A Lesson in Slashing

 

MY HEART IS A CHAINSAW by Stephen Graham Jones (to be released 8/31/21 by Gallery/Saga Press / 416 pp / hardcover,eBook,audiobook) 

Coming fresh off his very well received novel THE ONLY GOOD INDIANS, Jones delivers another winner with this homage to 80s slasher films...and thankfully this isn’t just a meta trip down memory lane. 

Set in a small rural town, high school senior Jade watches (and takes notes) as the rich move in and start to change the landscape. Gentrification is a horror show all its own, and Jade begins to see uncanny comparisons in everything happening around her she has witnessed countless times in the slasher films she has dedicated her life to. Trying hard to graduate and pass her history class, Jade writes extensive papers on the history of the slasher film while trying to deal with being the outcast at her school and live with her perpetually drunk father. We get to read these papers in between chapters, and one section comparing the set up of JAWS to a slasher film is quite interesting.

After suffering abuse at the hands of said father, and after dead bodies start to be discovered, Jade sees the writing on the wall and feels she has been called to train Letha, a new girl in town, on how to be a Final Girl in this developing real-life horror film, which she’s convinced will end in a massacre during the town’s annual 4th of July screening of JAWS at Indian Lake. 

Like any good slasher film, Indian Lake and the nearby camp have their own dark history, and as CHAINSAW unreels (if you will), there seems to be a different suspect each time a new corpse is discovered, which helps the third act of Jones’ novel to move at a breakneck pace (and don’t worry, slasher fans...the kill scenes get quite horrific). 

A loving tribute to the past with plenty of modern relevancy, MY HEART IS A CHAINSAW is a bit long-winded during its first half, but by the mid-point you’ll be cheering Jade and Letha on as the story takes a spin some may not see coming. Slasher fans will geek-out over the chapter titles, and this geek was thrilled to see 1981’s JUST BEFORE DAWN receive so much love (as well as a vital role in the novel). While much of this reminded me of Andre Duza and Wayne Simmons’ 2015 non-meta 80s homage VOODOO CHILD, CHAINSAW is a fine addition to the growing resurgence of slasher-themed horror novels.
4/5 stars.