20th Century Ghosts
Joe Hill
PS Publishing (UK). 360p.
£15/$25
ISBN: 1904619460 (Also hardcover and limited editions)
(October 2005)
This may be your first encounter with a writer named Joe Hill, but it most
certainly will not be the last. This remarkable, not-to-be-missed debut
collection may well herald the beginnings of a notable career. Christopher
Golden, in his introduction, refers to Hill's stories as "subtle", but they are
more noteworthy for their perfectly eloquent lucidity than understatement. Often
laced with nostalgia reminiscent of Bradbury and graced with the irresistible
imaginative tug of Stephen King at top form, Hill's stories are more skewed and
surreal than either writer's and usually fall further into weird. "The Cape"
even lulls you with Bradburyian charms then gleefully skewers you with Kinglike
wickedness. Hill also has a knack for reviving the jaded sensibilities of the
veteran horror reader. The title tale is a ghost story that delivers the
unexpected for those who have read plenty of ghost stories and think they know
what to expect. The burned-out editor of an annual anthology discovers an
astonishing story and its distressing author in "Best New Horror". The ending
may be inevitable, but the tale still entrances. In the accomplished novella,
Voluntary Committal, two teenage boys deal with the reality of a terrible
accident. Reality may be mutable and memory can be sealed "behind a wall of
carefully laid mental bricks," but such a wall may not last forever. In the
fabulist "My Father's Mask", a family visits Masquerade House, a place where
it's always Halloween, surrounded by a deep dark woods "where grown-ups cannot
go." "Pop Art" can be labeled as "magic realism", but it is also a moving yet
humorous story about friendship and death. Joe Hill. Read him.
(-- First published in Fantasy Magazine #1, November 2005)