Horns by Joe Hill

It’s been three years since the publication of Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill, but the author has definitely delivered a royal flush in hearts with his newest novel, Horns. In other words, it was worth the long wait! As everybody probably knows by now, Joe is the son of Stephen King, but don’t hold that against him. Joe has proven with his first two novels that he’s his own man and has his own unique way of creating dark suspense fiction. In fact, his creativity hasn’t even been tapped yet. What we’ve seen so far is just the tip of the iceberg. When this author finally gets up to speed and starts turning out a book a year, he’s going to blow us out of the water with his fiction, and then we won’t be saying he’s the son of Stephen King, but rather that Stephen King is the father of this great writer—Joe Hill!

Now, I will admit up front that Horns has a premise which seemed somewhat hokey to me when I first read a synopsis of the novel. The first page, however, gave me goose bumps and that isn’t easy to do at this stage of the game. I’ve read a couple of hundred horror novels over the last forty years, and it’s difficult to excite me at my present age, yet Joe did it with the first page of Horns. Once I got into the book, I was hooked line and sinker, proving this author knows exactly what he’s doing as a writer, or should I say, master craftsman, which he is after two brilliant novels.

Okay, so what is Horns about? Well, it deals with a young guy, Ig Perrish, who wakes up one day to discover horns are growing out of his head. Along with the disfigurement comes an uncanny ability that causes most people who get close to him to speak their mind and to not hold anything back, no matter how cruel or mean it is. This gives Ig a whole new outlook on the people around him, even his parents and brother, Terry, as he discovers their true feelings for him. You see, the year before, Ig’s girlfriend, Merrin, was raped and murdered right after they’d had a heated argument one night in a small restaurant called the Pit. Merrin wanted to break up with Ig so she could date other people, and for Ig, this seemed to come from out of nowhere. He loved and needed Merrin in his life to feel complete and to have a best friend. He wasn’t prepared for what she wanted and it devastated him. Leaving her behind in a drunken rage, he later pulled his car over to sleep off his drunken stupor and to hope for a better day, but that wasn’t to be. The next morning Merrin’s beaten body was found, and Ig was the only suspect. Though never convicted of the crime, he’s also was never cleared. Everyone in his home town thought he was guilty as sin and that the only reason he got off was because of rich parents…parents who also thought he’d murdered his girlfriend. It wasn’t until his brother, Terry, told him who the real killer was that Ig’s was able to focus and to finally plan his next action. He would kill the person who killed the woman he loves and destroyed his life. And, since God won’t help him, maybe the Devil will!
I love that catchphrase!

If this novel teaches the reader anything, it’s that you never really know people or what they’re thinking, even those closest to you. That in itself is scary as the devil, no pun intended. Whether consciously or unconsciously, Joe Hill gives us a hard look at the way many relationships are today and that the people who were once your friends (if they ever truly were), change as they grow older and gradually pull away, until all you see of them is a false mask of pretension. Even your parents and grandparents often mask their true feelings as is the case with Ig Parrish and his family. You find that the people who should love you the most and believe in you are the ones you can’t trust. One of the wonderful things about the novel, Horns, is that the story is written on multiple levels, leaving the reader unsure about whom to root for. Though Ig Parrish is the lead character, he’s not always the most likable, especially as the author reveals more about Merrin and Terry and especially Lee, the perfect example of a modern-day sociopath. All the main characters in this story have good and bad points, which is the way of people in real life. Nothing is ever black and white. Joe gives us an inside look at his creations, allowing the reader to see the main event from different angles and how everything came to be. Though Horns starts out as a horror novel, I think it deals more with the tragedy of life and how all things eventually end, even love and friendships. The horns, in many ways, are just a sidebar. The real story here is about close relationships that end badly and the need for revenge when something precious is taken away.

So, with his second novel, Joe Hill has clearly shown himself to be a very gifted storyteller. He knows how to create an intricate plot, plus strong, involved characters who don’t always know what to do in a given situation, and little twists and turns that keeps the reader guessing till the last page. Horns is a definitely a winner in every sense of the word as well as a novel you’ll want to keep on your bookshelf for years to come. I can only hope it won’t be three long years till Joe Hill’s next novel comes out.