Brush Fire: a few thoughts on Joe Hill's "The Fireman"

The Fireman by Joe Hill

My rating: 1 of 5 stars

I first heard the name Joe Hill when his novel Horns got turned into a film starring Daniel Radcliffe, but it was really only when Stephen King started tweeting about him that I paid any attention.

According to King, here was a new talent who had a great new horror novel (The Fireman) hitting the charts at No.1, and that everyone should check him out. Some time later, King tweeted something about Joe Hill visiting him and I got this mental image of this seasoned horror writer meeting an emerging talent, a friendship forming between them, raising my curiosity even further. Although I wasn't into King's writing anymore (despite reading everything of his when I was a teenager) I respected him enough to pay attention to any of his recommendations.

I placed an order with my local library and got a copy of The Fireman. I went in without knowing what it was about, happy to be surprised by its pages. My first immediate thoughts were: this reads a lot like... Stephen King.

The type of plot, the type of characters, the way the action was described. King, King, King. Who was this Joe Hill guy after all? Even his photo made him out to look like a young Stephen King. And that's when a light bulb went off in my head. Of course... didn't King have two sons who had turned their hands to writing? Yes, replied Wikipedia - Joe Hill was Stephen King's son.

I persevered - I decided to give Joe Hill at least the first 100 pages to seduce me. But it just didn't click for me. The Fireman's language is too pedestrian, the characters too flimsy. The story in itself is more fantasy than horror, quite whimsical at parts. A pandemic around the world that makes people self-combust, a heroine who moulds herself on Mary Poppins, an enigmatic hero - The Fireman - who can control the fire coming out of his body. And King's influence, everywhere, quite distracting.

King served for me as a bridge between young adult fiction and serious literature, but I just can't go back there, which unfortunately means there's nothing The Fireman can offer me. That's not to say I'll never read a Joe Hill novel - I hope he continues to do well and look forward to seeing how his career matures. Can't be easy to be a writer under such a big name as Stephen King; it might take him a while to forge his own voice. In the meantime, if you are a Stephen King fan, you'll love The Fireman.

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