Hitchers [Hardcover]

Looking back now, I can't believe that I had no idea who Will McIntosh was before I started reading Hitchers. Once I got into the book, and realized how great it was, I started poking around on the interwebs to find out more about him.
Hitchers is only McIntosh's second novel, but he's written and published a ton of stories both in magazines and anthologies. He also won a Hugo award for his story "Bridesicle" -- pretty awesome, right? I recommend popping by his website where you can get a taste for his writing with an excerpt from his first novel, Soft Apocalypse, which he's posted for your reading pleasure.
And now, onto Hitchers. The book takes place in present day Atlanta after a terrorist attack that claimed over half a million lives. Now, you're probably thinking, what could be worse than that? Well, I'll tell you ...
What if when that many people die in one place at one time a rift opens and, as the souls of the dying are moving from one realm to another, some long dead folks are able to get back to the world of the living? Impossible? Tell that to Finn Darby, our reluctant hero. After some uncontrollable outbursts, Finn begins to suspect that he's sharing his body with his dead and very angry grandfather. Partnered with an aging rock star and a waitress, Finn has to figure out how to get rid of the hitchers before they take over completely.
Hitchers is a great story, with a really interesting premise. As I was reading, I became very emotionally attached to the characters. I was desperate to find out if they would win the battle with their respective hitchers, and then I found myself wondering for whom I was really rooting.
You see, the novel that McIntosh has crafted isn't as simple as good vs evil. I mean, sure, some of the hitchers were jerks. They were terrible people in life, and when they came back they were no more endearing than before they died. But others were just people. People who died and when the opportunity arose, they decided that they wanted another shot at living. Can you really blame them for seizing the opportunity when it presented itself?
If you're a fan of speculative fiction, I definitely recommend giving Hitchers a read. I enjoyed it so much that his previous novel, Soft Apocalypse, is definitely going to be added to my ever growing to read list.

Will McIntosh's debut Soft Apocalypse was a brilliant novel about normal people trying to survive while society gradually collapses around them. It was easily one of my favorite novels of 2011. His catalog of strong short stories includes "Bridesicles," which won the Hugo and was a Nebula finalist. It's one of those rare stories where emotion and technology merge to form a perfect little SF universe. I can't be the only reader who was eagerly awaiting this very exciting author's second novel.

Well, it's finally here, and it's called Hitchers. People who are familiar with Will McIntosh's debut will immediately notice that this is a completely different animal: a contemporary supernatural/horror novel rather than dystopian science fiction. Keep an open mind, because different as it is, it's definitely worth your time.

In the wake of a terrorist attack in Atlanta that kills over half a million people, a few strange, disconcerting things begin to happen to cartoonist Finn Darby. After a car crash, he has a near-death experience during which he somehow finds himself trapped inside the head of a woman he recently was on a date with. Later, he starts to occasionally blurt out random sentences against his will, in a low, raspy, almost zombie-like voice. What's more, it gradually becomes clear that he's not the only person in Atlanta experiencing this. While the government tries to attribute the phenomenon to a mass psychological disorder brought on by the shock of the terrorist attack, Finn soon learns that the voices really belong to "hitchers": dead people who are trying to re-enter the land of the living.

Finn is a strong, fascinating character. He's a cartoonist who has recently taken over the long-running Toy Shop comic strip from his late grandfather Tom. He has revived the strip with a popular new character, resulting in public recognition, but on a personal level he feels guilty because his emotionally abusive grandfather never wanted Finn to continue Toy Shop after his death. Finn also struggles with guilt because of the recent death of his wife and, going back further in time, his twin sister, who drowned when they were children. In the present day, Finn lives in the defunct Toy Shop Village amusement park, trying to balance all this guilt with his recent success, when the Hitchers arrive to complicate matters even further... and force him to confront his personal demons.

A nifty aspect of this novel is the way Will McIntosh inserts some of Finn's Toy Shop strips into the novel. These comics, drawn by Scott Brundage, initially seem like a gimmick but gradually begin to play a meaningful role in the story. It's all part of the novel's contemporary atmosphere, which includes lots of references to current popular culture, cable news channels, movies, recognizable locations in Atlanta, and so on. Hitchers genuinely feels like a story that could have happened just yesterday, if not for the massive terror attack and, well, the actual Hitchers. (And by the way, for people who are familiar with the author's short story "Bridesicles": that story also featured "Hitchers" but -- even though this may come as a surprise and even be somewhat confusing -- the two concepts are completely unrelated.)

From a story-telling perspective, Hitchers is a step forward for McIntosh. Where Soft Apocalypse consisted of vignettes, a series of chapters connected by the same main character but feeling somewhat fragmented because considerable amounts of time went by between each chapter, Hitchers is a much tighter, more coherent story. There's also more depth to be found in the characters and their personal relations, with Finn in the center of a network of deeply uncomfortable familial and romantic bonds. There are one or two fairly predictable plot twists, but still, if you remove the genre elements from these two novels, Hitchers beats Soft Apocalypse because it flows better and has stronger characters, including main character Finn but also the washed up rock star Mick Mercury (who deals with his own demons and has a great side-story) and, to a lesser extent, the waitress Summer.

However, depending on your taste, Hitchers may feel like a letdown when you take only its genre elements in consideration, simply because the horror aspect, while very well done, feels somewhat familiar. When all is said and done, Hitchers is basically a ghost/possession story, featuring dead people who try to re-enter the land of the living. McIntosh's vision of the afterlife is very creepy, with some excellent and terrifying scenes set in what the characters unfortunately end up referring to as "Deadland," but all of it still feels like a variation on a familiar theme. The novel derives its strength from its strong characters and story-telling, not from the originality of its supernatural elements.

Hitchers really shines in the way McIntosh uses the horror plot to highlight the emotional trauma of its characters. It's clear that Finn already carried his ghosts with him, but when they return it really lays bare the guilt that has prevented him from moving on. At just over 250 pages, Hitchers is a short, intense novel about the inevitability of confronting the past. Of McIntosh's two novel-length works, Soft Apocalypse is my favorite, but that's mainly because on my list of favorite sub-genres dystopian SF is high and horror fairly low. As long as you're okay with a story that's very different from the author's debut, Hitchers is a great read -- and one that really shows off Will McIntosh's range as a writer.

Hitchers is my first exposure to Hugo award winner Will McIntosh. Somehow I missed his debut novel, Soft Apocalypse, last year. I'm terrible about keeping up on short fiction, but his 2009 Hugo Award winning short story, Bridesicles, was just recently optioned for a feature film. He's also signed a book deal with Orbit to write a novel based on it. Clearly, I've been missing out and Hitchers confirms it.

A tight novel, Hitchers is a fast paced horror story built on the premise of the dead coming back to life. When an act of terrorism unleashes anthrax on Atlanta, killing hundreds of thousands, cartoonist Finn Darby begins blurting things in a strange voice beyond his control. Countless other residents of Atlanta are suffering a similar bizarre affliction. Either all of Atlanta is suffering a psychological break or the dead have returned to possess the living.

Called hitchers, the voices aren't particularly happy and Finn has it worse than most. His voice sounds like his grandfather -- Tom Darby, creator of the long-running newspaper comic strip Toy Shop. And Grandpa isn't terribly happy about the changes Finn has been making to the strip. Naturally, the quest is to get rid of the hitchers and get life back to normal. The mechanism accomplishing this functions like a mystery thriller as Finn and his friends discover the how and why behind the supernatural event.

While McIntosh is executing a simple plot, with more than few contrivances, the strength of the novel is in the emotional and philosophical content. Often communicated through clever interior art in the form of the Toy Shop comic strip, Hitchers discusses the ties that bind people together, and the only thing guarantees to sever them -- death. For Finn, these ties relate to both his grandfather and his dead wife, but also to the rest of his family who are harried, even from the grave, by the Santini like figure of Tom Darby. It all works in McIntosh's capable hands, resonating on every level.

As I read, I was reminded of the television show Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. It was a show about making a sketch comedy show (Saturday Night Live look-a-like), but they never actually showed the comedy sketches. It deflated the product. Hitchers shows the product (Toy Shop) and it makes the whole story pop. Finn and Tom Darby are cartoonists whose conflict stems (at least superficially) from their difference of opinion on the artistic direction of a comic strip. Finn, in particular, is portrayed with such familiarity that I imagine McIntosh has sat at an easel to ink a few frames himself. All in all, the strips are a small part of the overall product, but I can't overstate their importance to the novel's veracity.

I did mention some contrivances earlier in the review, and for some they may detract from the story. Tom Darby is borderline unbelievable in his unabashed selfishness. Finn, and his buddies, always seem to find the people they need to find in convenient fashion. The conclusion to the hitcher problem is one that's as old as the first ghost story. In the moment, I didn't find any of these to be disruptive to my enjoyment of the novel, and McIntosh's skill as a story teller never ceased to stand out.

Based on what I've read about Soft Apocalypse I'm not sure that its proponents will immediately feel the same about Hitchers. The speculation is grounded in the supernatural realm, painting a disturbing view of the afterlife that will give readers something to muse about long about after the final page. He suspends reality more than extrapolating it to a logical conclusion, which seems to me a very different kind of novel. Nevertheless, it demonstrates tremendous range, and given the subjects of his new two-book deal with Orbit, I expect McIntosh to continue to push those boundaries.

Long story short -- if Will McIntosh were a blog, I'd be making sweet love to his RSS feed. Wait... that didn't come out right.