It was a work no American publisher would buy, a collection of short stories called “20th Century Ghosts” (brought out in England in 2005 by PS Publishing, a small specialty house), that first made Hill’s reputation. In part, the answer lies in Hill’s early efforts to reinvent horror as a genre. But if the timing of the leak seems suspiciously fortuitous, the question of who knew what - and when - matters less in the end than why Hill went to the trouble to hide in the first place. Both Hill’s editor at William Morrow and the producer Akiva Goldsman (the Oscar-winning writer of “A Beautiful Mind” and “The Da Vinci Code”), who optioned the novel, insist that they learned of Joe’s true identity only after they made their respective deals. The book is, as they say, an “instant” best seller it is currently perched at No. Published last month, “Heart-Shaped Box” received mostly rave reviews. But Hill’s first novel, “Heart-Shaped Box,” the story of a merciless ghost and an aging rock musician, also marks the end of a rather elaborate identity game, the public debut of the man behind a pseudonym adopted more than a decade ago.
Of course, there’s nothing new about writers, from the literary Amises to the best-selling Higgins Clarks, following in Mom’s or Dad’s footsteps and letting academics parse the shared strands of literary DNA.
His dad is a topic he discusses with great reluctance, not because he doesn’t love the guy but because when you are as much your father’s son as Joe Hill is Stephen King’s, once you start talking about your dad, you might never get a chance to talk about anything else.Īs it happens, Dad dedicated his early novel “The Shining,” the semi-autobiographical tale of an alcoholic writer and his sensitive, gifted son, to “Joe Hill King, who shines on.” Thirty years later, Hill has chosen to put down roots in the very same literary neighborhood, even though his father, as huge a star as American letters has ever produced, can block the sunshine for an entire state. Oh, was I bad.” The bit about his father he sort of tucked into the conversation as if it were an aside. There was my dad, there was some one-on-one time with my dad. “There were all these cool rubber monster parts lying around,” Hill told me over dinner in December.
He was just 9 years old when the zombie auteur George Romero cast him in “Creepshow,” a 1982 fright flick written by Hill’s dad, who also played a dimwit farmer. Joe Hill is the first guy to admit that it’s probably a good thing he took up writing instead of acting.
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