2 posts tagged “heart-shaped box”
Heart-Shaped Box: A Novel by Joe Hill (2007, William Morrow). It is difficult for me to separate experience this novel without talking about Joe Hill's father, Stephen King, even though I know he and his publisher would really I rather not. His fault, though, for writing a horror novel that has some key elements that are obvious emulations of his father's style. As someone who has aped the master of horror's tricks and flourishes in my own work, I know it when I see it.
That said, Heart-Shaped Box is a good read. Not lump in your throat scary but it does have a breakneck pace that pushes you towards it's end. Hill, while not as adept with word choice and phrasing as I usually like in my reading, weaves a nice yarn and hits with several big surprises over the course of the nearly 400 pages. By the end, you are rooting for the unlikely protagonists and are never quite sure that they will make it.
It wasn't a deep read by any means and didn't leave me with any of the internal questions that much of my recent fiction has inspired but I liked it enough and it did inspire a reading playlist:
Mildly recommended for the ghost story fan.
That said, Heart-Shaped Box is a good read. Not lump in your throat scary but it does have a breakneck pace that pushes you towards it's end. Hill, while not as adept with word choice and phrasing as I usually like in my reading, weaves a nice yarn and hits with several big surprises over the course of the nearly 400 pages. By the end, you are rooting for the unlikely protagonists and are never quite sure that they will make it.
It wasn't a deep read by any means and didn't leave me with any of the internal questions that much of my recent fiction has inspired but I liked it enough and it did inspire a reading playlist:
- The Horror - Rjd2
- Your Ex-Lover Is Dead - Stars
- Giving Up The Ghost - DJ Shadow
- Bela Lugosi's Dead - Bauhaus
- Dead or Alive (1988 Boingo Alive Version) - Oingo Boingo
- Deadweight on Velveteen - Jose Gonzalez
- Walking Dead (Feat. Chester Bennington) - Z-Trip
- Dead Nigga Blvd (Pt. 1) - Me'shell Ndegeocello
- Wake Me When I'm Dead - The Brand New Heavies
- Dead Man Walking - Stiff Little Fingers
- Walking With A Ghost - Tegan and Sara
- Nights of the Living Dead - Tilly and The Wall
- One More Night (Your Ex-Lover Remains Dead) - Stars
- Ghost Ship in a Storm - Jim O'Rourke
- 2 More Dead - Rjd2
Mildly recommended for the ghost story fan.
Love Is a Mix Tape: Life and Loss, One Song at a Time by Rob Sheffield (Crown, 2007). I sat in Lulu's Beehive this morning with my coffee and banana bundt amongst a sea of laptops, a painting of ducks that looked suspiciously like a picture in my own flickr photostream, and a friend's ex-boyfriend with another girl I knew but couldn't place. While I wasn't the only one with white buds in my ears, I was the only person cracking the spine of a book. The women that kept walking into the cafe were all cleavage and caffeine and cigarettes and a welcome distraction from the chapters about grief in this love letter to music and marriage and life. I kept catching myself staring too long at these ladies and thought, either I need to get laid or get loved.
Probably both.
I kind of hate Rob Sheffield for making me feel like all the relationships I've had in the past have been inadequate. I have never loved anyone like he loved his Renee. He doesn't even hide the feelings he had for her in ebullient metaphor or shlocky hyperbole. He just tells it like it is and it is wonderful and amazing and way shorter than it had any right to be. While I did blow through the chapters focused on his loss and his dealing (or not dealing) because I don't quite have the emotional armor right now to handle more mourning, it's a beautiful love story all explained in terms I totally get -- song lyrics and beats and all the feelings and emotions that we associate with music.
There's probably a mix tape of my own that will come out of this that includes "Symptom Finger" by the Faint, "Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)" by The Arcade Fire, "Mushaboom (Postal Service Remix)" by Feist, "One More Hour" by Sleater-Kinney, "Keeping You Alive" by The Gossip, "Misread" by Kings of Convenience, and "Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometime" by Beck, almost all of which acted as my soundtrack this morning. Somehow, I don't own nor don't think I have ever even heard "One More Hour" by Sleater-Kinney and it is the one song he goes into detail about in the book that I want to know everything about. I can imagine the track in my head by his description. I can hear Carrie and Corin going back and forth. I've already attached an emotional response to it. I will love it. Even if I was deaf, I would love it.
Sheffield goes into great detail about the significance of Nirvana on his life and, in particular, "Heart-Shaped Box". I decided while reading that I'd add Joe Hill's (Stephen King's son) recent debut novel of the same name to my queue. While reading, I aped a line of his that he stole from some outfit a member of Pavement was wearing for a twitter message. I took down quotes, one for me that's a truth I'm going to keep for myself about love and loss and fear and the real agreement that people make to each other when they go into a commitment like marriage and one for you:
Highly recommended.
Probably both.
I kind of hate Rob Sheffield for making me feel like all the relationships I've had in the past have been inadequate. I have never loved anyone like he loved his Renee. He doesn't even hide the feelings he had for her in ebullient metaphor or shlocky hyperbole. He just tells it like it is and it is wonderful and amazing and way shorter than it had any right to be. While I did blow through the chapters focused on his loss and his dealing (or not dealing) because I don't quite have the emotional armor right now to handle more mourning, it's a beautiful love story all explained in terms I totally get -- song lyrics and beats and all the feelings and emotions that we associate with music.
There's probably a mix tape of my own that will come out of this that includes "Symptom Finger" by the Faint, "Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)" by The Arcade Fire, "Mushaboom (Postal Service Remix)" by Feist, "One More Hour" by Sleater-Kinney, "Keeping You Alive" by The Gossip, "Misread" by Kings of Convenience, and "Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometime" by Beck, almost all of which acted as my soundtrack this morning. Somehow, I don't own nor don't think I have ever even heard "One More Hour" by Sleater-Kinney and it is the one song he goes into detail about in the book that I want to know everything about. I can imagine the track in my head by his description. I can hear Carrie and Corin going back and forth. I've already attached an emotional response to it. I will love it. Even if I was deaf, I would love it.
Sheffield goes into great detail about the significance of Nirvana on his life and, in particular, "Heart-Shaped Box". I decided while reading that I'd add Joe Hill's (Stephen King's son) recent debut novel of the same name to my queue. While reading, I aped a line of his that he stole from some outfit a member of Pavement was wearing for a twitter message. I took down quotes, one for me that's a truth I'm going to keep for myself about love and loss and fear and the real agreement that people make to each other when they go into a commitment like marriage and one for you:
There's a reason for that. I leave it to you to figure out why."Most mix tapes are CDs now, yet people still call them mix tapes."
Highly recommended.
