WILLIAM MORROW/HarperCollins – @WmMorrowBks @HarperCollins
[This review originally posted on Patreon.]
AUTHOR: Joe Hill
ISBN: 978-0-06-220067-9; hardback; 6 x 9 (October 1, 2019)
496pp, B&W, $27.99 U.S., $34.99 CAN
Full Throttle: Stories is a 2019 short story collection from author Joe Hill. Originally a hardcover release, Full Throttle: Stories, which is Hill's fourth short story collection, contains 13 short stories of varying lengths.
Hill, whose birth name is Joseph Hillström King, is the son of legendary horror novelist and dark fantasy author, Stephen King, and novelist, nonfiction author, and poet, Tabitha King. Hill is also a novelist and comic book writer (best known for the Locke & Key series from IDW Publishing).
Joe Hill collaborates with Stephen King on two of Full Throttle's stories. Hill will never be the author that his father is, nor does Hill have to be Stephen King, who is one of the greatest short story fantasy authors of all time. Hill only has to be himself, and Hill is quite the inventive, ingenious, and imaginative short story writer himself.
From the tale of a vengeful trucker ("Full Throttle," co- written with Stephen King) to the funky, near-future, have-and-have-not sci-fi (“All I Care About is You”), Joe Hill takes readers on a non-stop, break-neck journey through his own version of “The Twilight Zone.” This is Joe Hill's trip through “Tales from The Darkside” in such edgy fare as the cautionary faerie fable (“Faun”) and the historical parable (“The Devil on the Staircase”). Once you sit your ass inside this crazy ride, you won't have any choice but to go along Full Throttle, dear readers.
After being part of the British pop music recording duo, Eurythmics, for a decade, singer-songwriter Annie Lenox embarked on a solo career, beginning with the 1992 album, Diva. I remember reading a review of her second album, Medusa (1995), in which the author of the review stated that every album should have two “great” songs. I don't remember the name of the author or the place of publication of that review, but the review has had a deep influence on how I regard short story collections.
I insist that every short story collection have at least two stories that I consider great in order for me to consider the collection worth reading. I also need to find two great stories in order for me to honestly recommend the collection to people who read my reviews.
Full Throttle: Stories only has one story that I consider piss poor, the werewolf-ish tale, “Wolverton Station.” It is the kind of misfire that a published author can get published, but a novice author would need a miracle to get a recognized literary journal or fiction publication to publish such a minor tale. “Wolverton Station,” the third story in the collection, is Full Throttle's “unlucky number 13.”
Otherwise, Full Throttle: Stories is one of the few great short story collections that I have read that are not written by someone named Harlan Ellison (1934-2018) or Stephen King. The collection's best story is “Late Returns,” the lovely fable of the complexities and misunderstandings in parent-child relationships. The Hallmark Channel could mine this story for a long series of made-for-TV movies. I think what makes the story so memorable and exceptional is that it deals with the unasked questions, but also with the answered questions we don't realize were answered ages ago.
It was hard to choose a second favorite or second best, but I am going with “You Are Released,” an eve-of-apocalypse tale about Captain Leonard Waters, his crew, and the passengers of the 777 commercial jet airliner, “Delta 236.” It puts readers in a front row seat to nuclear Armageddon, but it also exemplifies the hope, love, and reconciliation that humanity can have if it so chooses.
Joe Hill's two collaborations with Stephen King are heartbreaking, but for different reasons. The first, the title track, “Full Throttle,” is a crime thriller that recalls road-rage-revenge films like Duel (1971, Steven Spielberg) and Joy Ride (2001, John Dahl). The second Hill-King collaboration, “In the Tall Grass,” recalls King's short story, “Children of the Corn” (1977) and that classic tale's dark blend of blighted small town America, Americana, and paganism.
Hill actually tops the Americana of “In the Tall Grass,” with a brilliant spin on American separatism and inherited mental illness in the crazy and crazily brilliant “Mums.” That story summons the is-it-or-isn't-real surrealism of Henry James' “The Turn of the Screw” (1898) and plants it in the black soil located in the dark corners of American culture.
So there is all kind of good stuff in Full Throttle: Stories. It is a must-have for fans of dark fantasy short story collections. I think the stories in this collection also suggest that, while he is in his late 40s, Joe Hill is just hitting his stride as a master of speculative and fantasy prose short fiction.
9.5 out of 10
Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"
www.joehillfiction.com
www.facebook.com/joehill
The text is copyright © 2020 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for syndication rights and fees.
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