Horns: A Novel |  | Author: Joe Hill
Publisher: William Morrow
Category: Book
List Price: $25.99
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Rating:  154 reviews
Sales Rank: 9569
Media: Hardcover
Edition: First edition.
Pages: 384
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 9 x 6.2 x 1.3
ISBN: 0061147958
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
EAN: 9780061147951
ASIN: 0061147958
Publication Date: March 1, 2010
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Amazon.com Review
Amazon Best Books of the Month, March 2010: Best known for his terrifying (really) debut novel, Heart-Shaped Box, and his famous dad, Joe Hill continues to make a name for himself with Horns, a dark, funny exploration of love, grief, and the nature of good and evil. Ignatius William Perrish wakes up bleary and confused after a night of drinking and "doing terrible things" to find he has grown horns. In addition to being horribly unsightly, these inflamed protuberances give Ig an equally ugly power--if he thinks hard enough, he can make people admit things (intimate, embarrassing, I-can't-believe-you-just-said-that details). This bizarre affliction is of particular use to Ig, who is still grieving over the murder of his childhood sweetheart (a grisly act the entire town, including his family, believes he committed). Horns is a wickedly fun read, and reveals Hill's uncanny knack for creating alluring characters and a riveting plot. Ig's attempts to track down the killer result in hilariously inappropriate admissions from the community, heartbreaking confessions from his own family, and of course, one hell of a showdown. --Daphne Durham
Product Description
Joe Hill has been hailed as "a major player in 21st-century fantastic fiction" (Washington Post); "a new master in the field of suspense" (James Rollins); "one of the most confident and assured new voices in horror and dark fantasy to emerge in recent years (Publishers Weekly); a writer who "builds character invitingly and plants an otherworldly surprise around every corner" (New York Times). This gifted and brilliantly imaginative author catapulted to bestsellerdom with the chilling Heart-Shaped Box and cemented his reputation with the prizewinning volume of short fiction 20th Century Ghosts. At last, the New York Times bestselling author returns with a relentless supernatural thriller that runs like Hell on wheels. . . . Ignatius Perrish spent the night drunk and doing terrible things. He woke up the next morning with a thunderous hangover, a raging headache . . . and a pair of horns growing from his temples. At first Ig thought the horns were a hallucination, the product of a mind damaged by rage and grief. He had spent the last year in a lonely, private purgatory, following the death of his beloved, Merrin Williams, who was raped and murdered under inexplicable circumstances. A mental breakdown would have been the most natural thing in the world. But there was nothing natural about the horns, which were all too real. Once the righteous Ig had enjoyed the life of the blessed: born into privilege, the second son of a renowned musician and younger brother of a rising late-night TV star, he had security, wealth, and a place in his community. Ig had it all, and more—he had Merrin and a love founded on shared daydreams, mutual daring, and unlikely midsummer magic. But Merrin's death damned all that. The only suspect in the crime, Ig was never charged or tried. And he was never cleared. In the court of public opinion in Gideon, New Hampshire, Ig is and always will be guilty because his rich and connected parents pulled strings to make the investigation go away. Nothing Ig can do, nothing he can say, matters. Everyone, it seems, including God, has abandoned him. Everyone, that is, but the devil inside. . . . Now Ig is possessed of a terrible new power to go with his terrible new look—a macabre talent he intends to use to find the monster who killed Merrin and destroyed his life. Being good and praying for the best got him nowhere. It's time for a little revenge. . . . It's time the devil had his due. . . .
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 154
 just a great funny touching wild book January 9, 2010
Konrad Baumeister
45 out of 53 found this review helpful
Ig Perrish wakes up one morning with a hell of a hangover and discovers that he has grown horns on his head. He has become a (the?) devil, has powers and thus opportunities (but also downsides) he didn't have before, and within a short time, he knows just what he wants to do with them - take revenge for a hideous wrong. How best to do it?
That's simple enough, an amusing premise for something of a supernatural thriller, but Joe Hill does more than just exploit that - a lot more.
First of all, the book is just crazy funny. Hill has a great ear for dialogue, his scenes are often completely absurd and yet somehow believeable, and the situations are, after all, ridiculous on their face, but he makes it all work.
Second, his plotting (for such a strange book) is tight. The heart of the book is something of a murder mystery, and Hill uses flashbacks from various characters to good effect, putting the pieces of the puzzle in place in a pretty clever way.
Third, there is something more than just a wild ride for his characters here - there is actually a touching love story, and the revelations behind various motivations and actions are really well done. The last 50 pages or so, and especially the last 20, are in fact just downright intimate - and all without seeming mawkish or losing the flavor of the very strange ending.
It's a crime story, a horror story, a love story - frankly, it's a lot like something Steven King would have written 20 years ago. It's excellent.
This year's hottest release. February 21, 2010
J. Shurin (London)
14 out of 19 found this review helpful
When Ig Perrish wakes up after a night of drunken self-pity, he finds a pair of enormous horns sprouting from his forehead. This is only the first in a series of uncomfortable transformations: people share uncomfortable secrets with him, he can flawlessly imitate other voices, snakes gaze at him longingly and there's even a bit of breathing fire.
The demonization of Ig Perrish is only the latest thing to go wrong for him. Ig's been the town outcast for a year - ever since his girlfriend was found raped & murdered on the edge of town. Merrin had just dumped Ig (in public), so the popular sentiment has varied between 'string him up' and 'set him on fire first'.
Ig quickly discovers that the horns (and everything that goes with them) aren't a full-on curse, as much as they are a mixed blessing. With their eerie, mind-altering abilities, it doesn't take him long to discover the truth behind Merrin's death. The challenge, however, is in what he can do about it.
In Horns, Joe Hill writes a deliciously & aggressively blasphemous book. The town's stockpile of good Christians (including the pastor) are quickly revealed as unpleasant hypocrites. The role of God and prayer are challenged from start to finish - with Ig repeatedly reaching the same conclusion: while God is an absentee parent, the Devil's got humanity's best interests at heart. Perhaps the high point is Ig's own sermon on the mount - at the moment he accepts his fate, he declaims his new vision to an audience of snakes. The speech is tender and hilarious (the Devil is pro-Love and anti-polyester).
But the sympathy for the Devil shtick isn't where Hill's true daring comes into play. In Ig, Joe Hill has created an omniscient, omnipotent, invulnerable protagonist. And, yet Horns is neither boring nor predictable. Just because Ig knows everything doesn't mean he's put it all together - he's got the power of the Devil, but the mind of an ordinary guy. The mystery is unravelled one tantalizing piece at a time, culminating in a sequence of genuine surprises and revelations - and one hell of an explosive climax.
Horns is an absolutely brilliant piece of work that snared me from the first pages. Initially in awe ("How could this possibly keep up for an entire book?"), I was very quickly absorbed in Ig & Merrin's story. For a book that stars the Devil, this is a very human drama. And for a second novel, Hill's already written his name in the (five-pointed) stars.
Sympathy for the Devil March 10, 2010
Susan Tunis (San Francisco, CA)
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
"Ignatius Martin Perrish spent the night drunk and doing terrible things." So begins Joe Hill's excellent sophomore novel, Horns. As the straightforward title suggests, the novel has a simple, high-concept premise. After the aforementioned night of doing terrible things, Ig Perrish wakes up the next morning with a pair of horns growing out of his head. His reaction is typical enough. After the immediate shock of it, he concludes he's hallucinating--and either way, he'd better see a doctor.
It is with these initial interactions, with his girlfriend, the folks in the doctor's office, and most disturbingly with his family, that Ig makes several unpleasant discoveries. No one reacts to the horns. Rather, they're compelled to share their deepest, darkest, sickest secrets. Trust me; you don't want to hear the most vile thoughts of a stranger on the street--much less those of your grandma!
Just when this grotesque show-and-tell is beginning to feel a bit old, Hill moves on and dives into the meat of his story, Ig's story. One year prior, Ig's childhood sweetheart, the love of his life, was violently murdered. The crime was never solved, and Ig is widely believed to be the murderer. Very widely believed, he is to learn. Hill's novel ultimately spans several literary genres. It's a supernatural thriller, a murder mystery, a coming of age story, and a dark comedy all rolled into one. And the novel succeeds quite well on all counts.
As the story drew to its conclusion, the thing that was very noticeable to me was how elegantly constructed the novel was. It was like a perfect puzzle, with different clues and unanswered questions salted throughout. But by the end, everything came together in a way that wasn't so much neat as inevitable. It was elegant. And it was emotionally satisfying. And it was darn entertaining, which is just about the highest praise I can offer.
P.S.: For those of you who realize there is a coded message on the end papers of the novel, but are too, uh, busy to decipher the message, I'm putting the solution in the comments section of my review.
Metal! May 25, 2010
Lolthgaar
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Joe Hill nailed this book. I've read and loved everything else by him, and this book surpassed my expectations of his awesomeness. It's an entertaining, moving, and thought-provoking book filled with real characters that I could connect and relate too. Plus, I love Joe Hill's rock and roll fueled writing process: I think the musical influences shine through to the story and enforce the plot and atmosphere to make a something that towers over other novels. I can't wait for whatever Joe Hill is going to do next.
Dare I call it a love story? June 10, 2010
OH's Meowmie (Washington, DC United States)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I really enjoyed this book. At first I was put off by the fact that this was not in the same style as Heart Shaped Box. Once I quit trying to compare the two, and settled in, Horns really grabbed me and took off. I found the story a wonderful mix of humor, horror, mystery, and love story. This book made me laugh out loud as well as cry. I am really looking forward to whatever Mr. Hill decides to publish next.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 154
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