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The Black Phone [Movie Tie-in #2]
Stories
Joe Hill
336 Pages
On-Sale Date: 30/09/2025
ISBN: 9780063460720
Trim Size: 5.250in x 7.950in x 0.850in
Joe Hill’s award-winning story collection, originally published as 20th Century Ghosts, featuring “The Black Phone,” the basis for two major motion pictures (The Black Phone and Black Phone 2) from Universal Pictures and Blumhouse Productions.
John is locked in a basement stained with the blood of half a dozen murdered children, and an antique telephone, long since disconnected, which rings at night with calls from the dead.
Imogene is young, beautiful . . . and dead, waiting in the Rosebud Theater one afternoon in 1945.
Francis was human once, but now he’s an eight-foot-tall locust, and everyone in Calliphora will tremble when they hear him sing.
Nolan knows but can never tell what really happened in the summer of ’77, when his younger brother built a vast cardboard fort with secret doors leading into other worlds.
The past isn’t dead. It isn’t even past. . . .
“[An] inventive collection . . . brave and astute.”
— New York Times Book Review
“Hill’s best stories veer away from the well-trodden creep shows and back alleys of genre writing into more dangerous territory: suburban basements, ball fields and schoolyards.” — Washington Post
“[An] inventive collection . . . brave and astute.” — New York Times Book Review
“Fully developed characters with complex emotional lives enhance the 14 stories in Joe Hill’s extraordinary collection,20th Century Ghosts. There’s not a false note or disappointing effort in this volume.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“The collection of short stories ranges from creepy to sweet, with an impressive arsenal of tactics to attack your psyche.” — Boston Globe
“20th Century Ghosts is Hill’s first collection of short stories and displays consummate skill in a variety of genres . . . Amusing, moving, horrifying—Ghosts runs the full spectrum.” — USA Today
“Alternately sad, scary, strange and at times even sweet, these tales will haunt you long after you’ve read them.” — Parade
“[A] lovely, earnest collection of short fiction.” — Village Voice
“[O]ne of the best [horror] collections of the year. Hill is a relative newcomer who consistently creates creepy, very disturbing stories.” — Locus
“Each tale is unique, and the collection proves that Hill’s talent is not limited to horror, but extends well into the mainstream.” — Denver Rocky Mountain News
“[A] new take on the fantasy-horror genre…Highly recommended.” — The Sun Herald (Sydney, Australia)
“The selections range from the mundane to the surreal, with a strong emphasis on the kind of horror tale perfected by Ray Bradbury, Peter Straub and Stephen King.” — San Francisco Chronicle
“This solid, inventive, scary collection of stories reveals a writer who has thought hard about the problematics of horror.” — New York Times on 20TH CENTURY GHOSTS
“Each of these chilling tales arrests you from the opening sentence and leads you — trustingly, thanks to the simple mastery of the story-teller — into a place of gulping fear.” — Daily Mail (London) on 20TH CENTURY GHOSTS
“Subtle and disturbing in equal measure.” — Coventry Telegraph on 20TH CENTURY GHOSTS
“Irresistible stories.” — Evening Herald (Ireland)
