Day 53: Horns (Part 3 of 3)

let me start this by saying two things; one, horns is without a doubt my favorite book this year, beating out gaiman's neverwhere and two, it is one of my favorite books ever.


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ignatius parish is a man whose longtime girlfriend is raped, killed, and left near the town of gideon, new hampshire's abandoned foundry.

this causes the town to, somewhat naturally, presume that ig killed his girlfriend and he essentially becomes an outcast; untrusted, and, really, lost to his own devices. one day after a binge of drinking ig goes to the place where his girlfriend was killed, passes out, and wakes up with horns on his head.

from here things go out of control; ig realizes the horns give him the ability to have people tell him their darkest secrets, and as time goes on ig becomes more attuned to his newly gained powers. on top of this ig starts to unravel the mystery of who really killed his love and starts  the process of going after him.

i went into the novel thinking it would be a horror novel, but surprisingly it wasn't (at least to me). it had it's moments, and of course a man becoming a devil (the devil? lucifer morningstar?) is completely off the wall, but the book was heartbreaking, exciting, funny at times (although darkly), and just all out amazing.

by the end of the novel i really felt for the man who was wrongly blamed, hated the man who killed is only real love, and thought more about what really is moral. what really defines good and evil, what really defines, and drives human nature.

one of the best books i have yet to read, to me much better than hill's first novel in 2007 (heart shaped box). i loved the story, loved the way it made me think.

thank you joe hill.

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on a related note: i read hill's new short, "twittering from the circus of the dead" (found in the new anthology, the new dead), and although the whole idea of using the 140 character twitter format was odd at first, i really, really enjoyed it. gruesome. this short was, without a doubt, a horror story.