Horns by Joe Hill

Disturbingly good book

A few weeks ago, this movie starring Daniel Radcliffe showed up in my Netflix queue, under things Netflix thinks I might like. There are times when it’s better to read the book first, so as not to be prejudiced, and there are times when really it doesn’t matter. With Horns, by Joe Hill, I would say, it really doesn’t matter. The only downside to watching the movie first is that I kept imagining Ignacius Parrish as Daniel Radcliffe. Ig Parrish is described as being tall and skinny, with a receding hair line. Daniel Radcliffe does not have a receding hairline, is not skinny, and like many child stars,is a bit on the short side. Ig also doesn’t wear a hoodie anywhere in the book. It wouldn’t go with his tie. That said, the movie is fabulous. Absolutely go watch Horns (2013), unless spoilers bother you, in which case read the book.

The book, and the movie, tell the story of how Ig Parrish is dealing with the death of his girlfriend. Merrin Williams, played by Juno Temple, was raped an murdered, and Ig has been the only suspect for a year now. Ig is the second son of a famous horn player, and a Las Vegas show girl. His older brother is also pretty famous. Ig loves music, but can’t play an instrument. He’s been in love with Merrin Williams since he was sixteen years old, and now that she’s gone, he’s lost.

Merrin’s parents moved to Ig’s town after her older sister died from a particularly viscous strain of cancer. Watching Regan die slowly was hard on the family. So hard that they rarely speak of her. The result being that Ig knows nothing about Regan, except that her death inspired Merrin to become an oncologist.

Ig’s best friend is Lee Tourneau. They met Merrin around the same time, in their church. I have to say that I wish young men would wear “Team Ig” and “Team Tourneau” t-shirts, so we would know who is safe to talk to, and who is safe to avoid. From the time they meet Merrin, both Lee and Ig are guilty of treating her like an object to be traded like a necklace or a fire cracker. Merrin even says it outright “You think you trade him for me, Ig? Is that how you think all this worked? And do you think if he had returned the cross to me instead of you, then Lee and I would be-” she demands of Ig, understandably irate. Merrin has a point. Joe Hill, in Merrin’s voice has a point.

For the most part, Ig is very respectful of Merrin. He listens to her tirade, and he takes it to heart. He doesn’t worry about Merrin spending time with Lee, because Merrin is Ig’s girlfriend, and he knows she loves him. Maybe he should have worried, because from the moment we meet Lee, he has nothing respectful to say about women. During Lee’s first encounter with Merrin he tries to put a necklace on her, without out asking her first. His first conversation with Ig includes the gem “… I think it’s fair to say most pretty girls are snotty until they get their cherry popped. Because, you know, it’s the most valuable thing they’re ever going to have. …”

Wow. I really don’t know what to say to that.

We’ll later switch to Lee’s perspective, and see that he believes that everything Merrin says has a secret message just for him. She says one thing, that sounds innocent, and Ig takes it that way, but it really means something naughty about Lee. Sadly, there are plenty of men out there who believe what Lee believes. They think that way because society conditioned them too, because their parents didn’t teach them any better. I wish I could say that this kind of wrongheadedness is caused by a brain injury, but it isn’t. It’s learned, or perhaps, it is never unlearned. This is the kind of thinking that leads young men to insist that “Yes” means “I’m a slut”, and “No”, means “Yes, but I don’t want you to think I’m a slut, but I am.” The kind of thinking that leads young men to think that when a woman smiles or says “thank you”, she’s flirting, when really she just thought it was nice that he didn’t let the door swing shut on her face. It’s the kind of thinking that lead a man to demand that I tell him where I’m really from, because I was wearing a summer dress, and on a bus with no where to get away. It’s the kind of thinking that lead a classmate to spank me in the hall, in college, as a form of greeting. Or maybe he just liked my new jeans? Sadly, if you’re biologically female, you’ve probably thought of at least one instance when someone, probably biologically male, disrespected your boundaries, and it took less time than it did to read this overly long sentence.

Yes, boys and men like Lee Tourneau should come with a warning label, so that women and girls can avoid even looking at them.

Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist

If you’ve seen the movie trailer for Let the Right One In, then you already know Eli’s secret. Eli is a vampire. The Swedish novel of the same name was made into a movie in 2008 and now that I’ve read the book I’m not sure I want to see it. John Ajvde Lindqvist’s 2004 novel is disturbing if only because his protagonist is a twelve year old boy. In 1981 Oskar and his mother lived in an apartment in Blackeberg, an ordinary suburb where overweight boys from broken homes are severely bullied by other boys who are also from broken homes. There is nothing particularly remarkable about Blackeberg until the murder, and then Oskar’s life changes. He meets Eli.

Let the Right One in isn’t a mystery novel, because we know from the beginning that it was Håkan who killed the teenager. It only affects the lives of the other characters in the form of the curfew that Oskar and his schoolmates are forced to obey by their parents. To Oskar the death of a local boy is just more fodder for his grisly scrapbook. The curfew doesn’t affect Oskar because he doesn’t have any friends to visit or to go to the movies with.

The scrapbook of newspaper articles on murders is a morbid hobby to have, but not entirely unusual for a twelve year old boy. He’s daily beaten up, robbed and humiliated at school, so it’s easy to understand why he does it. He needs an outlet for his fear, and frustration. What I find disturbing is the graphic violence. When Håkan kills the teenaged boy in the woods we are with Håkan every step of the way. How he selects his victim, how he subdues his victim. All the details are there. Having seen the movie trailer, I know why Håkan has a funnel in his gym bag. It’s obvious. He’s helping the vampire. I just didn’t feel the need to know all the details of how Håkan was going to do it. In four hundred and seventy-two pages Eli needs to eat more than once, so we are witness to a few very violent deaths. We hear the planning, we feel the victim’s fear, and we are treated to the sounds and smells. Every encounter Oskar has with the school bullies, we are right there with him, asking ourselves, “Where is the teacher?!” In Charlene Harris’ Sookie Stackhouse mysteries we learn that the vampires were all turned very young. Queen of Louisiana Sophie-Anne was twelve, Pam was fourteen, Erik Northman sixteen, and Bill Compton was the oldest at twenty-four. So John Ajvide Linguist’s Eli shouldn’t shock me, frozen at twelve for the last two hundred some odd years. But Eli does. Oskar does. I sympathize with Oskar, and the fear that he has of what will happen if the bullies catch him out of sight of the teachers. Oskar is not an optimist. He doesn’t hold out hope that today Jonny, the ring leader, will have flu, and Oskar will be able to enjoy a peaceful day at school. He’s had all the fight beaten out of him. I think that is what disturbs me about this story, more than the graphic violence, more than the fact that Håkan’s first victim is twelve or thirteen years old. Oskar’s sense of helplessness is heartbreaking.

This is not a happy story. Håkan has led a hard life, and he isn’t catching any breaks now. Oskar is physically bullied at school, and no-one seems to have any idea what’s going on. Least of all his mother. The only classmate we get to know anything about, also comes from a broken home. Eli didn’t become a vampire by choice, and has a hard time adjusting to the modern era. Eli has never seen a Rubik’s cube, or a Sony Walkman, and has never heard a Kiss song. The only other people we get to know in the story are the town drunks. Virginia lives alone. We never find out who her daughter’s father is, or what happened to him, or even where her grown daughter lives. Gösta lives alone with several generations of very inbreed cats. Lacke has many drinking companions but only two people he would call friends.

There is a lot of unhappiness being spread around in the book. It’s worth the read, if one is somewhere warm and sunny, and surrounded by a loving family. John Ajvide Lindqvist is a masterful story teller who made me feel as though I were in Sweden in the fall of 1981. He’s just kind of gruesome and depressing.