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20th Century Ghosts
By Joe Hill. William Morrow, $24.95.
Before Joe Hill struck best-seller gold earlier this year with his debut novel, Heart-Shaped Box, he was known by horror fans for short stories that juxtaposed spooky tropes with a modern literary sensibility. Originally published in Britain two years ago, Hill’s other book, 20th Century Ghosts, is now available in the U.S. in an expanded edition, and amply demonstrates the author’s unique take on a genre made iconic by his father Stephen King.
The collection’s opener, “Best New Horror,” about a longtime editor of an anthology that goes by the story’s title, transforms from brainy metafiction into a scene of tangible terror (involving a disturbed writer, of course). Hill is particularly good at capturing fear from a victim’s point of view: “The Black Phone” articulates the terrible experiences of a kidnapped boy trapped in a basement covered with the blood of murdered children.
Most of Hill’s stories are plot-driven and brisk, deriving their power by establishing scenes of normalcy and then bringing in the ghosts, vampires and other monstrous entities. He excels at spiking his narratives with a potent mix of emotion and fright, especially in the title story, in which the narrator and a ghost haunting her favorite movie theater find themselves bound together in a mix of joy and sadness. “Voluntary Committal” doesn’t just give a spooky account of a teenager’s disappearance, but also conveys the feelings of his friends, who miss him. This is typical of the slipstream loveliness of Hill’s book: He consistently blurs the distinction between recognizable emotions and the downright eerie.
Time Out New York / Issue 629 : Oct 18–24, 2007
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