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My Heart Is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones

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My Heart Is a Chainsaw

by Stephen Graham Jones

Narrator Cara Gee

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Length 13 hours 3 minutes

Language English

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Bookseller recommendation

“Jade isn’t the final girl; she doesn’t fit the requirements for a typical slasher flick. When her town becomes the setting for a real-life slasher case, she fills the role of wise woman to the appropriate final girl.”
— April Gosling • Boulder Book Store

Bookseller recommendation

“I love, love, love Stephen Graham Jones and this latest is no exception. An incredible homage to slasher films, this book is perfect for any horror fan. And the audio is AMAZING! Cara Gee gives voice to Jade in such a way that I honestly can't imagine anyone else reading this now. It's an absolute pleasure to listen to her read this!”
— Becky • BookBar

Bookseller recommendation

“This frequently amusing and ultimately satisfying meta-horror novel follows Jade, a Native high-schooler with no friends, no extant future outside her janitorial job, and a deep love for slasher flicks, which are her coping mechanism in the face of an alcoholic father and absentee mom. Film trivia pervade the narration at every turn, but slasher newbies (like myself) will find the references easier to follow thanks to Jade's essays, presented in between chapters. Soon enough, a series of deaths convince Jade that a real slasher cycle is starting. Is this the overactive imagination of a struggling teen? And if not, what is it? My Heart Is A Chainsaw balances its obligations to both developing real characters of the sort not seen in pulp films, and functioning as a slasher itself, one that will keep you guessing until the end. On the way there, horror tropes are used to examine Native American identity, economic inequity, and childhood trauma. If you're into slashers, this is one you can't afford to miss; otherwise I would suggest listening to a sample to see if the narrational style is up your alley.”
— Graham • Next Chapter Booksellers

Bookseller recommendation

“This book is for all the slasher fans out there! Think you know all there is to know about surviving a psycho slasher? Jade Daniels LIVES for surviving her own real life slasher flick. With an abusive father, absentee mother and not a friend in the world, Jade lives in a world of her own making, until it's not. She sees a serial killer in every situation so when a real killer strikes her hometown, she is ready for it. Everyone is a suspect, including Jade and it will take all of her years of studying the genre to keep her alive! ”
— Suzanne • Underground Books

Bookseller recommendation

“Jade is my new favorite final girl. Stuffed so full of Slasher references I almost had trouble keeping up. ”
— Kayla • Page Turner Books

Summary
About the author

#3 in Bestselling Horror Audiobooks

Winner of the Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel

In her quickly gentrifying rural lake town Jade sees recent events only her encyclopedic knowledge of horror films could have prepared her for in this latest chilling novel that “will give you nightmares. The good kind, of course” (BuzzFeed) from the Jordan Peele of horror literature, Stephen Graham Jones.

“Some girls just don’t know how to die…”

Shirley Jackson meets Friday the 13th in My Heart Is a Chainsaw, written by the New York Times bestselling author of The Only Good Indians Stephen Graham Jones, called “a literary master” by National Book Award winner Tananarive Due and “one of our most talented living writers” by Tommy Orange.

Alma Katsu calls My Heart Is a Chainsaw “a homage to slasher films that also manages to defy and transcend genre.” On the surface is a story of murder in small-town America. But beneath is its beating heart: a biting critique of American colonialism, Indigenous displacement, and gentrification, and a heartbreaking portrait of a broken young girl who uses horror movies to cope with the horror of her own life.

Jade Daniels is an angry, half-Indian outcast with an abusive father, an absent mother, and an entire town that wants nothing to do with her. She lives in her own world, a world in which protection comes from an unusual source: horror movies…especially the ones where a masked killer seeks revenge on a world that wronged them. And Jade narrates the quirky history of Proofrock as if it is one of those movies. But when blood actually starts to spill into the waters of Indian Lake, she pulls us into her dizzying, encyclopedic mind of blood and masked murderers, and predicts exactly how the plot will unfold.

Yet, even as Jade drags us into her dark fever dream, a surprising and intimate portrait emerges…a portrait of the scared and traumatized little girl beneath the Jason Voorhees mask: angry, yes, but also a girl who easily cries, fiercely loves, and desperately wants a home. A girl whose feelings are too big for her body. My Heart Is a Chainsaw is her story, her homage to horror and revenge and triumph.

Fiction Mystery & Thriller Horror

Stephen Graham Jones is the New York Times bestselling author of The Only Good Indians. He has been an NEA fellowship recipient and a recipient of several awards including the Ray Bradbury Award from the Los Angeles Times, the Bram Stoker Award, the Shirley Jackson Award, the Jesse Jones Award for Best Work of Fiction from the Texas Institute of Letters, the Independent Publishers Award for Multicultural Fiction, and the Alex Award from American Library Association. He is the Ivena Baldwin Professor of English at the University of Colorado Boulder.