A review by heroicfrenzies
My Heart Is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones

dark mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I didn’t read Stephen Graham Jones’s My Heart Is a Chainsaw until April 2022, 7 months after release. I know exactly how I spent those 7 months – I read some amazing books within that time! – but do I wish I squished this in there with them? Eh, yes and no. 

It was released on August 31st, amongst the waning yawns of summer, like attending those first days of school when the hallways still smell stale, anticipating all things Fall, Autumn, and Halloween. I could say this absolutely fits as a Halloween read, but honestly, reading it in the cool, muddy spring felt right. For some people, slashers and horror and weird are a year-long way of life, not a seasonal tradition toasted with pumpkin spice lattes, punch, or brewskies at lazily-costumed Halloween parties. 

I don’t know what it is about Halloween, autumn, and the like that monopolizes horror in the public consciousness. We have our seasonal stand-out exceptions, don’t get me wrong, but they are, notably, exceptions. 

So, despite loving this book as much as I did, why don’t I wish that I read it sooner? Glad you asked me, me, a few reasons: 

  1. If I did, I probably wouldn’t fully appreciate each book I’ve read individually, I like taking my time with my reads, even the rereads. 
  2. This book deals with some heavy shit, as can be inferred by the list of content warnings. And some people get a seasonal boost to their regular ol’ depression and sometimes heavy shit just feels a whole lot heavier. 
  3. It’s just a kind of book that’s really complemented by a muddy Michigan, I don’t know what to tell you, it just feels like it was the right time to read it. 

If My Heart Is a Chainsaw is ever adapted into a film (and fuck, do I wish it was), it would be a summer horror flick. The novel reaches its climax on the 4th of July and yet the summer within the book isn’t a hot, beachy summer, it’s a summer with cool nights and some frigid waters. This realistic Idaho summer is seemingly just as out of place for the genre as our protagonist main character, Jade. 

Jade would be hard-pressed to call herself a protagonist, she doesn’t see herself as the ‘final girl’ in her beloved slasher flicks, and that leads to her driving motivation: to help prepare the new girl, the real ‘final girl’-to-be, for the slasher film currently taking place in the small Idaho town of Proofrock. 

Whereas most final girls are the intuitive, reserved type who get good grades and live in the perfectly manufactured safety of middle-class suburbia, Jade is a half-Native teen (and even that is presented as ‘imperfect’ because she doesn’t have ties to her Native family, she’s not enrolled, and she’s not even quite sure what tribe, band, or nation she’s from) obsessed with slashers. She has very badly dyed hair and instead of modest skirts or practical jeans, she mostly just wears her work overalls and big-ass combat boots. She’s a greasy horror girl that almost definitely has some kind of infected facial piercing, maybe a self-pierced lip ring. [So, while muddy spring was a great time to read this, I think a better time would have been like, 15 years ago when I was a 17-year-old, mixed-race, teenage horror freak in the suburbs of Detroit, but it’s okay, Mr. Jones, this one’s for the next gen of teenage weirdos, I forgive you, promise]. 

The point is, is that she doesn’t fit in – not with the kids at school, not with any locals, not with her family – what family she has. She’s a loner and what she has, and has a lot of, is movies. I’m almost embarrassed by how much I identify with this fictional character. Even right down to the fact that the movies are on tape. [At work, when we get donations of VHS tapes, everybody knows to save them for me, I always say, no, horror movies must be watched on tape, it MATTERS, it’s just the right VIBE, dude.] 

To be honest, I’m having a difficult time reviewing this, are there issues with it? Sure, if you’re a certain kind of reader. 

As somebody who’s never read Ernie Cline (but may or may not know of him from his spoken word days), I’ve seen some reviews that complain about the frequent references to slashers in this book, drawing comparisons between it and Cline’s work. But even though I recognized most of the references, those references are part of the storytelling. Even if you’re not familiar with a specific reference, there’s enough context in the book, especially with the frequent short essay chapters about specific slasher tropes. The references complement the story while also acting as a form of characterization for our main character. The references are what give the story framework if you’re unfamiliar with the genre. I will say, though, that I was glad to find a list of the referenced movies online. 

Now, this is where we get into some spoiler-ish territory: 

There’s a problem in fiction, especially thrillers generally, where girls and women are sexually assaulted to plot-up the book. Does a man need motivation? Let’s assault his wife/daughter/sister. Does a woman need to be a badass? Well, we can’t have that without some incident that brings out her inner badassdom. And there’s a difference between sexual assault as a cheaply rendered plot device, and a book that is about sexual assault. 

This book is about sexual assault. 

This book is about a teenager coming to terms with a traumatic event from her past the only way she knows how. The event itself isn’t directly acknowledged of her own volition though, instead she’s accosted by a few people who truly have her well-being at heart, and this itself is nothing but another attack, forcing her to make herself vulnerable in circumstances that they do not allow her to control.


The implication, however, that people can read a letter or essays, such as in this book, and just be able to obviously tell that somebody had been sexually assaulted is flawed. Can things be inferred based on topics, approaches, and perspectives? Sure, but what the initial character does – alerting authorities based on her intuition and nothing else, not once speaking to Jade – is harmful. Accidental, thoughtless harm, sure, but harm nevertheless. I think this exchange in the book, as uncomfortable and heartbreaking as it was to read, was amazing writing. It’s also morally complicated. Everybody involved was trying their hardest to do their best by Jade, and in the moment only presented her with a hostile, untrustworthy environment. And, in the process, it also puts the reader in an uncomfortable position. Do we choose to read Jade as this cool, slasher-obsessed teenager? This hurting, traumatized teenager? Do we read her as a victim? It may seem silly to talk about characters being able to give readers consent, but how do we, as readers, look over a character’s shoulder, peer into their brain, and then categorize them against their genre-savvy will, into a position of forced vulnerability?


I don’t know! Maybe that’s a question for another day.


In the meantime, however, I highly recommend this book. I don’t think any specific movies are required watching to be able to get a handle on the subject or what the book is doing. If you wanted just a single title to get you familiar with the genre, I’d go with Scream (1996). It’s also a self-aware slasher, but it’s accessible, digestible, and also just fun as hell. 
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