Oh, and he seems to attract snakes as well. The horns are quite real, and seem to give Ig the power of persuasion: People who encounter Ig tell him their deepest, darkest secrets, and with just a nudge, Ig can get them to act on their impulses. Ig is now a pariah, despised by all, wandering aimlessly through the shambles of his life… until the day he wakes up semi-drunk and quite hungover, and finds horns growing out of his head. Ig is widely believed to be guilty of the crime, but the case was dismissed without ever clearing his name. In Horns, Ig Perrish lost the love of his life when his one-and-only Merrin was savagely raped and murdered a year earlier. Not what I expected when I picked this horror novel to enjoy during the spooky month of October. A tragic one, to be sure, but lovely enough in its own way to bring tears to my eyes. Want to know a secret about Joe Hill’s Horns?Īt its heart, Horns is a love story. Being good and praying for the best got him nowhere. 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.

Everyone, it seems, including God, has abandoned him. Nothing Ig can do, nothing he can say, matters. 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. The only suspect in the crime, Ig was never charged or tried. Ig had it all, and more-he had Merrin and a love founded on shared daydreams, mutual daring, and unlikely midsummer magic.īut Merrin’s death damned all that. 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. But there was nothing natural about the horns, which were all too real. A mental breakdown would have been the most natural thing in the world.

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. and a pair of horns growing from his temples.Īt first Ig thought the horns were a hallucination, the product of a mind damaged by rage and grief.

He woke up the next morning with a thunderous hangover, a raging headache. Ignatius Perrish spent the night drunk and doing terrible things. Today, we’re looking at Horns by Joe Hill: Welcome to the October (Halloween!) pick for the Fields & Fantasies book club! Each month or so, in collaboration with my wonderful co-host Diana of Strahbary’s Fields, we’ll pick one book to read and discuss.