Palaver's Stephen King blog

Author: palaver (page 2 of 8)

Revival (2013)

March 30, 2017 /

“Knowing how something works and what it is are two very different things.”

A story about losing faith and looking for other things in its place. But one dedicated to a veritable Who’s Who list of classic horror writers and featuring references to De Vermis Mysteriis. How very King. And like the cautionary tales of old, it’s a tale wherein the narrator wants to tell his whole story, not just the juicy bits.

The new minister in the Methodist church seems like a nice guy to six-year-old Jamie, youngest in a big family, growing up in the shadow of the Cold War in the 60s.

Written from the first person perspective and initially set in the small town of Harlow, Maine, not far from Castle Rock, the story in general seems nice enough at first, encapsulating childhood with King’s usual  deftness. Apart from a deeply ominous prologue, that is. Early on, though, Jamie underscores that this book isn’t about happy childhood memories. And it isn’t. It’s not even primarily about childhood. In fact, it’s just as much about aging. And its inevitable consequence.

Reverend Jacobs is interested in electricity. He employs it as a teaching aide during youth nights, to the point where parents and children alike find it a bit overmuch. He also finds other uses for it. For example a small miracle, which brings joy. Then utter tragedy strikes the minister’s family, described in King’s typical unflinching manner. The “terrible sermon” that follows makes Jacobs’s continued service an impossibility. To young Jamie, though, it’s as if the truth has finally been told.

Later, Jamie discovers music. The electric guitar, of course. King delights as much in describing the joy of this discovery, as well as the young love affair to follow, as he excels at describing horror. When presenting Jamie as a junkie, I should add, we also get to enjoy King the dark comedian, relishing this chance to bring life at rock bottom to, well, life. Not unlike some scenes in Dr Sleep. One wonders if King is campaigning to warn Constant reader of the dangers of drugs or if he simply writes what he knows.

The two meet up later in life, when things are very different for both of them. Electricity is still very much a thing for the former reverend. Much more so, in fact. But the things he can do, ranging from cheap tricks to mysterious healing, seem to have after effects.

“Something. Something. Happened. Happened.”

Somehow the spookiest line I’ve read in ages.

Later still, Jacobs is a travelling preacher and healer. Even if the rev’s new-old career might be a ruse, the description of a revival tent meeting has elements of genuine warmth. And crass deceit, as well. And, still, the electricity.

Like 1922, it’s a story you’d be forgiven for abandoning before the end. But whereas 1922 begins almost at rock bottom, “Revival” presents the good times first, or rather interspersed between the bad ones. That makes it even worse.

Their paths keep crossing,  ultimately leading to a final experiment which we have been prepped to dread from page one. When the story arc finally returns to a place of great import for an ending of total despair, echoing Shelley and Lovecraft but going further than any of them, an ending that makes that of Under the Dome feel brightly optimistic, we meet King at his very darkest. Crowning the patient, realistic setup with this outlandish horror works almost too well and Revival can really get under your skin. The only comfort seems to be that to King – judging by, for example, the almost provocatively mundane afterword – it’s ‘just’ another story. Not what he truly believes. I hope …

End of Watch (2016)

January 28, 2017 /

“Yeah.”

Like the two preceding books in the Hodges trilogy, End of Watch begins on that fateful night in 2009 when “Mr Mercedes”, a young sociopath named Brady Hartsfield, kills a number of people using a stolen car. This time we join the proceedings in the company of two paramedics responding to the MCI call. They save the life of a seriously wounded woman named Martine Stover.

But as the new story skips to current day, Martine is dead. Like many others linked to Hartsfield. It’s almost as if he is still pushing people over the edge, even though he is in a clinic in a practically vegetative state.

Closure is the key term as detective Hodges and his partner Holly are forced to once more confront a murderous young man who, judging by all evidence, is incapable of doing anything at all. Following the continued evolution of the once isolated Holly is a treat. She is never smoothly confident, but has become sufficiently sure of herself to take control when needed. Evolving, if that’s the word, is also the murderous Brady Hartsfield, slowly coming out of a comatose state in a way reminiscent of King’s more supernaturally charged work. For Hodges, things seem to be turning bad health wise, just as he realises he still has some loose ends to tie up. His penchant for keeping secrets is a somewhat frustrating aspect of this book as well as the previous ones, but luckily, he can’t fool his friends for long.

Of the three Hodges books, this is the one most in line with what casual users might expect from King. With the focus on an outdated game console being used as part of an ambitious scheme it’s as much a techno thriller as a supernatural one. The combination of telekinesis, technology and the detective novel works surprisingly well, though. It’s a bold mix, but it’s presented in a matter of fact way that makes the concept strangely credible.

When the story picks up speed in a series of events and crises, it never actually slows down, but more focus than I would have preferred is placed on the details and minutae of Brady’s last scheme. Other themes include even less cheerful ones like suicide and cancer. But at heart, like so many of King’s stories, it’s also a tale of friendship. The finale, in keeping with the other two books, is tense and exciting and the epilogue is touching.

Summing up the series: once more exploring a new-ish format, King has again proven that he can write in any genre and style, and pull the reader in.

Footnote
In a neat reference to Cujo, we learn that boy band ‘Round here were sometimes sponsored by Sharp Cereals.

Finders Keepers (2015)

September 28, 2016 /

“Shit don’t mean shit”

After a prologue set in the 1970s, Finders Keepers begins on the very same night as Mr Mercedes, with an out-of-work man queueing for a 2009 job fair which we know won’t happen. Because of ’Mr Mercedes’.

The storyline set in the past, where an elderly writer is assaulted in his home, has no immediately obvious bearing on this tragedy. In Morris Bellamy, the young literature fan who helms the crime, the book finds an equivalent to Brady in Mr Mercedes, though. Almost void of empathy and capable of horrific acts but with elements of humanity and a detached sense of dark humour. A creature not unlike Pinkie in Brighton Rock.

The threads converge when the boy in a problem-stricken family finds a strange treasure buried three decades ago. The problems are, of course, born of the 2009 vehicle attack. The seeming solution is a treasure buried after the assault on the writer. The boy, Pete, decides to use it to play the part of secret helper, bringing his family much needed relief. But the treasure is not confined to cash. There are notebooks as well. And for the ageing Morris, whose prison term (for an unrelated crime) is finally coming to an end, these are way more important.

King has tried many styles of writing and I like them all. That said, the sparse but vivid prose he employs in the ‘Hodges books’ is particularly great. He is always good with atmosphere and setting, but in these books he seems to take special delight in description, mixing the laconic tone of a hardboiled detective novel with vivid, often funny imagery.

“He spoke not in the tentative tenor of your usual adolescent, but in a confident, husky baritone that seemed far too big for the chicken chest lurking behind the purple rag of his tie.”

It’s also a book about reading and writing, topics famously dear to mr King, and through (among other things) a quirky literature teacher he seizes every opportunity to impart exhilarating wisdom on the subject. Two main characters, with wildly different temperaments but equally invested in the same writer, with occasionally parallel story arcs and even inhabiting the same house in different eras, represent two sides of the consummate Reader.

Fittingly, it’s a book that effortlessly keeps your interest, with comical details and small surprises tucked into the bigger narrative. With new and often sympathetic characters alongside familiar ones, all of them elegantly connected and with their part to play.

As for the returning characters, Bill Hodges may not be King’s most charismatic character to date, but it’s nice to see the evolution of Holly, the former ‘hikikomori’, whose quirks are fondly and funnily captured without a hint of mockery. Jerome is a good character but his antics as ‘Tyrone Feelgood’ exemplify an area where I feel King rarely excels: adding comedy through characters trying to be funny. Like Eddie in The Dark Tower, he’s best when he’s not joking around.

Even though the book spans less than 400 pages, King also manages to squeeze in a brutal, almost darkly comical version of The Shawshank Redemption.

Three quarters in, a quite extraordinary element is added to the mix. Something involving Brady Hartsfield. Something very King, yet, one thought, not to be expected in this book. But that’s just a brief interlude (or teaser of things to come) in a tale of obsession, good intentions gone bad and strange coincidences. With a finale almost as tense and twice as violent as that of Mr Mercedes.

And one heck of a spooky epilogue.

Mr Mercedes (2014)

June 20, 2016 /

“He leaves his house with no premonition that he won’t be back.”

The opening scene is great; vivid and deeply humane, where two lonesome, jobless people in recession America meet while waiting in line for a job expo. It’s depressing and heartfelt, almost political in a good way. Then disaster strikes. A man-made disaster, created on purpose with the aid of a stolen Mercedes.

Later, a retired homicide detective named Bill Hodges receives a chatty letter from the ‘perk’. Does he still wonder who did it? Trouble dealing with retired life? You bet …

The ‘perk’, surprisingly, is introduced as a character in his own right in the following chapter, rather than kept in the shadows. Over the course of a job conversation with a colleague we learn more about him than the letter revealed. Including the fact that he hates everyone but knows how to adapt.

Initial reaction: the focus on the woman who owned the car used for the murder slows down the proceedings. It later turns out that this focus is warranted, of course. Not least since her sister will become a major character.

A romance thriller, what was the odds of King writing one of those? Well, it’s more than that of course. The portrait of the killer is every bit as twisted as the love affair is cute, revealing a young man with no doubt serious issues but few redeeming qualities. And yet surprisingly human in some of his reactions.

It’s also sprinkled with technical info and computer tidbits that feel surprisingly up to date. King seems to have done some serious homework on this one.

A particularly shocking sequence around half-time extinguishes any “fears” that King is writing a normal thriller. A flat, laconic summary of a defining event in Brady’s life continues this trend. It’s a tough read, especially since Brady’s perspective includes a crass, sickening sort of jocularity.

The dark turn veers into a nose dive as things go from bad to worse. When a peek into Brady’s world view around three quarters in view sums up nihilism as well as anything you’ve ever read (history is aptly described as ‘scar tissue’), the romance detective novel association is just a vague memory, although the introduction of a psychologically challenged woman and her swift friendship with Hodges’s friend Jerome brighten up the proceedings somewhat.

The stakes are as high as in a “normal” thriller, though, and a race against time provides suspense to the very end. And by suspense I mean Suspense. This one nearly gave me a heart attack.

The Wind Through the Keyhole (2012)

April 3, 2016 /

The perfect gift to fans of King’s Dark Tower epic, leaving his audacious and frustrating ending intact as the closing point of a tale more than 30 years in the making.

Instead, his latest addition is a story within a story within a story, the middle one set in Roland’s youth (soon after the events described in Wizard and Glass) and the last one starting right after the ka-tet has left the city of Lud. The innermost one is a grim and beautiful fairytale placed in Mid-world. They are, all of them, wonderful. At some 300 pages, this is King at his most condensed, adopting a style unknown to many casual readers.

Taking shelter from a deadly cold storm known as a starkblast, the ka-tet spend the time listening to Roland as he tells the other two stories.

The one wherein he is the main character deals with a murderous shape-shifter out in the countryside, whom Roland and fellow gunslinger Jaimee are sent to hunt down. In passing, almost, we get some more clues about the world that was and the events that were to change it. We hear different attitudes towards the rulers in Gilead and towards Farson, the ‘good man’ who is to lead a rebellion against them.

At its third level, the tale is arguably the most fairy-taleish, with creatures such as the ‘sighe’ which would feel slightly out of place in Roland’s time, some old-fashioned magic and even a dragon. It is, fittingly, a story told by a young Roland to a frightened child to pass the time and ease the horror of a recent tragedy. This titular tale takes up more than half of the book and once you’ve decided that the resolution to the other two can wait a bit, it’s sure to grab your attention. Here as well, a starkblast becomes an important element.

King also takes the opportunity to provide some consoling details to the saddest part of the gunslinger’s long, strange life.

If Sai King should decide to write more such complementary tales about Mid-world, it would be awesome. If not, this little book is still a treasure to be grateful for.

The Dark Tower series

April 3, 2016 /

The Dark Tower is a series of books inspired by Robert Browning’s poem “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came”. Part fantasy, part western, part something entirely its own genre, it has become King’s most important work in many ways.

From 1978 and 1981, the installments that make up the first book where published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. They were collected into a book and published as “The Gunslinger” in 1982. The last book appeared on the shelves in 2004. But the story of this story spans even more years, since The Gunslinger was begun before even Carrie was published.

Under the Dome (2009)

April 3, 2016 /

“We all support the team”

One day an invisible barrier appears around the small town of Chester’s Mill. It’s not a “dome” precisely, to be nitpicky about it, but the effect is roughly that of a huge glass bowl – or rather, town-shaped tube – descended from out of nowhere. Those caught on the inside may soon be the talk of the world, but they are also completely isolated from it. With dizzying speed, things spin out of control as the second selectman and de facto ruler of the town eagerly grasps for this chance of total control. Some people oppose him.

It’s tempting – irresistably so, almost – to read Under the Dome as an allegory of our times, right down to specific environmental issues and how certain characters seem to echo the traits of certain politicans of (probably lasting) ill repute. Even more importantly, however, I think it is about random, wanton cruelty. It’s deeply pessimistic, a downward spiral that at times seems intent on burrowing straight down into utter despair. It’s also entertaining, if that is the word, in its multitude of memorable characters, hectic pace and abundance of dramatic situations. Whether it’s a masterpiece, I have yet to decide for myself, but it’s King at his peak – demanding your attention and alternately punishing and rewarding you for getting on this journey.

Duma Key (2008)

April 3, 2016 /

“I can do this”

Edgar Freemantle finds the artist within him after losing an arm in an accident and moving to Florida as a means of trying to get his life back together. Or at least to make it bearable. Memory problems, rage, divorce, he doesn’t have much going for him until that sunset across the gulf – and what might be a ship – captures him. And he captures it, among other things, on the canvasses he fills with dark and wonderful paintings.

New friends, the memorable Wireman and the old, rich and demented woman he takes care of, add to the joys of his new life. What must be hauntings, and the growing feeling that his art is growing a life of its own, add to the horrors.

Yup, it’s another King story that gradually spirals into ever more frightening and supernatural territory and topped off with an unabashedly dramatic climax with imagery seemingly far removed from the down-to-earth tone of the beginning, but not before we’ve been forced to care deeply for the characters. And not before we are treated to, among numerous other great scenes, a depiction of nervousness that is an absolute gem, as Freemantle gets ready to address a crowd of art lovers. The mood is exquisite, with an almost audible soundtrack of waves across the seashells beneath the house. The recurring “How to Draw a Picture” chapters, which initially seem independent but gradually intertwine with the main story, are one of many other causes for kudos.

In tone not unlike “Bag of Bones”, near the end reminiscent of “Black House” and containing themes from the last Dark Tower novels, “Duma Key” is still very much its own story. Partly because the setting. Partly because… well, with King each story is its own, isn’t it? That’s why we remain Constant Readers.

Blaze (2007)

April 3, 2016 /

“Put money in briefcase. Be ready to go on a moments notise. Sincirely yours,
The kidnappers of Joe Gerard 4.”

Clayton Blaisdell, a.k.a. ‘Blaze’, is a huge man with a slow mind whose partner-in-crime has just died when the story begins, leaving him alone to carry out their final caper – the kidnapping of a baby. This simple story, engrossing but void of any significant surprises, is intertwined with what proves to be more or less Blaze’s entire life story. And a hard life it is, though not without moments of joy. It’s a simple but touching page-turner with both humour and some down-to-earth horror – mostly in the form of cold-hearted people – and perhaps just a touch of the supernatural. Along the way, a handful of ‘short cons’ performed by Blaze and the late George are presented.

Though not making any secret of the actual author, King dusted off his old pseudonym when finally publishing the story, since it was written around the time of most the ‘original’ Richard Bachman stories. In his foreword King rightly notes that ‘Blaze’ has more than a touch of “Of Mice and Men” in it. Add to that the main character’s fondness for Charles Dickens’s “Oliver Twist” and, of course, King’s own style and unfiltered dialogue and you may get an idea of what’s in store. King also reveals that he, when finally revisiting and rewriting this decades old tale, changed his harsh opinion about it. And yes, it was worth publishing, and it’s worth reading. It is, above all, a fast read – the kind of book you pick up on vacation and put down finished a day or two later – it was in my case, at least.

Lisey’s Story (2006)

April 3, 2016 /

“I’ll holler you home”

Almost halfway through, Lisey’s Story is still “just” a book about two married people parted by death. Lisey Landon is tending to her mentally ill sister and going through her late writer husband’s things when she gets an unwelcome visit from a “fan”. No, it’s not Misery revisited. Intimate and daringly slow-moving it seems to be what some critics surely have rushed to dub “King’s serious book”. It is, to be sure, one of King’s many serious novels, but not as realistic as one might be lulled into thinking, if that is to be regarded as an intrinsic part of gravity.

The descent into bloody madness comes late but suddenly, merely hinted at throughout the first half of the book. King pulls no punches here, as he describes a family haunted by the seemingly inevitable fate of insanity (which comes in two flavours, different but equally frightening), nor does he remain in the world of established fact (who would have guessed?).

It’s also to a certain extent about the secret language of relationships and the penchant of writers for collecting words and phrases that ring true or perhaps just interesting to them – summed up in a phrase which King himself might well have caught in i similar fashion: “Catches from the word pool”.

As challenging as “Gerald’s Game” but more sympathetic, could be one description. Echoes of “Rose Madder” can also be heard. It also begs the question: has King ever written about a happy writer?

I must confess that I found one particular part of this moving story tough to stomach. No, I won’t say which one – it may be your absolute favourite section and there’s no use in spoiling that for you. Now that I’ve got that off my chest, I can safely express my admiration for the rest of it.

Lisey’s Story, which incidentally revisits his fictional town of Castle Rock, is pure King. If anyone should have the poor sense to hail this as a step in an entirely new direction and a higher echelon of seriousness, just ignore them, they’ve obviously just been skimming through his previous books. But perhaps this is even more personal and sad than usual. Some scenes make for truly gruelling reading, but the tenderness in the story – sometimes present even in the midst of violence and madness – makes it a deeply rewarding read.

Olderposts Newerposts

Categories

Recent Posts

About Stephen King

Copyright © 2024 Palaver's Stephen King blog

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑