I've Been Drawn Into Your Magnet Tar Pit Trap

Author: Joe Hill
Book Read: Heart-Shaped Box
Pages: 382


My attention was drawn to Joe Hill when I read the first in a series of graphic novels he's working on called Locke and Key (mentioned in this entry.) I liked his style. He's not doing anything mind-bogglingly original with the ghost story genre, but his stories are propulsive and well-paced, with interesting characters. This continues with Heart-Shaped Box. I read this in an evening while coughing up my lungs from a brief cold that felt menacingly tubercular. The book suited my mood.

Judas Coyne is an aging Alice Cooper-esque rock star living in a decaying upstate New York farmhouse with a twenty-three-year-old Goth girl named Georgia (the latest in a series of young Goth girls, we learn.) He's tough and burnt out from thirty years of hard rocking and partying and now lives his remaining years in a creative rut, treating his Gothy live-ins like garbage, remembering his youth as an abused farm child, avoiding email and daydreaming over various gross artifacts he's collected over the years (skulls, snuff films, books of the dead, etc). One day his puppy-dog-like overeager manager Danny shows him a link for an online auction site, where someone has put their dead stepfather's suit up for auction. Judas orders it to add to his collection. It arrives - and guess what shape the box is in? And guess what else has come to stay in his house with the suit? I JUST DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT!

What comes next is many pages of trashy fun. If you like horror, this is probably the cream of the most recent crop, and you won't be able to put it down. Now, I won't say that Heart-Shaped Box isn't a guilty pleasure. Any book that can be read in under six hours while piled under blankets and gulping NeoCitran most definitely falls in that category. There aren't any heart-stopping literary endeavours happening here. There is, however, some ripping good storytelling, characters that you care about (despite not necessarily being able to relate to them) some huge scares and some shocking moments of violence. The ghost's first appearance should be predictable, but Hill lets it creep up on you, and when the moment comes - teased through agonizing, minute description - it's very scary. This shit will suck you in. Even as you sit shaking your head and thinking "I should read Invisible Man" or "Wow, that copy of The Crying of Lot 49 is just on my bookshelf, sitting there," your body-heart will chide your mind and roar, "Quiet, fool! I need to read the next part!"

I Suck At Reading

Well, I could make up a litany of excuses as to why I have not been reading Hard Times by Charles Dickens (or much of anything else for that matter.) I had my wisdom teeth out a week ago, the economy is shit, I'm worried about money, blah blah fuckity fuck. Generally, I've been looking for distractions. Any kind of distraction. And, well, Hard Times is a shitty book to read if you are in pain and depressed about money. I guess that's sort of obvious.
Anyway, I am not at the moment feeling so good about books I think I "should read" because of one reason or another. There is a time for that, but it's not now at this particular moment. If I'm going to get anywhere in this competition, I need to focus on my natural inclinations - which are not always the most, uh, lofty. (gleefully claps hands together)TRASH TIME!

Anyway, instead of Dickens I've been reading and doing other things that do not fit into the parameters of this competition because they are less than 200 pages or are not books. So I can tell you what those are. Then I'm going to put Dickens aside for the moment and read something less weighty. Yeah? Good.

Locke and Key:Welcome to Lovecraft - Joe Hill


Locke and Key: Welcome to Lovecraft is the first issue of a 24-issue series written by Joe Hill, who happens to be Stephen King's son. He has won a bunch of Bram Stoker awards for his short fiction and this is his first comic. A co-worker and comic freak lent this to me. Her taste is very good, but I took one look at Gabriel Rodriguez's cutesy art and was like "Augh! This looks like Bratz! Terrible!" and didn't pick it up for two weeks. Then I started reading and finished it in two hours. It's damn good.

I wish I hadn't known that Hill was King-spawn, because I can't help but make comparisons between the two of them. Hill has King's knack for dialogue, especially with kids. A lot of the story comes from the perspective of a small child so this is important. And the story ultimately belied the cutesy artwork by being very, very dark, dealing with kids and murder and unspeakable paranormal terrors. And yes, it's not an accident that the town the story is based in is called, uh, Lovecraft. The Lovecraftian elements especially ring out when one character discovers a secret door that literally turns people into omniscient ghosts. The supernatural elements never overwhelm, though. It's heartfelt, too, and not in the melodramatic way that some horror comics are. Hill pitches his tone in a way that somehow matches the medium and the artwork perfectly. I don't know anything about comics, so whatever, take this as you will. But I eagerly await the next installment.

Elmore Leonard - When the Girls Come Out To Dance



I generally find I'm in the minority here, but I just fucking love Elmore Leonard. His books are so satisfying. I love the way his characters talk and always say the right thing. I love how most of his female heroines either carry guns or know how to shoot them. I love that the assholes in the stories always get their comeuppance in a very classy and/or hilarious way. I love that all his characters talk hard and drink ten of the hardest drinks in a row (generally made with some kind of horrible whiskey like Tullamore Dew with a twist of lime) and they can still rattle off one-liners. So all of these things happen in this collection of short stories and I was tickled, amused, saddened and most of all wistful. That's what Elmore Leonard does to me. He makes me wistful for experiences I couldn't possibly relate to. And yet I DO. Let's all quit our jobs and be con artists.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

I used to hate silent films. The few I had seen (mostly in some film class or another) struck me as cheesy or painfully melodramatic. And worst of all---unnecessary. I thought I was a "dialogue person." Then last weekend, I was supposed to go wish a friend farewell. I was vaguely anxious about this and drank a bunch of wine and watched The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari on YouTube with extremely low expectations. I was completely mesmerized. Everything about this film is mind-boggling. The acting, the music, and most of all, the shots and the set-pieces:



YES. So beautiful and ahead of the times. Imagine an entire film designed like this about a hypnotist, his sleeping and very creepy subject, and MURDER. Also, there is a twist, and I found it genuinely SHOCKING. Who thought a movie could be so shocking in 1919? My goodness. After it was all over I was terrified and immediately went to the party because I had to be around other people. Also, I felt like an artless troll. Never again will I doubt the paralytic power of the silent film era. No, really.

Oh, and here's the YouTube link.

Ok. Thanks for indulging this diversion. Hopefully I will be back on track in a few.