My Heart Is A Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones (Pub. 8/31/21) Hey, beloved BQ visitors.....we're thrilled to bring you a rarity for this little ole blog.....
Here's a hot-off-the-presses, breaking news review of a red hot read that just hit the racks on this very day, With some mixed feelings thrown in, we pretty much did love this book overall, so here's the detailed (but spoiler free) complete rundown......
First important thing you should know........ even with the tantalizing subject matter of slasher movies and "final" girls, nobody should approach this book thinking it's going to be a fun, breezy, lightning fast, hot buttered popcorn treat to read.
On the contrary, it bears the heavy density (and sometimes obtuseness and pretension ) of literary fiction, a slow, tortuous journey through the troubled mind of its lead character.
And unless readers come to this novel pre-equipped with an encyclopedic knowledge of the last 60 years of slasher/splatter films along with their casts and director credits, they might consider keeping IMDB cued up on a separate device for instant references as they read..
If you're willing to take the plunge (and as a lifelong hardcore movie buff we couldn't possibly resist), you're in a for a deeply thought out, deeply disturbing 10 course meal not only in slasher lore but in ALL the American ills - the mistreatment of Native Americans, the toxic economic disparity in today's society, systemic racism and horrific, hidden sexual abuse of children.
Half Indian 17 year old Jade lives an internally solitary life as her lakeside community's oddball outcast resident juvenile delinquent. As an escape from all of those who abuse, mock, torment and chastise her, she lives in her own private world governed by the tropes of all the slasher movies she knows by heart (such as the "Halloween", "Friday The 13th" and "Nightmare On Elm Street" series.)......films that she worships as practically Holy Scripture.
With proof of the mysterious deaths of two young tourists, Jade's convinced herself that her town now plays host to a genuine slasher with a revenge-fueled agenda and that a blood-soaked body count is imminent - most likely during the town's big annual 4th of July celebration on the lake.
She's even picked out and anointed the girl she's designated as the Final Girl - the traditional Last Girl Standing in every slasher movie. In this case it's the stunningly perfect Letha Mondragon, daughter of one of the ultra wealthy newcomers to the town who are building their own mini-kingdom of McMansions along the lake shoreline.
Along the way to the expected spectacular slaughter bloodbath (which really has more in common with the 2010 remake of "Piranha" than a slasher flick), Jade tries to desperately orchestrate events according to her slasher precepts - including grooming and preparing Letha to assume her role of the Final Girl who steps up to do battle with the monstrous killer.
But as in real life and horror films alike, things go awry for Jade, leading her to confront amidst literally a sea of carnage, all of the horrors in her life, especially the very worst of her inner torments.
As we already mentioned in this review, this is no easy-peasy, walk-in-the-park to read, even though it will no doubt make you smile and nod at the hundreds upon hundreds of slasher-splatter film references (some going all the way back to the genre's roots in the 1960's Italian gorefests like Mario Bava's '"Bay Of Blood") "My Heart Is A Chainsaw" is a quite the staggering, ambitious effort, equal to any of Stephen King's 600 page door-stoppers. True, it does sometimes bear the labored overwriting that afflicts uppercrust literary fiction, but as a lifelong consumer of horror novels and films, we still found it a 4 star feast to behold. (****)>
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