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My Heart Is a Chainsaw

My Heart Is a Chainsaw

HorrorSlasher
Pages
416
Published
2021
Language
English

Synopsis

Jade Daniels is seventeen, half Indigenous, and an outcast in the small town of Proofrock, Idaho—a girl who has survived an abusive father and her own despair by memorizing every slasher film ever made. When two tourists are murdered at Indian Lake and a wealthy new development rises across the water, Jade recognizes the shape of what's coming: a slasher cycle, complete with a masked killer and a revenge to be avenged. All it needs is a final girl, and Jade thinks she's found one in Letha Mondragon.

Stephen Graham Jones's My Heart Is a Chainsaw is both a loving encyclopedia of the slasher genre and a piercing story about trauma, class, gentrification, and a girl no one will listen to. Winner of the Bram Stoker Award for Best Horror Novel, it opens the acclaimed Indian Lake Trilogy.

Prose complexity
5/10

Vibe

DarkGrittyTenseEmotional
Coming of AgeRevengeSurvivalUnreliable Narrator

Genres

Horror Slasher Psychological Thriller Thriller Literary Fiction

About the author

S
Stephen Graham Jones

Stephen Graham Jones (born January 22, 1972, in Midland, Texas) is an American author of horror, crime and speculative fiction, and an enrolled member of the Blackfeet Nation. He holds a B.A. from Texas Tech University, an M.A. from the University of North Texas, and a Ph.D. from Florida State University, and is the Ineva Baldwin Professor of English at the University of Colorado Boulder, where he has taught since 2008. His novels include The Only Good Indians, My Heart Is a Chainsaw, and The Bu...

Characters

Jade DanielsProtagonist

An angry, half-Indian outcast who is protected by horror movies and finds herself embroiled in real-life bloodshed.

Letha MondragonSupporting

The kind, beautiful daughter of a wealthy newcomer, whom Jade fixates on as Proofrock's destined 'final girl.'

Theo MondragonSupporting

Letha's wealthy father, the businessman behind the new lakeside development.

Sheriff HardySupporting

Proofrock's sheriff, investigating the killings around Indian Lake.

All characters in My Heart Is a Chainsaw

Frequently asked questions

  • What is the book my heart is a chainsaw about?

    My Heart Is a Chainsaw is about Jade Daniels, a troubled teenager who uses her extensive knowledge of slasher films to understand and combat a series of real-life murders in her hometown of Indian Lake. She believes a masked killer is targeting her community. Jade must confront both the present danger and her own difficult past.