From the Bookshelf of The Sword and Laser…

NOS4A2

Joe Hill

Start date: October 1, 2021

Finish date: October 31, 2021

Discussion: NOS4A2

Find A Copy At

Libraries

Group Discussions About This Book

Showing 2 of 7 topics — 174 comments total

NOS4A2

NOS4A2: about the audiobook (specifically, its endnote)
By Kay · 16 posts · 101 views

last updated Nov 06, 2021 03:24PM

NOS4A2: An unexpected gut-punch (SPOILERS)
By Ricardo · 6 posts · 85 views

last updated Oct 22, 2021 12:24AM

showing 10 of 24 topics view all »

What Members Thought

May 19, 2013 John Wiswell rated it liked it

NOS4A2 is the Stephen Kingiest thing I've ever read not written by the man himself. Whether written by his son or by Siamese twins in Bombay, it is very obviously and firmly aping his toys and tricks. Here is a very long Horror novel starring Vic, a girl whose parents ignore and disaffect her because of their constant issues, who can find missing things with trips to a surreal landscape adults don't understand, a place frequented by eccentric and increasingly dangerous strangers. Denizens have t NOS4A2 is the Stephen Kingiest thing I've ever read not written by the man himself. Whether written by his son or by Siamese twins in Bombay, it is very obviously and firmly aping his toys and tricks. Here is a very long Horror novel starring Vic, a girl whose parents ignore and disaffect her because of their constant issues, who can find missing things with trips to a surreal landscape adults don't understand, a place frequented by eccentric and increasingly dangerous strangers. Denizens have their own totems to access the place; Vic has her bridge, where Maggie, the stuttering and cocky runaway, has her rotting Scrabble tiles. Not only is the villain a chatty supernatural old man preying on the weak and witless, but his henchman is a developmentally challenged man who winds up screaming, "My life! For you!"

It's not just a Stand quote or references to Mid-World and "The Pennywise Circus" that give NOS4A2 that gooey, chewy King sensation. Characters are revealed by their reactions to conflict, in the micro-cultures they can reference and the rambling, hearty third person narration, and they are all dragged towards a supernatural fate that will challenge what they love most. That King-ness is in the ideological, like how strangers snap to sympathy with frightened children, and in the scope, like how peripheral characters (including Lou, Adult-Vic's baby-daddy) get entire chapters that don't progress much plot but flesh out how they live their lives. And then you get the chatty supernatural predator on the loose.

The villainous duo of kidnapper (Charles Manx) and henchman (Bing) could be a sadder Leland Gaunt and the Trashcan Man, but they have their own gimmicks, like a silver hammer, a gas mask and gingerbread-scented gas, and a vintage Wraith automobile that shuttles from crimes to Christmasland. Rather than being omnipotent predators, they're slightly inept and decrepit, just fallible enough to be acutely creepy when they know they’ve caught you. Then you'll be dragged off to their Christmasland, a semi-imaginary place that houses all the children they've abducted, not quite murdered, but spiritually hollowed out. It's all set virtually just off any major highway, and is often couched in real locales, but played out on the outskirts of a world that can't believe it's there.

Even if you don't know who Hill is, you'll see the influences everywhere. To me it read like a fan's slavish devotion to one of the best Horror writers of my lifetime. And as that kind of product, it's damned fun to read.

NOS4A2's greatest trick is being a breezy at 700 pages and still satisfying. Its breeziness is largely achieved by its chapters typically ranging from 2-5 pages, and yet it rarely feels like Hill is skimping on character or events. Rather, he's mostly chopped up standard sequences of creepy events, like a young girl's first experience of a preternatural ability to find lost objects, or crossing into a twilight zone beyond normal people's awareness, or the menace of a vampiric pedophile recruiting a mentally challenged janitor, into bite-sized bits that splay out like a regular plot line with all those chapter breaks to make you feel like a conqueror. Early on, when Manx chases Vic through his house, the series of chapters enters a Lewis Carroll-like period, the last sentence of every chapter ending with the title of the next – a charming awareness of how it's all threading together. The novel achieves a snug feedback loop that had me chewing through 130 pages on Wednesday and done on Saturday night. It's highly consumable fiction. So if one is going to compare it to Stephen King, you've got to give NOS4A2 its due as being far punchier and pacier with that similar material and voice.

Hill may have done too well in the first section of his novel for its own good. Vic's childhood, disaffected from both well-meaning but damaged parents, complicated by the perils of what very real things her imaginary bridge leads to, is the most engrossing part of the novel. Since the chapters are gathered into mega-sections that span specific amounts of time, it's hard to ignore that after she escapes Manx, time speeds up to dump us in her future raising her own child, who will doubtless become Manx's next target. Vic remains sympathetic, trying to hold motherhood together while repressing her memories, but it's that repression that makes the book shake. But she has less personality, and has lost much of the naïve wonder and knowledge that previously defined her, reducing her to a simpler and more distraught entity that's less interesting to follow, especially since she's in denial that Manx and her bridge existed. The worst part of a Horror story is always the characters dragging their feet and refusing to believe or engage with the supernatural elements we all know are there; here Hill forfeits a character who has every reason to engage for an extended mid-to-late novel stretch of imperiling denial. It's strongly dissonant from the genuine great groove the novel opens on.

There's a more curious dichotomy to the novel. Hill writes exquisite build up to conflicts; we know Kid-Vic is going too far into that nether-realm, that she'll be cornered by Manx, and that children in his possession gradually lose empathy until they become husk-like monsters. There's a perpetual sense that the macabre is coming that adds to that rapid chapter-feedback.

That's why it's so odd that none of the scenes of peril have drama to them. The chase through the house punctuated by sentences ending in chapter titles is almost cute (and right up my alley), but underlies that the chase is so hackneyed that we know nothing's going to happen to her. Later on Manx beats an adult woman with a bone hammer and, again, there's a serious lack of tension. The character's leg is smashed and an injury is almost never mentioned thereafter, and then her back is repeatedly smashed only for the narrative to point out that if she was struck like that again she'd need crutches to stand. The plot and narration willing give up the drama of being beaten with a hammer.

Are these major conflict scenes too slow? Too drawn out? I struggled to figure out why, every time, these seemed to be the only parts where the novel stopped pressing the gas pedal. It's a serious puzzle, because even after that beating, Hill pulls off making the build-up to the finale serious business. Vic's lover, Lou, has a heart condition and we're given several signs to expect it may kill him before the stalker does. Vic and her son are worn down by the law and by Christmasland's psychic molestation, and I honestly expected at least one of them to not come home from this. Then "this" happened, the finale literally exploded across the pages, and it was like the spell was broken again. No sense of urgency.

NOS4A2 is enigmatic like that. Great build, funky blow-off, great build, funky blow-off, until it ends. Because it's 700 pages, and about 600 are King-ish character grind and that engrossing series of builds, it's a total pleasure to read. It's chock with fun material; it's just that none of that material are the pay-offs to things. Even its epilogue trumps and out-haunts it conclusion, promising to build up a sequel some day. ...more

5 likes · Like · see review

Aug 13, 2012 Crowinator rated it really liked it

Shelves: proud-to-be-a-librarian, adult, genre-horror, everything-is-turning-out-so-dark, memorably-scary-or-disturbing, 2013-reads, favorites-2013

Hill KILLED IT in a rush with the last 200 pages....

This is the 50th book I've read so far in 2013 and it's definitely going to be one of my top ten. Longer review later. ...more

3 likes · Like · see review

Oct 30, 2019 Jeff James rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobooks, audible

This was the horror novel I wanted for October. It was creepy, disturbing, and hair-raisingly suspenseful.

It features a villain who is disturbing because he truly believes he is helping children by sucking all the life out of them and turning them into vampires, and a henchman who does the dirty, horrifying work of torturing and murdering the people who get in their way.

I loved the characters and the setting, and I loved the idea of people who can navigate their own personal worlds with help fro ...more

Like · see review

Mar 08, 2013 Amy rated it it was ok

I feel like I was reading this book forever. Considering my normal reading pace, I kinda was. I started reading it before Halloween, as I thought it would be a good read for that time of year, and I only now finished it shortly before Thanksgiving. There was nothing wrong with this book, it was quite well-written. I just couldn't get into it. ...more

Like · see review