20th Century Ghosts [Paperback]

Joe Hill (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 16, 2008

Imogene is young, beautiful . . . and dead, waiting in the Rosebud Theater one afternoon in 1945. . . .

Francis was human once, but now he's an eight-foot-tall locust, and everyone in Calliphora will tremble when they hear him sing. . . .

John is locked in a basement stained with the blood of half a dozen murdered children, and an antique telephone, long since disconnected, rings at night with calls from the dead. . . .

Nolan knows but can never tell what really happened in the summer of '77, when his idiot savant younger brother built a vast cardboard fort with secret doors leading into other worlds. . . .

The past isn't dead. It isn't even past. . . .

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

After the release of Hill's acclaimed novel Heart-Shaped Box, this collection of his short fiction, originally published in Britain two years ago made its way to the United States. Hill, the son of horror master Stephen King, runs a diverse gamut that includes some unapologetic chillers along the lines of the book's title story. Yet the essence of his material could best be described as a hybrid that connects the ironic twists from episodes of The Twilight Zone with the angst and vulnerability of childhood and adolescence. David LeDoux, whose previous audiobook credits include Douglas Coupland's Hey Nostradamus! and Sara Gruen's Water for Elephants, demonstrates an especially keen knack for capturing the cadence of teen and young adult male speech patterns, with equal parts deadpan cool and quivering tension. Hill's novella Voluntary Committal provides a sublime experience of jarring suspense and compelling family drama. Admittedly, a few of the briefer works may leave listeners longing for more fully developed story lines, but Hill consistently manages to evoke emotional responses and provoke unsettling questions, which makes for a worthwhile experience.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

“Alternately sad, scary, strange and at times even sweet, these tales will haunt you long after you’ve read them.” (Parade (a "Parade Pick") )

“[An] inventive collection . . . brave and astute.” (New York Times Book Review (Editor's Choice) )

“The selections range from the mundane to the surreal, with a strong emphasis on the kind of horror tale perfected by Ray Bradbury, Peter Straub and Stephen King.” (San Francisco Chronicle )

“[A] new take on the fantasy-horror genre...Highly recommended.” (The Sun Herald (Sydney, Australia) )

“This solid, inventive, scary collection of stories reveals a writer who has thought hard about the problematics of horror.” (New York Times on 20TH CENTURY GHOSTS )

“Each tale is unique, and the collection proves that Hill’s talent is not limited to horror, but extends well into the mainstream.” (Denver Rocky Mountain News )

“Each of these chilling tales arrests you from the opening sentence and leads you — trustingly, thanks to the simple mastery of the story-teller — into a place of gulping fear.” (Daily Mail (London) on 20TH CENTURY GHOSTS )

“Subtle and disturbing in equal measure.” (Coventry Telegraph on 20TH CENTURY GHOSTS )

“Irresistible stories.” (Evening Herald (Ireland) )

“[A] lovely, earnest collection of short fiction.” (Village Voice )

“[O]ne of the best [horror] collections of the year. Hill is a relative newcomer who consistently creates creepy, very disturbing stories.” (Locus )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks (September 16, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061147982
• ISBN-13: 978-0061147982
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (115 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #296,584 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

The author of the critically acclaimed Heart-Shaped Box and 20th Century Ghosts, Joe Hill is a two-time winner of the Bram Stoker Award, and a past recipient of the Ray Bradbury Fellowship. His stories have appeared in a variety of journals and Year's Best collections. He calls New England home.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

56 of 58 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fresh and True, November 8, 2007

By 

Brian Kaufman "Author/Book Lover" (Laporte, Colorado USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: 20th Century Ghosts (Hardcover)

Reading is a collaborative event. When the collaboration is good, the story resonates inside, touching on some emotion or history that the reader brings to the table. The very best stories are fresh and specific, though, so simply tapping into pop culture or tired archetypes won't work as an authorial technique. The story has to touch something deeper. It has to be true.

In bypassing pop clichés, the ending of a truly great story should be a surprise--not because of a trick, but because in telling the truth, the clichés get left behind.

I was three stories deep in Joe Hill's "20th Century Ghosts" before I decided that I was reading the freshest, most surprising, truest speculative fiction I'd read in decades. Each piece in this book is a gem. "Best New Horror" is a formulaic tale about an editor who's tired of formula stories. The last paragraph of the tale takes an exhilarating turn that struck me as poetic--completely reframing the story. "Pop Art" is the most unusual, touching piece of fiction I can remember. The title is a pun, and the story is absurd. How could it leave me in tears? "Better than Home" is an odd father-son love story. What is a story about baseball, uncontrollable saliva, dead bodies under a covered bridge and the joys of throwing peanut shells on the steps doing in a collection of horror tales? Fitting in quite nicely. Every tale here belongs.

Critics often say, "I couldn't put the book down." I put 20th Century Ghosts down a half-dozen times, asking myself, "How could this guy be so damned good?" Do yourself a huge favor. Buy 20th Century Ghosts and "begin collaborating" with this most talented author.

29 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars 15 wonderful, original and bizarre stories, October 16, 2007

By 

Armchair Interviews (Minneapolis, MN) - See all my reviews

This review is from: 20th Century Ghosts (Hardcover)

Joe Hill has received many, many awards. This book was originally published in Britain by PS Publishing in 2005, and it won the British Fantasy Award, The International Horror Guild Award, and the Bram Stoker Award for best collection. He is also a 2006 World Fantasy Award winner, for his novella Voluntary Committal, which appears in the same book. He is the author of Heart Shaped Box. Joe, 35, is the son of authors Stephen King and Tabitha King.

Twentieth Century Ghosts contains 15 of the most severely bizarre and original stories ever conceived. Hill has been influenced by Malamud and Kafka. These tales are the stuff of Twilight Zone, seriously creepy and macabre, full of spectral and often perverse violence. Any parent other than Stephen King might be very concerned.

I think my favorite was "Pop Art," a fable of an inflatable teen, and his best friend, who happens to have a nasty father with a vicious dog. Or maybe it was "Voluntary Committal," where seriously schizophrenic Morris Lerner, builder of elaborate basement cardboard box mazes, helps out his older brother by getting rid of a nasty pal.

"Most of my stories are really that simple. They're built around the collision of the real and the impossible..." from an interview with Joe Hill by Daniel M. Jaffe on the web site Biblio Buffet.

NOTE: Many of the stories feature threatened children. If this sort of thing bothers you, stay away.

Armchair Interviews says: Read this one with the lights on.

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Impressive Debut, Imaginative Short Fiction, October 18, 2007

By 

Andrew Shaffer "Author, Blogger" (Iowa) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: 20th Century Ghosts (Hardcover)

Before "The Heart-Shaped Box" hit the bestseller charts, Joe Hill released this book as a limited edition short story collection. It won numerous awards in 2005--Bram Stoker Award for Best Fiction Collection, British Fantasy Award for Best Collection, and the International Horror Guild Award for Best Collection--all before Hill was "outed" as the second son of novelists Stephen and Tabitha King.

The 14 stories included outshine his debut novel, featuring a wide variety of protagonists and situations outside of the norm in horror. In fact, not every story has supernatural elements--several stories here originally appeared in "literary" journals. "Abraham's Boys" is a post-modern twist on Van Helsing, while Hill updates Kafka with "You Will Hear the Locust Sing." The most disturbing stories, however, have no blood and gore, such as mind-freak "My Father's Mask." The novella that concludes this collection, "Voluntary Committal," is one of the most haunting novellas ever written. This edition also contains the short story "Bobby Conroy Comes Back from the Dead," which was not previously published in the UK edition.