Hey you! Yeah, you! Kid, you like roller coasters?
Well, then do I got something for you.
Was that a stupid enough of an intro for this? Probably. But in all seriousness: Joe Hill. More importantly, Joe Hill’s short story collection, 20th Century Ghosts. This book has fifteen stories that range anywhere from terrifying to heartwarming to just plain sad.
This is why I love Joe Hill.
I feel like the best way to do this is to choose my favorite and least favorite story. Otherwise this will go on for thousands and thousands of words, and, let’s be real, neither one of us have the time or energy to go through that. 😉
So, Pop Art. The first sentence begins, “My best friend when I was twelve was inflatable.” I’m thinking, alright, cool, crazy kid with a blow-up doll, or maybe not even necessarily crazy, but definitely lonely. An imaginary friend story. Those are fun. But that’s when things get interesting and Hill forces me to think outside the box.
First of all, the inflatable friend isn’t imaginary. He’s real. He goes to school, other kids acknowledge him, and he’s able to communicate with others via a whiteboard and some crayons. Him being inflatable isn’t a metaphor for some kind of ailment or disease or anything like that. He’s 100% full of air; no organs, no openings (save for the spots where he can take in more air), so no mouth. If he isn’t careful, he can float away. His parents are not inflatable. They are normal everyday humans who eat and talk and function like anyone else. He is not adopted. He was just born that way.
When I accepted this fact, the rest of the story was enjoyable, and rather sad. The protagonist of the story is kind of an outcast with a bad home life. His mother is gone and his father doesn’t want much to do with him. He befriends Art (the inflatable kid) at school when a couple of bullies are after him. After that day, they hang out at school and at each other’s houses, until the protagonist’s father gets a dog and things get a bit tense at his house, so they instead hang around Art’s house.
I don’t want to give the whole story away because I think you should read it yourself. It’s funny and sad and heartwarming and frightening all at the same time. I may or may not have cried at the end of it. It’s a great story about what a person would be willing to do for their best friend. Ahhh I love it.
My Father’s Mask. Now, I can’t say that I hated this one. It was good for what it was. I was tense the whole time I was reading it; the story has an uneasy feel, like there’s something under the surface that it’s not letting on.
The short of it is that a boy named Jack goes with his parents on a trip to this cabin and he doesn’t really want to go. The mom plays a game with him and makes it out to be an adventure and tells him that he can’t be seen by anyone or else they will come to get him. The kid is too old for these kinds of games (I believe he’s a teenager?), but he plays along anyway. Cut to the cabin. There are a ton of masks laying around and hanging on the walls and just everywhere you look, there’s a mask. If you thought the parents were acting off before, they really act off now. They wear a mask, and insist that he wears a mask, too. There’s almost a taboo sexual feel to the whole thing? Like, the kid wants to leave the cabin because he wants to let them do their thing without having to be a part of it. He goes into the woods to gather some wood and gets lost, but he meets a kid who he thought he saw the night before who makes him uneasy, so he runs and hides. Then he meets two other kids who offer to answer one question if he beats them in a card game with ambiguous rules.
Confused yet?
A lot happens in this story, but it’s all rather vague. I still don’t know what exactly happened in the cabin, or in the woods, or when he gets back to the cabin. Everything feels off and uneasy. The entire time I read this one, I had my head in my hand and my face scrunched up the way, as if screwing myself up would help me understand it better.
That being said, I liked it. It scared me, and I had no idea what was going on. I don’t know if that was purposeful or if I was missing some major plot point, but either way, it fucking worked. I felt like I was in the woods with Jack, but he left me behind, and several weeks later I still can’t find my way out.
Have you read 20th Century Ghosts? What was your favorite story in it? And (more importantly for me anyway) did you understand My Father’s Mask??
Manda Kay Writes 