"The language of sin was universal: the original Esperanto... pick a sin we can both live with."
This modern-day fantasy novel gets full marks for creativity, but it's much more than just a fairy tale. It explores the nature of the deep secrets and desires we all conceal, and questions whether morality as we know it, truly exists, or whether it is simply a facade concealing what lies beneath. The premise of this capable novel is that rich kid Ignatius Perrish, who has always played second fiddle, almost literally, to his older brother, famous musician Terry, had a public breakup with his girlfriend, who mysteriously turns up dead. Now, the whole town thinks he did it, which is compounded by the fact that Iggy inexplicably starts to sprout horns (!), which seemingly have mysterious powers that compel others to reveal to him their most egregious sins and darkest desires, which results in Iggy finding the identity of the real killer... who happens to be a jealous childhood friend.
The horns also confer another power: when he makes physical contact with a person, Iggy has visions of their darkest deeds... including those of his brother, who was present the night his girlfriend was murdered. If you think these are desirable abilities, think again: Iggy soon finds that, in the wake of Merrin's murder, his parents actually hate him, have resented him since childhood, and want him to disappear forever, and that most other people in town are actually despicable, selfish, scheming caricatures of human beings, secretly desiring to steal, kill, and to commit every other perverted misdeed imaginable. Iggy apparently isn't immune himself: he may not have murdered his own girlfriend, but he's not above killing his despised grandmother, by releasing the brake on her wheelchair, sending her careening down a slope and crashing into a fence.
His good friend, or, at least, the person he thought was his childhood friend, is even more despicable than the other town folk. Iggy knew that in childhood, he committed many depraved acts, including lying to and cheating Iggy, but Iggy idolizes him because he believes that he once saved his life. It turns out that the friend had fallen from a fence and was impaled on a pitchfork, unbeknownst even to his own mother, incurring severe brain damage, which resulted in a type of mechanical psychopathy, a phenomenon known to have resulted on occasion from severe brain damage, which may explain his actions in childhood... and Merrin's murder when he realized that she never lusted after him, as he had believed.
Oh, and, also: like a true Slytherin, the horns seem to act like a radio transmitter which attract snakes, which mass to Iggy like devoted disciples. That may in part explain the casting of the movie version, which some people may be more familiar with than the novel: the 2012 celluloid version featured none other than "Harry Potter" himself, Dan Radcliffe, in the leading role.
Don't want to give away too much more, but this is an engaging and interesting read, with vivid imagery and (sometimes excessively graphic) descriptions. In an interview, Joe Hill said that the book was about a "decent enough young man... a guy who has always tried to do the right thing, only to see his whole life abruptly torn from him." Hill states that he made a concerted effort to ground his fantasy in real life, which shows, in his exquisite description of his scenes, which are replete with sights, sounds and emotions. As it turns out, "Horns" is the conflation of a couple of other novels, which he describes as less than good, at least nowhere near as much as the finished product. Although he may not make a direct appearance, Hill describes his conception of the devil as less historic as opposed to "a famous fictional depiction of a man who wakes up one morning as a cockroach."
A last point: I was unaware when I started reading that Joe Hill is actually Joseph King, the son of Stephen King, to whose writings the former's bear a striking resemblance. Hill is the recipient of the Ray Bradbury Fellowship and the William L. Crawford award for best new fantasy writer in 2006. His first book, 20th Century Ghosts, which consists of fourteen short stories, won the Bram Stoker Award for Best Fiction Collection, so the author is, not surprisingly, a rather accomplished one.
