Eric Recommends: ‘Heart-Shaped Box’
I haven’t read a lot of scary novels. Not intentionally; it just hasn’t turned out that way. So maybe it doesn’t mean much when I tell you that Joe Hill’s “Heart-Shaped Box” is the scariest book I’ve ever read.
It is the story of an aging heavy metal superstar named Judas Coyne who, owing to his carefully crafted public image, has developed a habit for acquiring morbid things. This includes a procession of pale Goth girlfriends, groupies who become lovers and think they’re the one who will tame the beastly Judas.
Then Judas buys a ghost online. A woman says she’s selling the suit that belonged to her stepfather, and that the man’s ghost is now “attached” to it so that whoever buys the suit will get the ghost, too. Stupid, of course, but hey, it’s only a thousand bucks, and Judas is rich, and the public eats it up when he does morbid things like buy ghosts. So why not?
Well, I’ll tell you why not. BECAUSE THE GHOST IS EVIL AND MEAN AND HE WANTS TO MAKE JUDAS KILL HIS CURRENT GOTH GIRLFRIEND AND HIMSELF!!
I’m not embarrassed to tell you that this book made me poop my pants a lot. The first half, in particular, is fiendishly creepy and spooky, the kind of chilly ghost story you read only during the daytime and in public. The second half gets bloody and is more horrifying than terrifying (if you catch the difference), but no less thrilling.
It is the first novel from Joe Hill, who had previously written a collection of short stories. I just discovered that Joe Hill’s real name is Joe King, as in son of Stephen King. It’s good that he keeps that fact hidden. It would create unfair expectations of him. Also, it might make some people think that the glowing reviews heaped on “Heart-Shaped Box” are occurring automatically because of his pedigree. No sir! Joe Hill stands on his own. I’m terrified of him.
(Time magazine has a review of the book here, and Entertainment Weekly has one here.)
October 25th, 2007 at 6:35 am
I had heard about this book and been meaning to read it. Being a huge (I’m fat)Stephen King fan, I was going to read it even if people said it sucked. I’m glad it’s getting good reviews. The only thing better than a good scarey movie is a good scarey book.
October 25th, 2007 at 8:43 am
Here’s a weird coincidence. I just went online to look for a book on ghosts I’d read about the other day that just came out, and I could remember neither the title nor the author. I gave up, and then I wandered over to ericdsnider.com for my daily dose of humor, and lo and behold there’s this brand new blog on “Heart-Shaped Box,” which was one of the books mentioned in the article as having been written by the same author as the ghost book. So, anyways, I was able to find “20th Century Ghosts” by Joe Hill thanks solely to this blog. Thanks!
October 25th, 2007 at 11:35 am
I was going to ask if Joe was the King kid who wrote the file card for the awesomely lame GI Joe figure Crystal Ball, but I see here that it was apparently another son, Owen:
http://www.yojoe.com/action/87/crystalball.shtml
But because I love worthless information regarding 80’s toys, I’ve decided to share anyway.
October 25th, 2007 at 12:20 pm
Heli,
What does it mean to “write the file card” for a GI Joe figure?
October 25th, 2007 at 1:58 pm
The old Gi Joe’s used to come with a description of the figure or vehicle on the back of the box, with a nice little dotted line to cut it out. I used to keep all of these. It would give the real name of a figure (if known) and other background about them.
Heli- That website is awesome!
October 26th, 2007 at 6:47 am
Woo hoo! Let’s hear it for derailing the comments! Yo Joe!
Lowdogg, glad you enjoyed the site. A visit to yojoe.com always brings back good memories for me. I know I’ve got a big box of file cards somewhere in my parents’ attic. Probably right next to the big box of figures…