Heart-Shaped Box: A Novel - Hardcover

Hill, Joe

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0061147931 ISBN 13: 9780061147937

Publisher: William Morrow, 2007

Synopsis

“Wild, mesmerizing, perversely witty….A Valentine from hell.”
 —Janet Maslin, New York Times

The publication of Joe Hill’s beautifully textured, deliciously scary debut novel Heart-Shaped Box was greeted with the sort of overwhelming critical acclaim that is rare for a work of skin-crawling supernatural terror. It was cited as a Best Book of the Year by Atlanta magazine, the Tampa Tribune, the St. Louis Post Dispatch, and the Village Voice, to name but a few. Award-winning, #1 New York Times bestselling Neil Gaiman of The Sandman, The Graveyard Book, and Anansi Boys fame calls Joe Hill’s story of a jaded rock star haunted by a ghost he purchased on the internet, “relentless, gripping, powerful.” Open this Heart-Shaped Box from two-time Bram Stoker Award-winner Hill if you dare and see what all the well-deserved hoopla is about.

About this title

About the Author

Joe Hill is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of novels (King Sorrow, The Fireman, NOS4A2, Horns, Heart-Shaped Box), fiction collections (Strange Weather, Full Throttle, 20th Century Ghosts), and a comic-book series (Locke & Key). Much of his work has been adapted for film and TV.

From the Back Cover

Judas Coyne is a collector of the macabre: a cookbook for cannibals . . . a used hangman's noose . . . a snuff film. An aging death-metal rock god, his taste for the unnatural is as widely known to his legions of fans as the notorious excesses of his youth. But nothing he possesses is as unlikely or as dreadful as his latest discovery, an item for sale on the Internet, a thing so terribly strange, Jude can't help but reach for his wallet.

I will "sell" my stepfather's ghost to the highest bidder. . . .

For a thousand dollars, Jude will become the proud owner of a dead man's suit, said to be haunted by a restless spirit. He isn't afraid. He has spent a lifetime coping with ghosts—of an abusive father, of the lovers he callously abandoned, of the bandmates he betrayed. What's one more?

But what UPS delivers to his door in a black heart-shaped box is no imaginary or metaphorical ghost, no benign conversation piece. It's the real thing.

And suddenly the suit's previous owner is everywhere: behind the bedroom door . . . seated in Jude's restored vintage Mustang . . . standing outside his window . . . staring out from his widescreen TV. Waiting—with a gleaming razor blade on a chain dangling from one bony hand. . . .

A multiple-award winner for his short fiction, author Joe Hill immediately vaults into the top echelon of dark fantasists with a blood-chilling roller-coaster ride of a novel, a masterwork brimming with relentless thrills and acid terror.

Reviews

Heart-Shaped Box raises the obvious question: Does the talent of Joe Hill (née Joseph Hillstrom King) match that of his father, Stephen King? Certainly, Hill has earned acclaim in his own right; his short-story collection 20th Century Ghosts won both the British Fantasy Award and a Bram Stoker. Critics agree that if blood, gore, and psychological terror keep you turning the pages, you'll enjoy the novel's murderous dreamscape and Hill's lean, witty, and hard-hitting style. In order to buy into the story, however, you'll first have to believe in the ghost's powerful existence—and not all critics did. Only the New York Times Book Review completely panned the novel's characterizations, overkill, and implausible plot. The verdict: Heart-Shaped Box is a strong walk in Hill's father's footsteps.
Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.

Adult/High School—Hill, two-time winner of the Bram Stoker Award for his short fiction, delivers a terrifyingly contemporary twist to the traditional ghost story with his first novel. Aging rock star Judas Coyne is a collector of bizarre and macabre artifacts: a used hangman's noose, a snuff film, and rare books on witchcraft. When he purchases a suit billed in an online auction as the haunted clothes of a recently deceased man, Coyne finds more than he bargained for. Everywhere he looks he sees the twisted spirit of an old and evil man following him and dangling a deadly razor on a chain. He learns that the suit belonged to Craddock McDermott, the stepfather of a former lover who committed suicide shortly after Coyne tossed her out of his life. McDermott, a professional hypnotist prior to his death, swore to destroy Coyne's rock-star life of self-indulgence to avenge her death. The behind-the-scenes look at stardom alongside the frightening pyrotechnics of McDermott's ghost will draw in teens who really enjoy a good scare. But like all good ghost stories, Hill also crafts a deftly plotted mystery as McDermott's true motivations and powers unfold. The depth of character hidden in the dark shadows of both men lifts what could otherwise be a formula supernatural thriller to an impressive debut.—Matthew L. Moffett, Pohick Regional Library, Burke, VA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

In the opening scene of Joe Hill's first novel, Jude Coyne, an aging rock star with a penchant for macabre collectibles, buys a ghost through an Internet auction house. The transaction is made tangible by shipment of the dead man's Sunday suit. Contrary to Jude's initial skepticism, the suit arrives (in the heart-shaped box of the title) and the ghost with it: an aged man in a fedora, "black lines squirmed and tangled" where his eyes should be, and a razor dangling on a chain from his ring finger.

More than Jude bargained for? No, maybe exactly what he deserves. It turns out that the singer also has a penchant for Goth chick groupies -- "their limber, athletic, tattooed bodies and eagerness for kink" -- and this spirit is Craddock McDermott, the stepfather of a suicidal ex-girlfriend, a stepfather apparently now bent on revenge.

Though he's not advertising the fact, Hill is the son of Stephen King, but he's able to concoct a rousing story in his own right despite those big shoes (or maybe because he's learned something at the master's feet?). Early scenes tap into common nocturnal fears: Is there someone in the house? The realistic and the fantastic mix to eerie ends: Radio deejay patter and TV shows morph regularly into Craddock's voice, urging evil thoughts that the characters struggle to resist.

For all the ghostly goings-on, however, Hill is ultimately after another level of horror. The major players are either victims or victimizers in a cycle of childhood abuse -- a common element of Goth chickdom, as Jude comments in reflecting on that jilted girlfriend and his current flame, Georgia. But Jude carries scars, too, from an abusive father who once slammed his teenage son's hand in a door and whose impending death shadows the story as much as Craddock's dark spirit. Our heroes aren't just facing unwelcome fates but contending with difficult pasts as well.

Hill can write an effectively scary scene (he's already won awards for his short fiction), but he falters in balancing the aspects of the novel's longer form: overall pacing, structural cohesion, even consistency of plot and theme. As Jude and Georgia battle the ghost, we find ourselves struggling with questions as well: Who can see Craddock? When? Is the key to defeating him in this world or the next? Singing seems a winning strategy -- thematically apt, too -- and maybe Georgia's grandmother holds some clue, but ultimately little is made of either strand.

Late in the novel, Jude feels brief pity for his sickly father, and Hill slips in some quick commentary on the genre: "Horror was rooted in sympathy, after all, in understanding what it would be like to suffer the worst." But the book's greatest flaw lies in the myriad times Hill misses opportunities to put that wisdom to work. In the climactic scene, Hill amps up the action instead of diving into what should be complex layers of emotion. Mixing sympathy and suffering would have plunged into the depths of true horror.

-- Art Taylor is an assistant professor of English at George Mason University.

Copyright 2007, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

Starred Review. Stoker-winner Hill features a particularly merciless ghost in his powerful first novel. Middle-aged rock star Judas Coyne collects morbid curios for fun, so doesn't think twice about buying a suit advertised at an online auction site as haunted by its dead owner's ghost. Only after it arrives does Judas discover that the suit belonged to Craddock McDermott, the stepfather of one of Coyne's discarded groupies, and that the old man's ghost is a malignant spirit determined to kill Judas in revenge for his stepdaughter's suicide. Judas isn't quite the cad or Craddock the avenging angel this scenario makes them at first, but their true motivations reveal themselves only gradually in a fast-paced plot that crackles with expertly planted surprises and revelations. Hill (20th Century Ghosts) gives his characters believably complex emotional lives that help to anchor the supernatural in psychological reality and prove that (as one character observes) "horror was rooted in sympathy." His subtle and skillful treatment of horrors that could easily have exploded over the top and out of control helps make this a truly memorable debut. (Feb.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Edition details

• Publisher: William Morrow
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0061147931
• ISBN 13: 9780061147937
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 384