Halloween@Home: We Sold Our Souls
By Kevin Hoskinson
Entertainment Editor | Pastrami Nation
A girl with a guitar never has to apologize for anything.
Grady Hendrix’s We Sold Our Souls is a rollicking love letter to heavy metal and the mythos created by it. Inherently “evil” and “the devil’s music”, he plays on the very ideas that made the genre so appealing to so many, especially at a time when it was considered taboo. It’s also a satirical and eerily realistic look at the state of the genre now, as well as its roots in other music.
In the 1990s, the heavy metal band Dürt Würk was ready for success. Things quickly fell apart when their lead singer, Terry, decided to go solo as Koffin, leaving his bandmates in the dust. Cut to two decades later. Former guitarist Kris Pulaski is working a dead-end job as the night manager at a Best Western. She’s broke, tired, and very unhappy. Her life was taken from her all those years ago, and she missed her metal days. But as they say, the past always has a way of coming back to bite you in the you know what.
But then, Kris makes a shocking discovery: Terry’s rise to the top might have come at the cost of her soul. This eye-opening revelation causes her to hit the road, get the band back together, and take Terry down once and for all. It’s a journey that will take her across the country, confronting the horrifying truth of her past along the way.
First and foremost, we need to talk about Kris. She is the best thing about the book and absolutely slays. She’s ferocious, resourceful, and one of my favorite characters in a modern book. She has a no-holds-barred attitude, but a lot of that gets subdued by her own life taking her down a path she never expected. It’s not even the adventure she goes on; it’s her place in the ordinary world that takes a toll on her. It’s the repetition and mediocrity of it all. She wants out of the everyday, and for better or worse, this adventure is exactly what she needs.
We Sold Our Souls is a pulpy horror story, one that never takes itself too seriously, but is also a carefully crafted tribute to Rock music of all forms. Each chapter in the book is named after a song, and part of the joy of reading it was seeing what title was going to come next. Throughout its pages, there are references to everyone from Metallica and Def Leppard to Robert Johnson and Dolly Parton, not to mention the books take down of Nu Metal acts like Limp Bizkit.
The thing that makes music so powerful isn’t only its sound but also how it makes you feel. Hendrix clearly has a passion for the subject matter, as he infused each page with that same feeling. The way the dialogue flows and the passion his own characters have make them all feel real, tangible, and relatable. It never feels like you are reading a novel, but rather entering the mind of a fanboy sharing his passion for heavy metal and the legends and myths hidden within it.
If you are looking for a fun and breezy read, you can’t do much better than this. There is plenty of adventure, blood, guts, humor, and heart contained within. Having only read Hendrix’s Horrorstör before this, I knew what to expect, and it delivered in spades. His voice is unique, and if you haven’t read any of his stuff, this is a great place to start.
Rating: Four Pastrami Nations out of Five
