Author Stephen Graham Jones loves slashers. Not only was his 2020 novel The Only Good Indians a slasher at its core, but slashers permeate every element of his latest. My Heart Is a Chainsaw showcases Jones’s extensive knowledge of the horror subgenre through his protagonist, delivering a captivating story that also works as a thought-provoking examination of the familiar formula while recontextualizing slashers to forge new ground. It’s both a heartfelt love letter and a fresh take, making you fall in love while shredding your heart.
Jade Daniels is an angry, half-Indian outcast on the verge of high school graduation in the small lakeside town of Proofrock. She has an absent mother, an abusive father, and not a single friend. The only constant in her life is her love of horror movies, especially slashers. She writes about them concerning Proofrock’s history in school papers and talks about them to anyone that’ll listen. As a new luxury community gets constructed across the lake, marking the start of gentrification as affluent neighbors move in, blood starts to spill in Indian Lake’s waters. Jade senses a real-life slasher unfolding and employs her encyclopedic knowledge to find her final girl and save the town. If only anyone will believe her.
Jones weaves complex layers to Jade’s tale, using his distinct rhythm and present tense writing style that sets his prose apart. Toggling between his third-person prose and first-person papers in the voice of a young teen, it can take careful attention to parse the necessary details for the story. His protagonist doesn’t fit the description of your average final girl, and she knows it. Jade makes for a fascinating unreliable narrator, but not in your conventional sense. Her observations of Proofrock, the town’s haunted past, and the potential bloodbath looming in its near future are solid. At least based on her working knowledge of both the area and of horror. But her self-awareness seems far less dependable. Instead, Jade seems unwilling to face certain realities, preferring to live in the removed world of slashers. That colors every interaction with supporting characters, including her chosen final girl, new girl Letha Mondragon.
As Jade tries to apply the standard formula to Proofrock, the narrative develops intriguing nuance and subtext. Chainsaw delivers every bit of the gory horror and slasher mayhem fans would want on a surface level. It’s anchored by Jade’s blood-drenched yet powerful journey that reveals a deeply broken girl desperate for connection. Subtextually, Jones also seems to be engaging in a conversation about the subgenre itself and its tropes. That Jones names each chapter after a slasher movie is the easy reference, but the way he reflects upon the psychology of the genre through his protagonist and her reads on it offers an insight I wasn’t expecting.
Chainsaw doesn’t just reserve the intensity for the gore or a heroine that refuses to see herself as such. But for the emotional depths as well. Jones lulls the reader into submission through Jade’s sheer will and confidence in her horror knowledge. That’s precisely when he pulls the rug out from under you, introducing sharp left turns in the narrative more than once. Jade knows everything there is about slashers but not life. Similarly, Jones’s latest adheres to slasher convention until it doesn’t, shocking you with a cold dose of realism.
It’s an ode to the slasher, a tale of revenge and redemption, and a coming-of-age journey that challenges and disturbs. It’s atmospheric and strange and builds to a gruesome finale that holds you firmly in its grip. For anyone who’s ever found salvation in horror, like a cherished form of escapism that makes you feel seen, My Heart Is a Chainsaw slays.
My Heart Is a Chainsaw is available for pre-order and releases on August 31.
