritable minefield of theological symbolism,
it’s to Hill’s credit that he reins most of this in to a point where it doesn’t
appear arch or contrived. Still, things slip through: references to (their
Satanic Majesties) the Rolling Stones, the fact that the Perrish family are all
trumpet players (horns, get it?), the fact that Ig’s vehicle of choice is a make
of car entitled the Gremlin, are all sly winks which break the fourth wall far
too often for comfort. The worst instance occurs late in the action when, after
having set himself on fire to heal himself from a beating, Ig seeks clothing to
cover his nakedness and finds discarded a long, straight black-leather coat
(how convenient!), a single sock, and a lacy blue skirt. The first two articles are soon lost sight of; the blue dress, however, remains and becomes an
extended and distracting pun on Shorty Long’s 1964 song “Devil With a Blue Dress On” for the remainder of the book.
My
last criticism is the number of times that Ig gets beaten up. As in Heart-Shaped Box, Hill doesn’t mind
putting his heroes through the wringer; however, the violence inflicted upon Ig
by the end starts to become annoying: I seriously began to wonder when ‘Devil-Boy’
would start to man-up a little! While I know our protagonist is not supposed to
be a 'warrior born', pages and pages of ‘pain exploding’ and ‘shocks blinding’
start to get more than a little old. If Horns
feels bloated in places, these are the sections where some deft editorial work
could have been employed. The violence has a slightly misogynistic quality too
in that, while Ig and several other male characters get the snot beat out of
them, Hill shies away at any revelation as to what actually happens to Merrin:
I’m not saying that, as a reader, I needed to know every gory detail of her
demise (and I believe the book is stronger for avoiding such a splatterpunk
excursion) but there’s a qualifying effect on the violence if it’s implied that
one target makes it worse than another. Many of Ig’s (apparently all female)
snake companions, for example, get chopped in the crossfire with gleeful
abandon, which (as an amateur herpetologist) I found far more distressing than
the central character taking a boot to the face.
My
final analysis then, is that this is a fantastic – and fantastically dark –
novel from Joe Hill. Unlike Heart-Shaped
Box, it hangs together better structurally and breaks free of the ‘novella
masquerading as a novel’ state which plagued that earlier effort. It contains
all of the wonderfully sensual turns of phrase and poetic language which I’ve
come to love about Hill’s writing, and –like all of his efforts - defines new
territory free and clear of the generation of horror writing from which he
descends. I’ve read that he’s taken a sideways step into the world of graphic
novels and I look forward to seeing what he comes up with there; for me though,
another collection of short stories – the form that he’s definitely best at –
would be favourite, but meanwhile this read gives a great insight into how he’s
grown as a storyteller. More please!
Four
tentacled horrors.
Postscript:
I have just discovered that the movie of this book is about to hit the cinemas! Apparently it stars Daniel Radcliffe as Ig Perrish (not convinced); but the screenplay has been written by Joe Hill (getting convinced). When it gets here, you can bet I'll be sharing my thoughts about it!
Postscript:
I have just discovered that the movie of this book is about to hit the cinemas! Apparently it stars Daniel Radcliffe as Ig Perrish (not convinced); but the screenplay has been written by Joe Hill (getting convinced). When it gets here, you can bet I'll be sharing my thoughts about it!
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