Books Worth Reading

Heart-Shaped Box, Joe Hill (2007)

Jude had a private collection.

This is a scary book. And it’s scary on a lot of levels. It’s got a couple of those make-you-jump scares, which are easy to do in a movie, not so much in a novel. There are bits that are creepy-scary, gross-scary, just plain weird-scary. And it’s also got that nightmarish, unrelenting fear thing going on, when the monster is coming after you and just will not stop. I would not recommend reading this book alone in the house late at night, unless you enjoy freaking yourself out.

The story begins when Jude Coyne, a 50ish rock star with a lot of excess cash and a penchant for collecting the macabre, is intrigued by an offering on an Internet auction. The seller is offering the ghost of her stepfather, Craddock McDermott, which comes attached to the dead guy’s suit, and Jude cannot resist. The suit arrives packaged in a black, heart-shaped box, and it soon becomes apparent that the ghost inside the suit is very real, and has an ulterior motive. Jude didn’t just purchase this ghost by chance. No, the ghost is also the stepfather of his former way-too-young-for-him groupie girlfriend, who committed suicide after Jude tossed her out, and the ghost wants revenge on Jude and everyone he cares for (or so it seems). As a former hypnotist, the ghost is particularly well-equipped to make Jude and others among the living do exactly what he wants.

It’s not long before Jude and his current girlfriend, nicknamed Georgia, flee with Jude’s two dogs and the ghost following on their heels in his rattletrap pickup. Jude heads for Florida to confront the living daughter and try to find a way to make the ghost stop. And the story does not let up from there until the end.

The two main characters — an aging heavy metal star with a rocky past and his much younger, very angsty, Goth girlfriend — do not seem particularly sympathetic at first. But once it becomes obvious, to them and to the reader, exactly what a horrific situation they are in, they become a lot more human. Hill has the gift: to scare you despite yourself, and to make you care despite how unworthy his characters seem at first.

Most people know by now that Joe Hill is the pseudonym of Joseph King, Stephen King’s son, but he is an excellent horror writer in his own right. Although his father’s works have clearly influenced him — as they have any horror writing working today — Hill’s style is much more spare and contemporary than King’s, less folksy or likely to wander off on tangents. Where King’s books tended to ramble, Heart-Shaped Box just rocks (making Jude’s profession particularly apt). If you like a good scare and a good read, you’re going to like this book.