(#37 in the 2008 Book Challenge)

This is a short story collection, most but certainly not all them are of the horror type. My favorite, "Pop Art," is more surreal than anything else. There's also a realistic story about the child of a hot-tempered MLB manager that was snicker-out-loud funny. Overall, I thought it was a great mix of tone. Some of the horror was that disturbing/graphic twist style, others were more vaguely but delightfully creepy.

Grade: A-
Recommended: Yes, very entertaining for even a casual horror fan. If you HATE horror/supernatural stories, this isn't for you, but just about anyone else would think it was fine.

In the real world, Joe Hill is Joe King, Stephen King's son. It was almost impossible for me to stop thinking about that while I was reading. Joe is a fine writer, the problem is with me. I even developed* this strange little mantra in my head that went something along the lines of "but this is NOT the perfect collection of horror short stories because he hasn't said anything at all about CLOWNS, or getting hit by a TRUCK, or MAINE ..." and then I was genuinely startled when, out of the blue, he threw in a clown! It was more like an homage to the clown genre than an actual clown story, but still. The balloons, they floated, you know?

*Also an homage.

Worth the five stars for the story "The Black Phone" alone. AMAZING short fiction writer. Feels like what would happen if Clive Barker and Neil Gaiman bred. ( )

Overall – I normally do expect improvement from someone’s first to second book. The stories here are an interesting mix of horror, the super-natural and some that are neither of these. I enjoyed most of the stories in the collection but there were some that were a little weird for my tastes. Of course, some stories are better than others but this is true of almost every collection of short stories that I have read. I didn’t like this as well as Heart-Shaped Box, however, since this is his first work, that is to be expected.

Best New Horror – An interesting start to the collection. The editor of a compendium called the America’s Best Horror receives a tale that he feels must be included in his next volume. The trouble is, he can’t get in contact with the author. This leads to an obsessive and creepy search for the mysterious author. I thought that this story had a pretty good build up to a satisfying conclusion. Even though the reader pretty much knew where the tale was going, it was kind of like watching a good cheesy horror movie where you keep telling the character, “Hey, don’t do that!” or “Why the Hell are you going in there?” Good, good fun.

20th Century Ghost – This story takes place in a movie theater and revolves around the current theater manager and the ghost that haunts it. I really enjoyed this one. Even though it has a ghost, it’s not at all a horror story so much a fond recollection of the life of a movie theater and the effort of one individual to contact those that loved the theater in order to make an effort to save it.

Pop Art – I’m not too sure about this entry into the collection. It’s kind of like one of those Twilight Zone episodes that was WAY outside of the box and didn’t really feel like the rest of the episodes. This story is about an inflatable boy who is actually alive and living as close to a normal life as someone who’s inflatable can. It’s a really weird concept and I can’t exactly say that I found it to be all that enjoyable. It has the potential to grow on me though upon subsequent readings.

You Will Hear the Locust Sing – Back to something more along the horror vein. When a young man wakes in the morning and realizes that he has mutated into an insect, all hell breaks loose. This was an interesting story and moved along at a fairly brisk pace. After the last story, I feel like we’re on the right track again.

Abraham’s Boys – This story catches the reader up with Abraham Van Helsing and his two sons. Now living in America, Van Helsing is a hard task master trying to teach his sons to fear and respect the creatures of the night. I liked this story and thought that raised some interesting questions about Van Helsing. I especially liked the ending.

Better Than Home – This was an odd story involving a kid who suffers from anxiety attacks whose father is a professional baseball manager. It was fairly entertaining and even humorous at times, but I’m not really sure that I got the point.

The Black Phone – Ah, back to a good scary one! A young boy is abducted and kept in a basement with a strange black phone on the wall. The phone is obviously disconnected and of no use in his efforts to escape…and then it rings! I really enjoyed this one, it has a nice build up of tension and a very satisfying conclusion.

In the Rundown – A video store employee, who used to be a fairly good athlete but because of a learning disability lost confidence in himself and lost the opportunities to better his life, discovers a macabre crime scene on his way home. This one had a good premise and a nice build up, but really left you hanging in the end. I had my suspicions as to how this story would turn out, only to not have anything confirmed as it just ended in the middle of the climax. Other than that (and it’s kind of a big other than that!) it was a pretty good story.

The Cape – Two young boys discover the magical powers of a super-hero cape. When they are grown, the cape makes another appearance and the results are more sinister. I really found this one to be fairly fun and enjoyable.

Last Breath – This is a story about a unique museum – on that displays a collection of people’s last dying breaths – and the experiences of a family that visits it. This one wasn’t really scary, but extremely creepy! One of my favorites in the collection.

Dead-Wood – This is a two page discussion on whether trees can also have ghosts. Kind of interesting, but kind of weird too.

The Widow’s Breakfast – A hobo who’s friend dies jumps off of a train before reaching a depot where a nasty watchman is rumored to reside and encounters a very strange family. This story was pretty well written and an interesting read but the creepy element felt forced and squeezed in to me.

Bobby Conroy Comes Back from the Dead – Two former lovers are reunited while cast as zombies in George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead. This is a fairly entertaining story with no real horror in it except for the setting. The characters are compelling and likeable.

My Father’s Mask – Back to a fairly strange one. The story centers around a teenager whose parents decide on the spur of the moment to go to his deceased grandfather’s lake house for the weekend. Strange events ensue and everyone is forced to wear masks to distinguish them from the evil playing-card people. Not a bad story, but not one of my favorites either.

Voluntary Committal – This is a story about a couple of brothers, one of whom is mentally handicapped. He has a talent for building things, first structures out of paper cups and dominos and later sprawling, magical forts out of cardboard boxes. This was a very interesting and engaging coming of age story that focuses on the bond between two very different brothers. I really enjoyed it and it was one of my favorites in the book.

Afterward – Be sure to read the afterward, Mr. Hill has included a bonus story in here! ( )

I’m a pretty big fan of short stories. Instead of sitting down to a huge literary cake, short stories are a box of assorted chocolates that one can pick and choose from. You can eat just one at a time or gorge yourself – you’ve got options.

“20th Century Ghosts” quite a few tasty treats and no gross nougat center ones. (Though there were a couple of stories that I might liken to the type of chocolate one might eat and be OK with – but not be 100% sure what the filling was. Caramel, butter cream…? Without one of those handy charts, sometimes it’s hard to tell.) OK – I’m done with the candy thing. Sorry.

“Best New Horror” was, if a bit predictable, wonderfully disgusting and chill inducing. Made me think of that episode of the X-Files, “Home”, I think? Ruined Johnny Mathis songs for me. Very vivid - I could so clearly see the ending in my mind that I had to make sure that my husband and kids were nearby and looking just the way they should.

“Pop Art” is a sweet, sad story that I enjoyed a great deal, even if I felt like I was missing the main message of the piece. The humanity of the maybe not so human focus of the story was heartbreaking…and mirrors a small piece of the mina characters soul, one he keeps carefully hidden away.

“It is my belief that, as a rule, creatures of Happy’s ilk – I am thinking here of canines and men both – more often run free than live caged, and it is in fact a world of mud and feces they desire, a world with no art in it, or anyone like him, a place where there is no talk of books or God or the worlds beyond this world, a place where the only communication is the hysterical barking of starving and hate-filled dogs.”

I read this paragraph over and over – forgetting a moment about the rest of the story – and several people who receive far too much attention in our world today leapt to mind. As sad as it is, I could not agree more with the character/author.

“My Father’s Mask”? CREEPY! And? In my head, takes place in the same cabin where Joe Hill’s father’s book “Gerald’s Game” occurred. Only increasing the creepy factor.

This book is a very interesting mix of the creepy, gory, sad and thoughtful. A good example of the creepy/gory is this – in “You Will Hear the Locust Sing”:

“He still wore his former skin like a coat, the skin of who he had been when he was human. Four of his six legs poked through rents in the damp, beige, pimpled, mole-studded, tragic, reeking cape of flesh.” And later in this story, “The memory of that day in the dump made him a little sentimental for his father – they had had some good times together, and Buddy had made a decent meal in the end. Really, what else could you ask from a parent?”

So, add tragic-comic to that list as well.

I think, what will stay with me over time as I think of this book, is the thoughtful. The reflections on “What Is” among all the “What Ifs”.

From “The Black Phone”: “He did not sleep, he was not awake. Minutes did not pass, collecting into hours. There was no point in thinking about time in the old way. There was only one moment and then another moment, in a string of moments that went on in a quiet, deadly procession.”

Among all the sweets, something to savor.

Sorry. ( )

Wonderfully imaginative stories. Not all ghost stories, but most are at least odd, in a Twilight Zone kind of way. ( )