Heart-Shaped Box

A few months ago I proclaimed that I was swearing off horror, but I was intrigued by the premise of Heart-Shaped Box, by Joe Hill. First of all, the title is a grabber if you're a Nirvana fan, for that is one of their better songs. Secondly, Hill is the son of Stephen King, and though he has studiously avoided cashing in on the connection (dropping the King part of his name, for example) he shows that the apple doesn't drop far from the tree. This is right up there with his father's best work.

The premise is simple and is told economically in the first few chapters. A death-metal rock star, Judas Coyne, collects morbid curios, such as human skulls and paintings by John Wayne Gacy. When he sees that someone is selling a ghost on an Internet auction site, he can't help but buy it. The ghost inhabits an old suit, like the kind Johnny Cash used to wear. It arrives in the titular box, and bad things start to happen almost immediately. Turns out it wasn't just by coincidence that he bought that suit.

What sets this book above other horror novels are primarily the characters of Coyne and his girlfriend, a Goth chick and former stripper. He calls her Georgia, because that's what state she comes from (a habit he has with his girlfriends). Coyne is fifty-four and his band has broken up after two members died, and he wiles away his time on his country estate fixing up an old Mustang and raising two German Shepherds. Every detail about him seems right, from Coyne's attitudes about life in general to his trip to the Howard Stern Show. Georgia is also a vivid creation, a girl who stripped under the name Morphine, but pines for her old grandma back home.

The ghost in the story is also quite a character, a hypnotist. Hill renders him quite eerily, and he has a habit of popping up in some unusual places (especially over the airwaves, or sending an email from the domain name of box.closet.net). When Judas and Georgia flee their home the ghost follows them in a pickup truck, which I'm guessing doesn't need gas.

A lot of novels about ghosts and spirit worlds are ruined by the endings, which have some sort of cataclysmic event with rules that the author seems to make up on the spot. Hill veers close to that, but I found I was following along and understanding what was happening, and it was a very satisfying conclusion.

Stephen King must be very proud.