Even if Joe Hill weren’t the son of Stephen King, I’m now convinced he’d still land a book deal. (Not that that’s how he did it, but still …) As good as his debut novel HEART-SHAPED BOX was, he’s a masterful short-story writer, and 20TH CENTURY GHOSTS proves this, tale after tale after tale, in one of the most consistent collections I’ve ever read.

Originally published overseas two years ago, GHOSTS is just now being brought to these shores by HarperCollins. And thank God, because – and I can’t say this enough – it’s so. Damned. Excellent. No offense to the elder King, but he’s just been surpassed.

Rather than hitting the highlights strictly chronological, let’s jump ahead a bit and deal with “Pop Art” first. It’s about a troubled boy from an unloving home who’s on the verge of becoming a juvenile delinquent when he befriends the new kid in school, who happens to be inflatable.

Yes, inflatable. I know that sounds stupid, but it’s anything but. Hill never panders to it like a gimmick, instead treating inflatability as if it were a disease or other health condition. “Pop Art” is all about friendship, and hands down, it’s the single best contemporary short story of the last 10 years – a real heartbreaker whose end emotionally recalls the poignant, startling close of Ray Bradbury’s landmark “Kaleidoscope,” from THE ILLUSTRATED MAN.

And Bradbury’s not a bad comparison for Hill, for both forever toe this line of fantasy and reality. Consider this passage from the title story, discussing a revival-house movie theater: “A whole congregation of people who flocked to the Rosebud instead of church on Sundays, those whose prayers were written by Paddy Chayefsky and whose hymnals were composed by John Williams.” That’s flavored with as much nostalgia and craft as Bradbury.

Sometimes both men write sad stories, sometimes terrifying tales and sometimes flights of fantasy, yet neither seems content to be pegged to one genre, and they excel at all. (Another good Bradbury example lies in the black-humored “Last Breath,” in which a family visits of museum full of jars containing people’s final exhalation before they died.)

But proof his papa has rubbed off on him can be found in the opening “Best New Horror,” in which an anthologist seeks out a mysterious, reclusive author whose harrowing short story involving a kidnapper stirred up a small firestorm when printed in a university literary journal. Our protagonist recognizes greatness behind the gruesomeness, and wants to publish it. Even before the two comes face to face, Hill’s tale is palpably unnerving. It’s also very sly, particularly in embedding the story within a story, allowing him to indulge in the conventions of horror before subverting them.

“You Will Hear the Locust Sing” is a disturbing mix of Franz Kafka’s THE METAMORPHOSIS and David Cronenberg’s THE FLY, as a bullied kid wakes up to find himself turned into a giant insect. With his newfound 8-foot frame, he’s able to take revenge on his unfriendly schoolmates and uncaring family members, in a Grand Guignol gross-out. Shades of Columbine? That’s how I read it at least.

“The Black Phone” adds a layer of the supernatural to an otherwise standard – but mighty suspenseful – kidnapping plot, while “Bobby Conroy Comes Back from the Dead” is a most unusual love story, taking place on the shopping-mall set of George Romero’s DAWN OF THE DEAD, between two former school mates caked in Tom Savini’s gory makeup. It’s also exclusive to this U.S. edition.

GHOSTS closes with its longest piece, “Voluntary Committal,” which gives “Pop Art” a run for its money, narrated by a man recalling his childhood and his learning-challenged little brother who built intricate tunnels in their basement with cardboard boxes – so complex that one could get lost in there … and never be heard from again.

Two of these stories I had read before: “Abraham’s Boys” from THE MANY FACES OF VAN HELSING anthology and “The Cape,” the bright point of an otherwise abysmal HORROR: THE BEST OF THE YEAR 2006 EDITION. Even now knowing the twists did not detract from my pleasure of a reread. In fact, it may have heightened it, allowing me to see just how skillful Hill is in putting it all together.

The only one that did nothing for me was “The Widow’s Breakfast.” While well-written, it seems only to exist to deliver a particularly predictable joke at the end – 11 pages of setup, only to exit on a groan. But that’s a mere fraction of an otherwise uniformly excellent book – not just one of the year’s finest anthologies, but one of the year’s finest, period.

Hear this, people: Joe Hill is a serious writer, and he’s an awfully damned good one. –Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THIS AUTHOR:
• HEART-SHAPED BOX by Joe Hill