Jade Daniels lives in her own world. Half-Indian, living with an abusive father and her mother long gone, it seems her entire family wants nothing to do with her. In Jade’s world, she uses horror movies to protect herself, and specifically enjoys the horror movies in which a masked killer is hellbent on revenge against a world that wronged them.
As Jade tells us the history of her town, Proofrock, she tells the story as though it is one of those movies. But blood actually begins to spill around the waters of Indian Lake. Using her encyclopedic mind of horror movie icons, Jade predicts how this evil plot will unfold. As we are pulled into her dark dreams, we begin to see a scared little girl hiding behind the mask, a girl who is angry, but also a girl who loves others fiercely, and desperately wants a place to call home.
Why we’re excited about this book:
Stephen Graham Jones is one of the premier, and most prolific, horror writers working today. The author of Mongrels, Growing Up Dead in Texas, All the Beautiful Sinners, The Last Final Girl, Mapping the Interior, Three Miles Past, Demon Theory, and most recently, The Only Good Indians, Jones’ short fiction is collected in The Ones That Got Away, and After the People Lights Have Gone Off. A love-letter to horror and the slasher genre, Jones’ latest novel unmasks the trope in ways we’ve never really seen before. Christopher Golden (Ararat, Red Hands) says: “Stephen Graham Jones can’t miss. My Heart Is A Chainsaw is a painful drama about trauma, mental health, and the heartache of yearning to belong … twisted into a DNA helix with encyclopedic Slasher movie obsession and a frantic, gory whodunnit mystery, with an ending both savage and shocking. Don’t say I didn’t warn you!”, and Laird Barron (Swift to Chase, Blood Standard) says: “Stephen Graham Jones masterfully navigates the shadowy paths between mystery and horror. An epic entry in the slasher canon.”
Forthcoming from Gallery/Saga Press 31 August, 2021, My Heart Is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones is available for pre-order now.
BOB PASTORELLA