So I literally just finished Joe Hill's second novel, Horns about five minutes ago. Although it was his second novel, and I'm usually quite big about readings an author's work in publishing order, I was introduced to the author with his first novel, Heart-Shaped Box (excellent, by the way), and then moved on to his comic book series, Locke & Key.
Horns follows our Genre Character of the week: Ig Parrish, a young man who has just woken up from a really bad drinking binge and finds he now has horns growing out of his head.
Ig has spent the last year of his life being a "person of interest" in the rape and murder of his long time girlfriend, so it's safe to say he is pretty much hit bottom at the point the novel begins. The interesting thing about the horns, however, is that people seem to act differently around Ig now, telling him secrets they would never share with anyone else, and asking for his permission to act on their darkest impulses.
What I really like about Ig is that through this entire strange, hellish novel, he always comes across as a real person, a three dimensional human being doing his best to understand a world that no longer makes any sense at all.
A film adaptation of the novel will be coming out later this year, and I'm definitely interested in seeing how it turns out.
A few months ago while listening to the Scotch & Comics podcast, I was introduced to Joe Hill’s Locke & Key. The story, following the Locke family after a terrible incident involving the murder of the husband/father, involved the family relocating to the family home in Lovecraft, MA, and the mystery they discover there. Although all the characters are incredibly well conceived and fleshed out, my personal favourite is the youngest of the three children, Bode Locke.
Bode is the archetypal little-kid character often found throughout horror and dark fantasy stories, and although there is a lot going on with his older two siblings as they explore their new home, Locke House, it is Bode who begins to find the secrets of the home, including the thing in the Well house and a strange key which opens a door that sends the keyholder on quite a journey.
What I like best about Bode is that for all the horror that has gone on in his life (the death of his father was extremely traumatic, read the series to find out more), he sees the house, the key and his new life exciting. Things that would terrify the normal person (me included) are simply considered “COOL!” by Bode. Let me tell you, that little kid is pretty amazing.
If you haven’t checked out this series yet and are in any way a fan of dark fantasy and horror, you are really missing out.
