Trigger warning: Gruesome animal death.
Honestly, I don’t know what to say about this one except the main character, Dennis Lange, was a dreadful man. I didn’t feel sad about anything that happened, but think that Hill left too many plot threads I wish he had explored more. This one cried out for more pages IMHO since it just kind of hinted at things that didn’t make a lot of sense. I also think Hill wanted to talk about “canceling” and “MeToo” but this was not coming across very well in not just Dennis and his BS (which I know was the point) but even as it’s described at times, I don’t know if Hill was taking a shot at people like Dennis and the followers that enable this crap or what.
“Jackknife” follows Dennis Lange. Dennis was a hotshot professor when things blow up in his life in a spectacular way. Banished by his wife, he’s staying in a terrible motel feeling sorry for himself. This leads to Dennis taking a walk and coming across a tree. A tree that maybe is not all that it seems.
So as I said, Dennis was awful. I actively rooted for nothing but bad things to happen to him. But going into the tree’s history I was left blank at one point and wish that Hill had added more there.
The ending read like a Stephen King short story from the 80s though.