I picked up Stephen Graham Jones’s ‘Killer on the Road’ because I’d heard good things about him.
Also, the cover gave off eighties vibes, and I’m a sucker for that kind of thing.
Jones’s novella opens with a prologue. A trucker attacks a hitchhiker and eats a part of him, all while talking about a man who can take others’ forms. Yes, it’s grim and gory. From there, we enter the story proper, following Harper, a teenager who’s running away from home. She catches up with her friends, and they begin a road trip together, with her little sister tagging along.
You can guess who they eventually run into.
I almost suggested this to my book club group, and I’m so glad I didn’t. Not because it’s bad, but because it’s gory as hell. It’s certainly not the sort of thing I’d recommend to non-horror aficionados.
The story takes place in one night, and you can feel that frantic energy as the hours tick by. The novella’s length works in its favour; there is little breathing room, and the deaths hit hard and fast. It’s an adrenaline shot of a story that I could envision: Jones has a cinematic way of telling a story.
On the flip side, the length also hurts the story. Some of the characters’ reactions to what happens fall a little flat. I know they’re teenagers and still lack fully developed prefrontal cortices. But still, I’d expect more freaking out and panicking than the calmness Jones presents us with. Something about it didn’t read true to me. I know that by avoiding emotional meltdowns, Jones kept up the pace. But the protagonists often feel psychopathic in their detachment.
The villain himself was quite cool. Eating human parts to become a copycat, trying to fit in with the rest of the world. Storing jars of eyes and fingers along the highway. It was all rather unsettling. I liked the idea behind it all, even if the ending felt rushed and anticlimactic.
Even so, I’m curious to check out Jones’s other works, particularly his full novels. ‘The Only Good Indians’ and ‘The Buffalo Hunter’ kind of call to me, so I’ll pick those up in the future.
If you want something that feels like a gory eighties B-movie, ‘Killer on the Road’ takes a bloody good stab at it.
★★★☆☆
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