Hunchback ‘88

by Christopher Norris

Hunchback ‘88 is a book... or a novel mirror of haunted house ferox... or a puzzle in no rush to be solved... or a plot dug in ocean mist... or a moment that exists between flesh-stab and blood... or a cannibal moon of terror... or an oozing artifact... or pus to the slasher night... or youth coming apart... or an eye-rolling task of which none the dumb words above help make it sense.

Genres: Horror, Fiction

432 pages, Paperback

First published February 14, 2018

About the author

Shut up.

Reviews

[Christopher Norris · Rating 1 out of 5]

Garbage.

[Tom]

I don’t think I’m a good reader, generally. As I age I slip away from repeat-reading, close-reading, to one-and-done-reading, distant-reading, in the ellipsis between me and the text all manner of interlopers and distractions make home and wave hello and rub themselves raw. A choice phrase imposes, the mind wanders, is bundled into an unmarked van, associates, the succeeding words or pages are lost, the unrecorded blur after a head wound, find my way back, the associations embedded in the text like a coke can hammered into fossilised remains, between the skull and trilobite. Maybe I am a good reader, but a disrespectful and insular one.

And so, in the half-light of comprehension, Hunchback 88 is the perspective of a woman as she, multiply-named, and her girls, un-named, are massacred by the eponymous thing in the eponymous year. Or it's the perspective of the thing, deconstructing people into nouns and verbs and adjectives, corporeality without motivation. It ends with her in shreds, or with the thing in shreds, with the thing discovering VHS tapes and the concept of slasher movies, bringing a name and order to the un/natural actions just taken, or it's the girl with the tapes, learning that death is a wall of cassettes, oblivion an archive, not of every living moment to be played back, back, back into infinity, but a bunch of sextapes and goreflicks, Creamiest Babysitters, Castle Freaks and Texas Chain/Saw Massacres.

[Maggie Siebert · Rating 5 out of 5]

everybody wants to write like this but really only christopher norris can write like this

[Tami · Rating 4 out of 5]

If Thomas Pynchon wrote Converge songs it might read a little like this.

[Sunny · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was in the middle of reading this book when I took a break for lunch, and boy was that a mistake. I gagged real hard while I was chewing on my chicken curry because I couldn’t handle the meaty texture combined with my gory brainrot.

[John Trefry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wizard of gore...

[Adam Hudson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Your friend who is obsessed with horror films and compiles VHS tapes with their favorite bits.

[Jason Kane · Rating 5 out of 5]

E.E. Cummings + Eli Roth red band sizzle reel? My best attempt.

[Jimmy Melnarik]

That last third made *me* want to puke in *my* leather gimp mask.

[David · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was recommended this one on TikTok as a ‘horror,’ book, but it seemed to few long string together some incoherent body fluids and gore without any substance, and then attempt some spooks in the last third. It then had a well-composed literary analysis of film and written horror, but honestly, at this point, who cares?

A complete waste of time.

I was hoping for a ‘House of Leaves’ like experience.

[Brendan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a decent experimental horror novel, told in fragments and artfully disgusting fits and starts. I'm intrigued and hope this author has more in store.

[Natasha Alterici · Rating 4 out of 5]

That was... an experience.

[Larry Ggggggggggggggggggggggggg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Totally unlike any other horror book I’ve read update: the supplementary material in the crypt edition makes this a must buy imo

[Max Restaino · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you ask me, this is a perfect book.

Also, Maggie’s scene of someone killing a friend who won’t them enjoy a video game is better than the one I wrote before reading this.

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is highly experimental fiction/prose poetry, and not for the faint of heart. Christopher Norris mines his memories of 70s and 80s slasher flicks for a nightmare journey through giallo scenarios, ranging from slightly gross to extremely graphic. There's no plot, just one room after another of horrible things happening to people. While he does a really good job invoking the blood and guts of a Mario Brava film, it would be interesting to see him harness his skill in a more conventional narrative. Like a lot of extremely graphic horror movies, I wouldn't say I enjoyed this so much as endured it, but that kind of seems like the point.

[Rebecca Rash · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5
this is now the second time Norris has led me to question many things. a non-exhaustive list: my intelligence, traditional narratives, who is Christopher Norris, is this a pov from before, are the excerpts real, what does it mean.

[Samuel Peirce · Rating 5 out of 5]

Feels like I just read something cursed.

[Natalie Tautou · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely disgusting. A feast for the senses.

[Aria · Rating 4 out of 5]

Don’t go to Florida

[Barry Paul Clark · Rating 5 out of 5]

You don’t really read this book, you experience it. And that experience is incredible, which is par for the course at Inside the Castle.