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NOS4A2
by Joe Hill
Joe Hill continues to deliver. He's so good, it' almost unfair. He's like the Ken Griffey Jr. of horror literature, if Griffey's dad had been Hank Aaron. NOS4A2 is as startlingly original a piece of horror as you'll find anywhere outside of [a:Clive Barker|10366|Clive Barker|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1430330407p2/10366.jpg]. But even more than Barker, Hill is a writer of the first order. He routinely finds new and dazzling ways to turn a phrase that aren't simply literary flourishes, but imaginative means of giving the reader a deeper understanding of the narrative moment. When he writes, "Her sanity was a fragile thing, a butterfly cupped in her hands, that she carried with her everywhere, afraid of what would happen if she let it go - or got careless and crushed it” that's not just poetry. You have a better, more precise understanding of what's going on with Vic McQueen because of that sentence. Which, of course, every writer is supposed to do that. But not every writer does or can or can do as well.
Speaking of Vic McQueen. A truly wonderful character. For long stretches of the book, it's hard to love her. You want her to grow up, chill out, be nicer to the people she loves. Hill slowly but surely draws you around to her side without ever losing what makes her special.. She by herself is a remarkable achievement.
Though the title hearkens to "nosferatu" and therefore, vampires, it is not a classic vampire book. No one sucks blood. But this is perhaps a necessary means of rescuing the vampire from his [b:Twilight|41865|Twilight (Twilight, #1)|Stephenie Meyer|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1361039443s/41865.jpg|3212258]/[b:A Discovery of Witches|8667848|A Discovery of Witches (All Souls Trilogy, #1)|Deborah Harkness|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1515365272s/8667848.jpg|13190160] vapidness, his romantic hero guise. No one's going to make a star-crossed lover out of Charlie Manx. He's a bad guy and he is even in a godless world.
NOS4A2 is long, almost seven hundred pages (is that even "long" anymore?) but from the beginning it grabs you and it doesn't let go. Hill has a knack -- a skill -- for manipulating the rhythm of his books. He knows what he's doing and where's he's going at all times. Rest comes when he needs you to rest not necessarily when the reader wants it, and when the action crescendos, you can feel his keyboard smoking.
And Christmasland! What an idea! The inspiration for this dark and twisted playground seems too obvious whenever you walk into a mall or your local everything store around late October/early November. It's as supremely clever and demented a jab at modern society as you're going to read anywhere.
This is what is so exciting about Hill. He's widening the horizon not just for himself but for every writer out there. What horror is, what it can do, is so much more expansive because he's making work.
This is my third book by Joe Hill, having read [b:Heart-Shaped Box|153025|Heart-Shaped Box|Joe Hill|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1328043955s/153025.jpg|1412280] and [b:20th Century Ghosts|373915|20th Century Ghosts|Joe Hill|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1388224829s/373915.jpg|1049073], both of which were excellent. He's written a lot since then. One wonders how far he is from writing the Great American Novel? Not that that's necessarily a goal of his. For a writer with his gifts and craft, he might just do it by accident.
Speaking of Vic McQueen. A truly wonderful character. For long stretches of the book, it's hard to love her. You want her to grow up, chill out, be nicer to the people she loves. Hill slowly but surely draws you around to her side without ever losing what makes her special.
Spoiler
It bothered me that she dies. Not because it didn't work or didn't make sense but because she goes through so much, she survives so much, she is so unhappy for almost the entire book, it seemed like the least that Hill could do was give her some time with her son and Lou. And then, when she does die to just leave that scene? "Out of the gas." was a good way to end the chapter, but it felt damn near disrespectful to end our association with Vic that way.Though the title hearkens to "nosferatu" and therefore, vampires, it is not a classic vampire book. No one sucks blood. But this is perhaps a necessary means of rescuing the vampire from his [b:Twilight|41865|Twilight (Twilight, #1)|Stephenie Meyer|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1361039443s/41865.jpg|3212258]/[b:A Discovery of Witches|8667848|A Discovery of Witches (All Souls Trilogy, #1)|Deborah Harkness|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1515365272s/8667848.jpg|13190160] vapidness, his romantic hero guise. No one's going to make a star-crossed lover out of Charlie Manx. He's a bad guy and he is even in a godless world.
NOS4A2 is long, almost seven hundred pages (is that even "long" anymore?) but from the beginning it grabs you and it doesn't let go. Hill has a knack -- a skill -- for manipulating the rhythm of his books. He knows what he's doing and where's he's going at all times. Rest comes when he needs you to rest not necessarily when the reader wants it, and when the action crescendos, you can feel his keyboard smoking.
And Christmasland! What an idea! The inspiration for this dark and twisted playground seems too obvious whenever you walk into a mall or your local everything store around late October/early November. It's as supremely clever and demented a jab at modern society as you're going to read anywhere.
This is what is so exciting about Hill. He's widening the horizon not just for himself but for every writer out there. What horror is, what it can do, is so much more expansive because he's making work.
This is my third book by Joe Hill, having read [b:Heart-Shaped Box|153025|Heart-Shaped Box|Joe Hill|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1328043955s/153025.jpg|1412280] and [b:20th Century Ghosts|373915|20th Century Ghosts|Joe Hill|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1388224829s/373915.jpg|1049073], both of which were excellent. He's written a lot since then. One wonders how far he is from writing the Great American Novel? Not that that's necessarily a goal of his. For a writer with his gifts and craft, he might just do it by accident.