The Outsider

The Outsider by Stephen King (2018)

A child is horribly murdered and mutilated, and all evidence on the scene points to an unlikely suspect - local Little League coach and all-around great guy Terry Maitland. However, Maitland also has an air-tight alibi. He was out of town with several of his teacher colleagues at a conference and was even caught on film at right around the time the child was killed. But how can you argue with DNA evidence? Detective Ralph Anderson and his colleagues don't think you can, but after arresting Maitland publicly and learning of his alibi, he has a lot to answer for. This is just the beginning of Stephen King's newest novel, which goes on for over 500 pages and ends up somewhere unexpected.

Somehow, I thought this book was more of a crime/mystery novel than traditional Stephen King fare. It's definitely about a crime, but things got pretty weird quickly. Without giving too much away (because everything I describe above happens very early) I will mention that the story brings in some elements inspired by folklore which can, of course, be incredibly creepy and I like how it was used here. There was also a real-life tragic event that happened in the past at a tourist attraction which also lent quite a creepy feeling to the story.

If you've read King's Bill Hodges trilogy you'll recognize one character, Holly Gibney, who is intriguing enough in her own right to make me want to finally pick those books up. As always, King seems to pull his characters out of real life, each one fully-formed and multi-dimensional as people you see every day. I don't know how he does this. They're all imperfect - some more than others - and watching Ralph Anderson grapple to explain something inexplicable, or Marcy Maitland try to reconcile her husband with the horrible person who committed a violent crime was satisfying, but familiar to anyone who's read Stephen King before.

The Outsider is pretty long, and I spent a full week and a half reading it, but it was well worth the ride. I can't exactly say I enjoyed it, as so much of it made me feel rather uncomfortable and a bit icky, but it was so well crafted and satisfying and I definitely liked spending time with these characters as they tried to unravel this strange mystery.

Throwback Thursday: The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon

In which I chat about books I read long ago that have stuck with me, though my recollections might be vague.

As I've mentioned before, I've been reading Stephen King since I was a teenager (in Maine - I think it's required there.) Many years ago when I had a driving commute I began listening to audiobooks and The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon was one of the first. In the story, a young girl gets lost in the woods with only her radio as a companion. She listens to baseball and thinks about her favorite player, Tom Gordon, while hoping for rescue. Meanwhile she feels like there may be something in the woods with her, something more dangerous than what is found in nature.

This isn't a horror novel, not really. Though Trisha is afraid there's something after her, it could so easily just be her own imagination. I don't even really remember that part of the story. What has stuck with me is Anne Heche's voice as narrator reading about this little girl in the woods being bitten by insects, clutching her radio and listening to baseball games. The story had such a lonely feel and somewhat desperate as Trisha suffered minor irritations like bug bites while knowing there was a real possibility she could die if she stayed lost for too long.

It has been close to 15 years since I listened to this audiobook, but I can still remember listening raptly while clutching my steering wheel and making my way through rush-hour traffic on the highway. It didn't matter how many cars were around me, I felt like I was alone in the scary woods, lost and waiting for rescue. Like much of Stephen King's work, this is very character-driven, creepy, and atmospheric story. If you like King, this is a must-read.

Gerald's Game

Gerald's Game by Stephen King (1992)

Jessie Burlingame and her husband Gerald slip off to their cabin in the woods for some sexytimes, but when Gerald is accidentally killed Jessie is left hand-cuffed to the bed with no way to escape and only her own thoughts to keep her company. Or, maybe not.

As Jessie lies uncomfortably on the bed for hours, her mind begins to drift back to one summer when something so terrible happened she hasn't let herself even think of it until now. A small chorus of voices in her head argue with each other and vie for her attention as she comes to grips with her both her past and her present.

Gerald's Game is not a book of action so much as one of internal struggle and growth. Most of the book takes place in Jessie's head as she thinks about her husband, her father, her therapist, and her old friend Ruth. Ruth and Nora, the therapist, are a couple of the voices she hears in her head, along with an alter-ego she thinks of as Goodwife Burlingame.

But that's not to say that the novel is all about thinking. Things do happen, and they are creepy and sometimes downright gruesome. Jessie makes attempts to relieve her worsening thirst and, of course, to free herself from the handcuffs. She also has visitors, but the less said about those the better. You'll just have to read it yourself.

I've had a tough time reading lately, possibly because of so many distractions in my life right now, which is why I turned to Stephen King. This is one of his books I missed because it came out soon after I went to college and discovered that there are, in fact, other authors out there. I didn't read anything of his for quite a while and now I'm trying to catch up. I think it was a good book to pick at the time and I'm glad I read it, but it's definitely not one of my favorites. I really appreciated the story of Jessie coming to grips with her childhood trauma, and trying to save her own life, but I do like a little more action in a story.

Revival

Revival by Stephen King (2014)

When Jamie Morton was just a kid in the 1960s, he was playing with toy soldiers in the driveway one day when a shadow fell over him. He looked up and saw the man he came to know as Pastor Charlie Jacobs, a man whose shadow would remain over Jamie even decades later.

Jamie grew up to become a musician and a drug addict, and he went through rough times and lost people close to him. Charlie also experienced loss and difficult times, but he always retained a fascination with electricity, and every time Jamie saw him he was using his strange electrical power in different ways. Whether he was using it for cheap tricks or to heal members of his new congregation he was obviously working towards something bigger, and the more Jamie learned the more fearful he became.

The way Stephen King describes his characters and their lives always brings me back to my childhood and, in fact, I read this while in Maine at my sister's house over Thanksgiving. (My family is just as rural and redneck as King's characters. We went skeet shooting after Thanksgiving dinner. No lie.) If you aren't from Maine, or somewhere similarly rural, you might not appreciate just how true to life his writing is. But he really gets it. I know Stephen King has lived his entire life in Maine, but he's more educated and far more wealthy than the people he's writing about, yet I don't think he's let his fame change him.

Science and religion are woven together through Charlie's evolving worldview. Early on, he explains religion as an extension of science because "science is finite." Later, after he has lost his faith, he uses religion as a cover because people will buy into it more than his weird science. It's sadly true, actually - people aren't willing to accept science they don't understand, yet they are willing to accept religious ideas that are much more far-fetched because of their faith. It's really kind of bizarre when you think about it.

I also liked the the concept of a "fifth business," someone who just keeps popping up at random times over the years, which is what Charlie Jacobs was to Jamie Morton. The very idea is somehow ominous, and here it was more so because Jamie knew that Charlie was up to something strange. I could kind of see where the story was going before it got there, but much about it was quite different than I expected. Through a lot of the book I kept thinking that it wasn't exactly a horror novel, but it is. It definitely is. Things happened near the end that made my blood run cold.

And I will leave you with that. It's Stephen King, and it's good Stephen King.

R.I.P. VIII Challenge Wrap-up

October is over and with it the R.eaders I.mbibing P.eril Challenge. I read the following books for this challenge:

When Nights Were Cold by Susanna Jones
Slaves of Obsession by Anne Perry
Doctor Sleep by Stephen King
14 by Peter Clines

I really liked all of these books a lot. I'm especially happy that I finally read 14, as it's been on my list to read for quite a while now and I think I needed this push to finally prioritize it. It was very unusual and creative and just fantastic. I highly recommend it. Even the Anne Perry book was a particular standout for that series. Her books are comfort reads to me in a way because I always know what to expect, but this one was especially good. The Stephen King book was especially well timed for this challenge, though I would have read it whenever it came out. When Nights Were Cold was also a priority since I had ordered it all the way from the UK. (It's still unavailable in the US, but there are some used copies on Amazon, and I highly recommend it.)

I had hoped to finally read The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins, but although I checked it out of the library and even renewed it at least once, I never quite got to it. I also wanted to read Your House Is On Fire, Your Children All Gone by Stefan Kiesbye which my library was supposed to have available, but I looked all over the place and couldn't find it. Until yesterday, when I was walking past the display of new large print books and spotted it lying there completely out of place. I've read only a few pages so far, but the style reminds me a bit of Shirley Jackson and that is a good thing.

The R.I.P. VIII review site is here if you'd like to read the reviews of other participants, which I recommend. There are almost 500 reviews there now, from somewhere around 200 different blogs.

I don't frequently participate in reading challenges, but I'm glad I took part in this one. It was fun, seasonally appropriate, and has encouraged me to read a couple of books I had been putting off for quite a while. I look forward to participating again next year!

Doctor Sleep

Doctor Sleep by Stephen King (2013)

The little boy from The Shining is all grown up, but the memories of that one winter at the Overlook Hotel aren't far away. Dan Torrance has turned into an alcoholic like his father and has hit rock bottom. As he starts on the road to recovery, he secures a job at a hospice where his special talents are useful helping the residents pass out of this world. Meanwhile, a group of older folks called the True Knot travel around in Winnebagos seeking out kids with the shining; torturing and killing these kids releases steam upon which the True Knot feeds, but they are growing weaker. However, they soon learn about a girl with an especially powerful gift, maybe even stronger than that of Danny Torrance himself, and decide to go after her next. They don't know what they're getting themselves into.

In his author's note, King says that no sequel is as good as the original and that he's not the same person he was when he wrote The Shining. Maybe he doesn't think it lives up to the first book, but I think it's just a different book entirely. This isn't The Shining; it's another book starring Dan Torrance a couple of decades later and although all the history is there, there's another whole cast of characters and a fresh new plot, not to mention new ways in which the shining powers manifest.

I didn't re-read The Shining before starting this so the details I remember about it really come from Stanley Kubrick's movie, which I've watched several times since reading the book. I know the movie departs from Stephen King's version (and King apparently doesn't like it) but I don't think I missed anything by not having those details in my recent memory. In fact, this novel could probably stand on its own.

I liked seeing how Dan Torrance's life progressed, how he was both trapped and freed by his past. He would make bad decisions and then up and move to another town where he quickly got himself into trouble, starting the cycle again. It was gratifying when he finally began to pull himself together, and meeting Abra - a kid with whom he could strongly identify - helped a lot. We even find out interesting new information about Dan Torrance's family.

The other characters were great too. Abra made a formidable protagonist, her combination of strength and anger a match for any villain. (In an early scene, she predicted 9/11 as an infant. It kind of gave me the chills.) It would have been easy to dislike Rose the Hat even without her supernatural aspects, but with them she was not only cruel, but frightening. Even supporting members of the cast were well-developed enough to feel like people we've met before, a particular talent of King.

I'm not sure if Doctor Sleep was as scary as The Shining - it's been too long since I read it, and I was just a teenager then - but it's definitely dark and creepy. Mostly, it's a great story with characters I liked reading about, and it kept me very interested for its entire 530 pages.

Carrie

Carrie by Stephen King (1974)

I think everyone is familiar with this classic story of a high school outcast using the powers of her mind to get back at those who have bullied her too many times. In high school I read Carrie at least a handful of times and have always remembered that famous shower scene vividly. I loved everything by Stephen King (I grew up in Maine, after all) but kept coming back to this one. It's now been over twenty years since I last read it, although not long ago I finally saw the movie. I was afraid a movie that old wouldn't stand up over time (I was disappointed when I finally saw "Children of the Corn" a few years ago) but I enjoyed it and found Carrie's mother perfectly terrifying, even more so than I remember from the book.

Reading it again after all this time was a lot of fun. First, it really brought home the degree to which Stephen King's writing has gotten more sophisticated. Carrie is character-driven for sure, but nobody is fleshed out as much as in his more recent books. It's forgivable though, because it's just such a great story.

More importantly, it holds up over time and is probably the best book about bullying EVER. It was written way before bullying became the hot issue it is today and I think it's a lot better than recent books I've read on that theme. Carrie's classmates are wonderfully complicated, some clearly bullies and others just going along with the crowd. Sue Snell is an incredibly realistic character - as you may remember she is the one who felt terrible after the whole "plug it up" incident in the locker room, and convinced her boyfriend to ask Carrie to prom. He, too, was pretty nice about the whole thing and sympathetic to Carrie. But then of course the pig blood happened and all his and Sue's efforts were for naught.

I remembered Carrie's mother as being fanatically religious and it was only upon this rereading that I realized she wasn't so much religious as she was a raving lunatic. I mean, Margaret White thought that sex even within marriage was a horrible sin. No church on earth would condone this woman's views.

Had this been written more recently, King surely would have fleshed out Margaret White's background more and dwelled upon the confining nature of Carrie's life in that household, but we got enough of it for the story to be effective. I had forgotten that the novel was structured to include excerpts from some fake books about the incidents of Prom Night and about Carrie's life, so that was fun to rediscover. Although Carrie was written in the late 70s (and rescued from the trash by Tabitha King) it is a timeless story that is still good and will hold up for years to come.

Joyland

Joyland by Stephen King (2013)

In the summer of 1973 Devin Jones has a broken heart and a job at an amusement park called Joyland. A few years earlier a young woman was murdered on a ride called Horror House, and the killer was never caught. But visitors sometimes report seeing the ghost of the victim, and Devin hopes he'll get to see her too. In the meantime, he's busy dressing up in a furry dog suit and entertaining toddlers while mulling over the strange predictions of park psychic Madame Fortuna. When he befriends a local mom and her sick little boy, and then begins putting together the pieces of that old murder...well, his lost love doesn't seem like much of a problem in comparison.

Published by Hard Case Crime (with that fantastic pulpy cover!) this is a bit of a departure for King. It's not horror, but it's also not a typical whodunnit. There are moments that required a suspension of disbelief, and a couple of small plot points that seemed just a tiny bit contrived, but I didn't care. Everything else was so very real.

Stephen King is just brilliant at creating characters that seem like they could walk off the page. Their insecurities, childhood memories, and fears all come together to form a person you're pretty sure you might have met. Everything about the amusement park was tangible too, right down to "the Talk," the specialized carny lingo.

Joyland is a perfect book for summer: the rides, the kite-flying, the horrible carnival food, the way that Devin was on vacation from his real life. And though it wasn't scary, I found it wonderfully suspenseful. I'm sure it would be great any time of year, but I'm so glad I read it now. In addition to its other summery qualities it's short and paperback, making it a great choice to take to the beach or on vacation.

The Long Walk

The Long Walk by Stephen King (writing as Richard Bachman) (1979)

Every year, 100 teenage boys gather at the most northern point in Maine to begin the Long Walk. They must stay on the road, keep moving at least 4 mph, and not interfere with each other. If they break the rules they get three warnings before getting a "ticket," a euphemism for being shot. They keep walking south, as far as it takes for there to be only one person left walking. That person is the winner.

Though it's a race to the death, all the participants are willing volunteers. Ray Garraty has joined the Walk this year, for reasons he never seems quite sure of. He also isn't convinced he'll win, especially after sizing up his competition. Yet he just keeps walking. Through his exhaustion, his pain, his doubts, his fear - what else can he do but continue to walk?

The novel focuses entirely on the event at hand, never stepping back to explain the big picture. What has happened in the world that this brutal race has come to exist? Why do people volunteer for it? What exactly are the Squads that keep being mentioned, and that took Ray Garraty's father away? A tiny bit is revealed: "In the old days, before the Change and the Squads, when there was still millionaires, they used to set up foundations and build libraries and all that good shit." The Long Walk must be just one strange element of a very different world, and I was dying to know in what other ways it differed from our own reality.

What I love about King's writing - and what makes it creepy or terrifying or exhilarating - is that he knows how to make us empathize with his characters. I don't know why Ray Garraty joined the Long Walk exactly, what his motivations were, whether or not they were noble, but he is real to me and I wanted things to turn out ok for him because he's a good guy, and nobody deserves to be shot in the middle of the road for getting a charley horse. It was sad when any of the walkers died, because I cared about them. Sometimes they cared about each other too, even though they were competing to the death. There were some incredibly powerful scenes in which one boy would help another, or they'd stick together in unexpected ways.

This isn't a supernatural book, but one of psychological endurance. That is horrifying enough. Living every moment of the Long Walk with Ray, as he gets to know the other participants, even befriending some of them, knowing that only one of them will live through it - well, it's fascinating and scary and expertly written. I'm sure it's just as powerful today as when it was first published in 1979. If you like Stephen King but missed this one, go back and read it - you'll be glad you did.

11/22/63

11/22/63 by Stephen King (2011)

Jake Epping is a divorced high school English teacher in Lisbon Falls, Maine who learns about a door to the past - to a particular day in 1958 - and decides to use it to prevent JFK's assassination. Since that doesn't happen until 1963, he has some time to make a life for himself as he follows Lee Harvey Oswald's path towards that fateful day. Jack gets a job as a teacher, makes friends, and falls in love. He also learns that the past is obdurate - it doesn't like to be changed. He faces many obstacles to his goals, as well as strange coincidences that he is convinced aren't actually coincidental at all.

After finishing this book, I felt like I'd just returned from a long and harrowing trip. It wasn't as harrowing as Jake Epping's trip from 2011 to 1958, but just watching him was quite exhausting (plus I had to turn every one of those 849 pages.) This was a long freaking book, but not unnecessarily; there was a lot of story. Before undertaking the JFK trip, he tried to change a smaller event, just to see if it would work and how it would affect 2011. Then he returned to 1958 for the long haul.

I liked the parameters of time travel as Stephen King created them. Epping used his first trip to prevent a family from being murdered, but when he went back a second time everything was reset. So he had to prevent that murder again before moving on to his JFK project. It makes sense. Interestingly, every trip through the time travel portal was only two minutes in 2011. So after spending 5 years in an earlier time, Jake returned to 2011 and went home and fed his cat who probably didn't even miss him yet.

For those of you who avoid Stephen King books because you don't like horror, take note that this is not a horror novel. It's pretty straight fiction with a little history thrown in, and a love story. The romance between Jake and school librarian Sadie Dunhill was a major focal point of the story. Certain events conspired to draw Jake away from his intended purpose and there were moments I thought this book would go in a direction I was most unhappy about, but it didn't, and that's all I'll say about that. I was very satisfied with the ending.

Although it took me a while to get into, I was soon so engrossed in this book that I wanted to just sit at my desk and read all day at work. (If only that was actually what librarians do!) King has such a gift for getting us inside his characters' heads, and in many cases that is terrifying, but in 11/22/63 it was just incredibly compelling. I tend to shy away from long time-consuming books, but this story was worth every moment.

P.S. Did you know that Stephen King is working on a sequel to The Shining? OMG!

On Writing

On Writing: a memoir of the craft by Stephen King (2000)

I've heard many great things about this book over the years, but was 

finally inspired to pick it up after reading Ann Patchett's The Getaway Car, a short piece about her writing which made me curious about how other writers approach their craft. (Also, I just wanted to read something by King and there were no library copies of 11/22/63 available.) In the book, King describes his early life, how he started writing, his career trajectory, and the accident that almost took his life in the summer of 1999. 

Having read many of his novels and short stories over the years, I really loved reading his thoughts about his own writing. The background stories were really interesting, such as the two unpopular girls in high school who inspired the title character in Carrie, but also he wrote a lot about what did and didn't work in his novels. I love that he is so candid about the lesser of his books. Rose Madder and Insomnia are two that he mentioned as being sub-par; I've never read either of them, and now am more likely not to. On the other hand, I'm now interested in Bag of Bones based on his thoughts about writing it successfully.

His advice ranges from the specific to the broad. "I believe the road to hell is paved with adverbs, and I will shout it from the rooftops." King gives examples of poor adverb use as well as other grammatical problems. He also offers advice on creating multi-dimensional minor characters, saying "...in real life we each of us regard ourselves as the main character..." It sounds obvious when he said it, but it hadn't occurred to me before (but then again, I'm not a writer.) 

Perhaps his broadest (and I have to think, most helpful) advice is to write with the door closed, but then rewrite with the door open. King always writes his first draft without showing any of it to anybody until it's done. When he goes back to rewrite, that is the time to let other people have a look. For this reason, he isn't fond of writing classes where students weigh in with their opinions early. Everyone will have something different to say, and who do you listen to? According to King, while you're still writing you should just listen to yourself.

His first reader is always his wife Tabitha. One thing about this book that struck me is the depth of his affection for her. Again and again he says how important she is to his writing, and to every aspect of his life for that matter. Maybe it's just because he's known for focusing on the darker aspects of the human psyche, but the importance of his marriage stood out to me as I was reading. It's nice to know that people who have been married for decades can still appreciate each other so much. 

I think what makes this book so unique is how open and candid King is about his process, something many writers seem reluctant to reveal. He tells us how many drafts he writes, where he writes, and his schedule for a typical day. Along with the biographical parts of the book, it paints a fairly full picture of an author who I have long admired. 

Full Dark, No Stars : a review

Full Dark, No Stars by Stephen King (2010)

Like Different Seasons and Four Past Midnight, this new collection from Stephen King consists of four long short stories. In the first story, “1922,” a farmer murders his wife, who has threatened to sell off part of their farm so she can move to the city. Though the crime is covered up from the authorities, the farmer - and his son who he enlisted to help with the crime - are subsequently haunted in different ways. “Big Driver” is a man who rapes a cozy mystery writer on her way home from a reading, but instead of reporting the crime to authorities, she chooses to wield her own justice. The third, and shortest, story is “Fair Extension,” in which a man dying of cancer makes a deal with the devil to save his own life, thus damning his best friend and his family. Finally, in “A Good Marriage” a woman learns that her husband has been committing horrific crimes for decades and she must decide what, if anything, to do with this new knowledge.

Though all the stories were good (I hesitate to use a word like “enjoyable” when describing horror), the first and last were the strongest. “1922” was the most like a traditional horror story in the amount of violence, gore and creepiness. What I liked the most about this story is that it was mostly realistic, with just a hint that maybe there is more going on. Is that corpse speaking to the farmer from beyond the grave? Are those sinister-looking rats planning something? Or is his imagination just playing tricks on him? That doubt is as close as it gets to supernatural, but it is enough. It’s a sad story too: the son’s loss of innocence, the destruction of a family, rendering the original plan to save the family’s farm completely pointless.

My favorite by far was “A Good Marriage.” King got the idea after the BTK murders, when the killer’s wife claimed she knew nothing about his crimes. Similarly, the wife in this story was happy in her life and satisfied with her marriage, until one day she stumbled across evidence of her husband’s secret life. Of course this changed everything, no matter how much she wanted to pretend it didn’t. The story was unpredictable and the ending clever. King does a good job of putting ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances, and it’s easy to imagine being this woman. There is nothing supernatural here, but it is a deft exploration of the dark side of human nature and the reader can’t help but wonder “What would I do in this situation?”

A longtime Stephen King fan, I have skipped his last couple of books because of their length and the mixed reviews, but Full Dark, No Stars is well worth reading. The entire book is only 368 pages, but of course you can just read an individual story or two. Though I bet if you start this book, you won’t stop after one story.