Imogene is young, beautiful, kisses like a movie star, and knows everything about every film ever made. She's also dead, the legendary ghost of the Rosebud Theater. Arthur Roth is a lonely kid with a head full of big ideas and a gift for getting his ass kicked. It's hard to make friends when you're the only inflatable boy in town. Francis is unhappy, picked on; he doesn't have a life, a hope, a chance. Francis was human once, but that's behind him now. John Finney is in trouble. The kidnapper locked him in a basement, a place stained with the blood of half a dozen other murdered children. With him, in his subterranean cell, is an antique phone, long since disconnected . . . but it rings at night, anyway, with calls from the dead. . . Meet these, and a dozen more, in one of the most praised collections this century. 20TH CENTURY GHOSTS is irresistible, addictive fun, showcasing a dazzling new talent.
Industry Reviews
"This strong, award winning collection of stories by Stephen King's son drives a stake through any cattiness that his enjoyable 2007 horror novel Heart Shaped Box was just a lucky break. The refreshing horror collection you've been looking for, even if you didn't know it. My Father's Mask is perhaps the most unsettling thing this horror reviewer has ever read." METRO "Joe Hill lays to rest any doubts about one hit wonder syndrome with this unmissable bounty of short stories, all but guaranteed to add chilled spice to horror fans' spare winter evenings once the curtains have been drawn. A beast of brilliance that will swallow you whole and spit you back out again wearing a big grin." STARBURST "It's wildly imaginative stuff, yet always anchored in reality. There are at least five stories here which deserve to be included in Best Of anthologies for decades to come." -- Dave Golder SFX "Hill's shorter works have the same ingenuity as his novel 'Heart-Shaped Box' and the same populist wisdom we find in the work of his father Stephen King. What he adds is a weird poetry that is all his own." -- Rox Kaveney TIME OUT "Even the weakest story present is fired by fierce imagination and a deceptively simple style. Joe Hill's work, while undeniably reminiscent of his father's, holds a charge and voice that is unmistakably his own. 20th Century Ghosts demonstrates this perfectly and deserves to be read." -- Jes Bickham DEATHRAY