Horns (novel)

Did You Know?

• The novel consists of fifty chapters grouped into five sections named Hell, Cherry, The Fire Sermon, The Fixer, and The Gospel According to Mick and Keith.
• The film adaptation premiered at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival and had its US theatrical release on October 31, 2014.

Plot summary

Twenty-six-year-old Ignatius "Ig" Perrish wakes after a drunken night in the woods near an old foundry, where his girlfriend Merrin Williams' corpse was discovered, to find bony, sensitive horns sprouting from his temples. Ig is the second son of a renowned musician and the younger brother of rising late-night TV star Terry Perrish. Though never charged, Ig is widely considered guilty in public opinion for Merrin's rape and murder. Leaving his apartment, he notices his roommate Glenna Nicholson admits her innermost desires, including performing oral sex on their mutual friend Lee Tourneau. At a medical clinic, people confess their darkest urges to him, and physical contact reveals their identities and secrets. He makes others give in to ugly urges, including police officers, a priest, and a nun. At home, his parents and grandmother secretly believe he killed Merrin. His brother Terry reveals under the horns' power that Lee Tourneau was the killer. Enraged, Ig releases the brake on his grandmother's wheelchair, sending it crashing down a slope.

Background

Hill has stated that the fantastical perception of secrets was a theme he explored several times before publication. He wrote an epic fantasy novel titled The Fear Tree, where a character could divine secrets, and later reworked the concept into The Surrealist's Glass, in which a protagonist acquired a magical lens to see secrets. Hill describes The Surrealist's Glass as a confused, corrupt first draft of Horns, with several scenes appearing in cruder earlier form. He noted that writers revisit themes until they use them satisfyingly, and that he finally got it right with Horns.