Horns (Audio)

by Joe Hill
read by Fred Berman
(New York: HarperAudio, 2010)
MP3 Audiobook, 1.37 GB, 13.8 Hours, Fiction
ISBN: 9780061768026, US$39.99

ABCD Rating: ACQUIRE

From the Cover: Ignatius Perrish spent the night drunk and doing terrible things. He woke up the next morning with 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 spent the last year in a lonely, private purgatory, following the death of his beloved, Merrin Williams, who had been raped and murdered under inexplicable circumstances. A mental breakdown would have been about 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. But Merrin’s death damned all that. The only suspect in the crime, Ig was never charged or tried. And he was never cleared. Nothin Ig can say or do matters. Everyone it seems, including God, has abandoned him. Everyone, that is, except for the devil inside. … Now Ig is possessed of a terrible new power—a macabre talent he intends to use to find the monster who killed Merrin and destroyed his life. It’s time for a little revenge … it’s time the devil had his due …

My Review: As I’ve said in a past post due to a difficult quarter and dealing with some depression, I’ve been behind in posting reviews on my blog and given that it’s been nearly a month since I’ve finished listening to Horns, I’m going to have to do my level best to try and recreate some of what I was thinking at the time.

So, I am an unrepentant fan of Joe Hill, and have been ever since I got my grubby little mitts on Heart-Shaped Box. He is a masterful storyteller and his ability to craft a gripping tale definitely surpasses his father’s ability to spin a yarn … at least recently. Given all that Hill’s most recent novel, Horns, is a very interesting story and, I have to say, highly original. Hill deftly manages the fine line between the horrific and the philosophical quite nicely treading just enough in both realms to make the story equal parts compelling and thought-provoking (and, just like his father, Hill doesn’t shy away from going for the jugular and gross out when the story requires it).

If I had to say what I enjoyed the most about Horns, I’d have to say it was the way in which Hill doles out the information and plot points in the story. He gives his Readers (and in this case Listeners) quite a bit of information up front regarding who did what, and then a lot of the suspense comes from how the resolution is going to work itself out, because in a story like this, you know that it might not have a happy ending, but then it could, but then again … they sometimes don’t. What, you ask, is the outcome? Well, I can’t tell you that … that’d be cheating. (And, that is one of the key reasons I love audiobooks so much … the compulsion to turn to the last page(s) has to be thrust aside because there is no way one can “turn to the last page” in an audiobook … at least not easily.)

As for this particular audiobook edition, I enjoyed everything about the story, but I’m still not sold on reader Fred Berman. There was something about his voice that didn’t sit with me and with the tenor of the story. Personally, I would have preferred Stephen Lang (who read the audiobook of Heart-Shaped Box) or Campbell Scott (who reads The Shining) or even Raúl Esparza (Under the Dome’s reader). Berman just didn’t seem to have the weight behind his voice that a book like Horns needs.

Other than that, though, Horns is a brilliant book in every way, and I cannot recommend it highly enough. (I’ll avoid any “devilishly good” or “helluva good read” puns at this point…)

For other reviews of Horns, check out reading & writing by pub light and The Novel Bookworm.