I think it was Plato who said that men and women started out as one being but then Zeus got jealous and split them apart so that they will spend the rest of their lives looking for their other half. At the heart of Joe Hill’s new book, Horns, is a story about a man who discovers that without his one true love, he is lost. He could devolve into the darkest part of himself and become a real demon. It’s only April so it might be a little premature to say this, but I’m gonna go ahead and say that HORNS is probably one of the best books I’ve read this year. I was riveted by it. I was in turns fascinated, horrified, repulsed, awed, and at a couple of points throughout the book, I had to look away from the pages because I was choked up and furiously blinking back tears. For a story about a guy sporting actual horns from his temple, it’s dark, funny, romantic, scary, and best all, real. I am totally in love with Joe Hill’s work. I’ve read everything he’s ever written, even the short stories and the comics. When I see an anthology featuring Joe Hill, I snatch it up (in the zombie antho The New Dead, there’s one that features an old-timey circus, Twitter, and of course, zombies). As much as I loved Heart-Shaped Box, I gotta say that HORNS is better.

Our hero Ig Perrish, the son of a Leonard Cohen-type legend and a showgirl, is an all-around good guy. He’s not as handsome or as talented as his older brother Terry, the host of a late-night show and a musician, but he is happy with his lot in life. His girlfriend, Merrin, is beautiful, kind, and going to school to become a doctor and they have been in love with each other since they were fifteen years old. For as long as Ig could remember, his heart has always belonged to Merrin and he has never wanted anyone else. The two of them meet at church when Ig notices a pretty redhead playing with her cross necklace so that it catches light and flashing it at Ig in what appears to be Morse code. Ig is convinced that he and Merrin are going to get married, have children, live happily ever after, and die in each other’s arms in their sleep. And then one day, Merrin, universally loved by man and critters, is brutally raped, murdered, and everyone in town believes that Ig did it, even his own friends and parents. All of a sudden, everything in Ig’s life starts to go wrong. He drops out of college, starts drinking heavily, shacks up with his high school’s skank, refuses to get a job, and spends every waking moment obsessing about his dead girlfriend. It gets even worse when he wakes up with a bitching headache, puts his hand up to his temples, and finds protrusions from his skull. He looks in the mirror and yep, horns.

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