Heart-Shaped Box O' Horrors

I don't normally read scary books. I've read just enough to be able to feel I've done my official Readers' Advisory duty-- lots of Anne Rice, a smattering of Steven King, a few zombie books, a little Poppy Z. Brite....hold on. I have apparently read quite a few scary books, but my mind has enacted some selective amnesia to shield me from my choices. Scary books give me nightmares, and keep me up at night, imagining every bump and thump to be a bloody-toothed madman come to murder me in my sleep. Somehow I don't think my cats are going to come to my rescue, either.

Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill scared the ever-lovin' be-jeebers out of me. I picked it up one evening, and actually put it down again because it seemed just too disturbing. But then I goaded myself on, with a whole "You can't read multiple books every month for the BAM Challenge, you indecisive weenie" line of logic. I started Heart-Shaped Box during the late afternoon on a Monday (because daylight keeps you safe, you know)and finished at 2 AM the same night. It seemed to make sense-- once you break the seal, you have to read the whole book straight through and then you will magically be protected from all spooky recriminations and nightmares that might ensue. No? I also have a signed pact with the monsters under my bed that if I keep my toes under the blanket, they will leave me be. No? Nobody else does this? Ah, well.

Joe Hill is determined to scare you stiff from the beginning. No slow build here-- Hill leaps right into the terrifying action within the first few chapters. Jude Coyne, a middle-aged rock star with a taste for macabre objects, buys a dead man's suit online. This suit is supposed to come with its own ghost-- the seller's step-father. Jude soon finds out that the item description was absolutely correct, but the ghost is only the tip of the horrifying iceberg. I won't say anymore about the plot, but I was pleased to discover that the first part of the book was scarier than the second half. My frayed nerves sang hallelujah, and I was actually able to go to sleep with the light off.

If you're a horror fan, or a devotee of films like The Ring and The Grudge, you should give Heart-Shaped Box a try. Hill's collection of short-stories, Twentieth-Century Ghosts, is also a good choice. I made it less than half-way through that one before I chickened out, so it's plenty scary. Now I am off to confront my obviously conflicted feelings about horror fiction-- I am sure that there will be therapy and possibly medication involved.