An Encyclopedic Narrative of Slasher Films

 My Heart is a Chainsaw 

by Stephen Graham Jones

Crystal Lake, Maine by Tichnor Brothers, Publisher, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Stephen Graham Jones in Office 2019 by NAJ CO, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

I was really disappointed by My Heart is a Chainsaw. I loved Only the Good Indians, and I’ve read some other works by Stephen Graham Jones. He is a creative storyteller who is able to weave in Indigenous folklore with modern horror. This book, though, took the use of tropes and movies a little too far. As I was reading it, I just couldn’t wait for each chapter to end. I initially liked the character of Jade, a high school student who is kind of an outsider, from a dysfunctional family, and an obsessive fan of slasher films. The story follows a killer who ends up killing people in ways that mimic popular 80s slasher films. The first few murders were kind of interesting, but from there, the book kind of takes on a kind of summary of these films where Jade primarily shares her knowledge of the films and no one believes her because she’s such an outsider. I didn’t really like the characters of Theo and Letha either, and I found them to be unrealistic. I wasn’t sure why Jade wanted to be friends with Letha, especially after she learns about Theo and his plans to develop the area around the Lake. Some things like the Lake Witch legend were interesting, but it became too muddied when Jade tried to tie the murders to her love of slasher films. I plan on reading some other Stephen Graham Jones books, but I probably won’t be reading the Lake Witch trilogy.