mortaine reviewed Horns: A Novel by Joe Hill
The ultimate fridged woman story (feminist reading ahead)
3 stars
Content warning Spoilers ahead.
OK, let me preface with: I am tired of the "fridged woman" narrative. That's where the abuse/rape/murder of a woman or girl is the catalyst for a male protagonist's adventure. It's distressingly common in action narratives, anything with revenge, etc. Once you see it, it's hard to unsee.
This novel is almost a caricature of the fridged woman and Madonna complex rolled into one. If you read this from Merrin's perspective, she's completely surrounded by men who put her on a pedestal and won't let her off of it, to the point where she would rather die than fight for her own independent life, and in the end, her afterlife is promised as the virginesque bride to the devil.
The other women in the book are either older (matronly or elderly/dying) or the quintessential "whore" foil to Merrin. Merrin herself seems to have almost no relationship with any women in the book (and none of the other women really have relationships with each other, either-- they have opinions of each other, but not relationships). The book fails the Bechtel test on so many levels, it's... like I said, it's almost a caricature.
Her own sister, who died when Merrin was a child, is presented as the "bad version" of long-suffering Merrin. She fights for her life against cancer and is mean to people as a result. In contrast, Merrin accepts her diagnosis gracefully and chooses not to get treatment, opting instead to die virtuous instead of as a meanie face. She then proceeds to get raped and, in the midst of her rape, we're told she escapes (mentally/spiritually) by going up into the trees (where she presumably waits, unspoiled, for Ig's arrival at the end of the book).
Merrin herself repeatedly calls attention to this perception, but is nonetheless caught in it. None of the male characters are a reliable narrator when it comes to her. She literally says to Ig she wants to fuck other people, and it breaks him. She tells Lee she isn't good or nice, and he literally can't see her as anything but a virgin he can tarnish (Lee doesn't perceive Ig as being real sexual competition, and even remarks that she's barely a non-virgin since she's only been with Ig).
(For anyone reading this: virginity is a social construct. That's evident in this book.)
OK, with the feminist reading out of the way, if I focus on Ig's story, this is a fairly standard story of betrayal and heartache, pain and loss and revenge. So much revenge. There are no "good guys" in this story. Even Ig starts out basically using the woman he's with (total hobosexual vibes.... does Ig even have a job?) and then going on what could only charitably be described as a rampage. In the end, justice is served, and we can all have our little justice boners.
Why did I give this even 3 stars? Joe Hill is, for the most part, a good storyteller. Sometimes we want the justice boner story, and the tropes don't matter. That's okay. It doesn't have to be high art to be enjoyable, and it was an enjoyable novel. It doesn't have to break away from sexist portrayals to be good-- if it did, about 90% of our media would go straight in the trash can. It's not earth-shakingly marvelous, but a good enough story wrapped in some creative supernatural premises. I do always give a lot of grace to the epilogue or denouement in a story, so I don't really have a lot to say about the ending with Terry and Glenna.
Caveat: The entire scene with the Treehouse of the Mind towards the end was utterly confusing, by the way. It's crucial to the story, but it's terribly written and an incoherent mess. Better editing, Mr. Hill!
