King Sorrow: A Novel. By Joe Hill. Audiobook

Emma Smith

"King Sorrow" marks Joe Hill's long-awaited return to the novel after a decade, and while you might think you'd resent him for the ten-year wait, forgiveness comes quickly, about a page in. Worth the wait? That's a laughable understatement. So... how do you review an objective masterpiece? You try, I suppose. This is a novel that worships at the altar of language and stories and imagination. It understands the architecture, the gravity, the power of words, and demonstrates its thesis by being a flawless example of all it pays ode to.

Having spent a week with my head buried in its many pages, my heart swollen with what can only be called genuine wonder, I find myself at a loss now. Bereft, perhaps. The book releases October 21st, and while reading it early was a privilege, I’m also keenly jealous of those who get to read it for the first time. Trust me, you’ll have a good time.

I’m not going to give you a plot summary. For one, I think you should go in blind. For another, as my long-suffering family will attest, when you try to summarize a sprawling 900-page horror fantasy about dragons and pacts, you don’t do it justice. It’s a doorstopper. Massive. With that comes three concerns: Can such a leviathan plot be tied into a neat ending? Will reading this book for more than half an hour do significant nerve damage to my wrists? And, when it’s a book written by an author as wildly successful as Joe Hill, have the editors simply let him run riot?

No word of a lie, I would have read another 300 pages. Another 500. Give me another 900. And you would be forgiven for thinking a novel of such proportions plods. And yet, "King Sorrow" is relentless in its pacing, much like "Heart-Shaped Box." It soars.

There’s something intimate about watching a cast of characters come of age. Joe Hill gives us that in Book One, followed by another 40 years, in which we continue to follow them—Arthur Oakes, Donna and Donovan McBride, Colin Wren and Allison Shiner. Old friends. With those 40 years comes so much loving and living, breaking and healing. Teenage love, heartbreak, friendship, loss. Hill’s characters are deeply flawed, deeply human, forever messy people, and they, more than any dragon, give "King Sorrow" its fire.

It’s a novel full of sliding doors and hindsight, thick with dramatic irony. It briefly references, for example, in 2006, businessman and small-time political candidate Donald Trump, or in 1995, Osama bin Laden. These casual references make "King Sorrow" feel like a novel full of unexplored alternate timelines. Hindsight proves to be a wonderful thing for the reader, who will inevitably feel some big, mean emotions when the inevitable happens.

As ridiculous as this may sound, there is more in these 900 pages than any book has a right to contain. Karma and comeuppance, responsibility and causation, faith and sexuality, technology and balance, greed, hubris and morality, conspiracy and corruption, trauma and grief, the conflict between the existence of both God and suffering. Each sentence feels crafted, deliberately and meticulously, to pose yet another big question. I could write an essay about this book, and people smarter than me will. For now, I’ll tell you that it’s raw and painful, and has indeed done measurable damage to my wrists. So let me conclude with a spoiler of sorts: when "King Sorrow" is released, people will rave about this book, and they’re absolutely right.

This book is not just a read, it's an experience. The prose is so musical and the story so immersive, it would make an incredible audiobook. I highly recommend you find a comfortable chair or plug in your headphones and let Joe Hill's masterpiece consume you. It's a journey worth every minute.