Once upon a time, curling up with a book by this author was like spending an evening with an old, twisted friend. I’ve loved many books by King and was looking forward to this collection of short stories.
I was disappointed.
The stories weren’t dark, twisted, or weird. They had elements of weirdness to them, hints of supernatural elements in some, but none of the stories were particularly creepy or strange. It’s like the author wrote a bunch of drafts for stories but didn’t bother to round them out.
The endings felt rushed, too. One story in particular, Danny Coughlin’s Bad Dream, had an ending that felt cobbled together, like the author didn’t know how to wrap it up so he just threw together some stuff and called it done. I honestly think I could have come up with a creepier ending.
I’m accustomed to his characters being faceted and interesting to read, but these characters were forgettable. King used to put the reader right into the mind of the characters, right from the get-go. But here, he told the reader most of the information as if to just hurry up and get the story written. I admit, it’s been a long time since I’ve read Christine, Cujo, or The Shining, so maybe my memory has inflated his work. Or, maybe, he’s just not as good at telling stories as he used to be.
Stephen King was the first author to show me what I call a ‘conversation style’ narrative drive. When reading his works I always felt like I was firmly inside the mind of the POV character, and that mind wasn’t a highbrow, highfalutin’ kind of person. Instead the perspective was more Regular Joe, albeit an oddball Regular Joe.
This radically different narrative drive was a refreshing change from what I was reading at the time. I felt like King had opened a door into a different kind of book, a more engaging and richer book, with strange goings-on to boot.
I cut my teeth on Christine, Pet Sematary, Cujo, and Carrie. This length of novels allowed me to really dig in to his characters and feel like I was given a secret door access into their minds. His longer works, like The Stand, drag a bit for me and his shorter works, his novellas, tend to shine in their brevity.
All that said, I purchased If It Bleeds at an airport so I’d have something to do if all my electronic devices failed me on a flight. It turned out none did, so I only got around to reading this book now.
I kept having to re-route my eyes, as they skipped over words and skimmed sentences. This isn’t normal for when I’m reading King. It’s almost like someone else wrote these stories. With that, here’s my impression of the four stories.
Mr. Harrigan’s Phone Craig lives in a small town with his dad. An extraordinarily wealthy man, Mr. Harrigan, moves into a big house on the hill. After hearing Craig recite some Bible passages in church, he hires him to read to him and water his plants.
They develop a kind of friendship. Mr. Harrigan gives Craig scratch-off tickets along with a card a few times a year. When one ticket pays a fair sum of money, Craig buys Mr. Harrigan an iPhone, one of the first iterations of it.
Mr. Harrigan dies and Craig slips the iPhone into his pocket. From there, the story has a King-ish twist, where Craig receives texts from that phone, but only after he calls it to hear his friend’s voice.
This is a story mostly about consequences and settling debts, but it was lacking a bit. The story was fine, the pacing fine, the characters fine, but I thought it was going to go somewhere else. Mr. Harrigan sees the wealth of information and asks the question of when, or who, will stem the flow. I thought the story would go there, but it didn’t, leaving that thread loose.
The story was okay. Not King’s best work, but okay.
The Life of Chuck Don’t we all think we’re the protagonist of our own stories? Or that we contain multitudes? Chuck wasn’t aware of it, but he was what kept the world alive.
This story is told backwards: act three, then act two, then act one. It was an interesting way to see Chuck’s life, what was important to him, and how he learned to let go and dance. Also, a haunted attic.
The story felt a bit forced though. Too many mentions of the scar on Chuck’s hand, maybe. Just trust the reader to be able to figure it out, no need to put so much focus on it. Overall it felt clumsier than I’d associate with King.
If It Bleeds This was the longest story in the collection, one that might push the boundary of novella length, and rather weak.
The story itself is fine. A private eye, Holly, realizes a news anchor could be a creature from her past. The same kind of creature that killed her colleague some years before. She investigates and discovers that she’s indeed correct.
I had three main problems with this story.
The first is that it was a semi-sequel to a novel, The Outsider. I hadn’t read the novel and wasn’t really familiar with the story, but I could pick up the clues: there was a shapeshifting monster that fed on fear and grief. The issue I had was with the overuse of references back to the novel. One or two, sure, I can get behind that. But it felt constant and after a while I wondered if an editor had read this work. I felt like if one had, about a quarter of the story would have been cut for repetition.
The second problem I had was with how the monster is defeated. This quote bothered me quite a lot:
“‘..how can you ever explain a dead guy at the bottom of the elevator shaft?’ Holly is remembering what happened to the other outsider. ‘I don’t think it will be an issue.‘”
Unless the reader has read The Outsider, how are they to know what happened to this outsider? I haven’t read it and so I was mystified. Bugs are mentioned a tiny bit later. Am I to assume the outsider turned into bugs? If so, will the bugs die? Live?
This was extremely frustrating.
The third problem was the mention, twice, of how one character had a defining trait of the outsider. Holly’s Uncle Henry could move fast, faster than he should have been able. Was he somehow infected by the outsider? If so, when and how?
Other than that, I felt the story took too long to get where it was going. I kept finding reasons to put the book down and ended up slogging through just to finish.
Rat This one was the best of the bunch and felt more like King’s writing than any other. I’d say he inserted himself in there – the main character is trying to write a novel and has writer’s block – but I’d also say that most of his writing has a slice of him somewhere.
In this story, Drew goes up to a family cabin to write a novel. Things go well, until they don’t, and he makes a deal with a rat. The pacing felt like King, the odd rat felt like King, and the resolution even felt like King.
Conclusion: overall, this collection felt limp. The horror and weirdness I associate with King simply wasn’t there. Or, perhaps, I’m a seasoned reader of his work and can no longer get the willies from reading it.
Cover image lifted from Goodreads.com as is the norm now
I read this book when it was released in The Bachman Books back in 1985 and it stuck with me until now. I remembered the grueling walk and that the main character is the winner, but the meat of the book was lost over the years. Because I enjoyed it so much then I decided I should read it again now.
The story is about one hundred boys teenaged boys that go on The Long Walk. This is a walk at four miles per hour, continuously. There is no stopping for any reason, none at all. Any stopping is met with a warning. Three warnings and the boy is shot on the spot. Attempt to leave the road and you’re shot. Anyone watching cannot interfere or give aid. Any warning can be walked off in one hour. The winner is the last boy walking.
Each walker applies for the honour of participating and must pass a physical and a written exam, including an essay on why you want to join. The prize for winning is anything you want for the rest of your life.
This book takes place over five days of continuous walking. Each walker that dies is mentioned, the author doesn’t skip any, although some are merely a passing reference to the sound of gunshots and a body falling. Others are given a more gruesome end.
This was originally written in 1979 and it shows. I didn’t notice the terminology or flinch at certain words the first time around, but there was no reason to. I was old enough to understand the references and felt like it fit in with society as I knew it then. Now, however, I could see where a lot of it was definitely a product of its time.
The main character, Ray Garraty, is struggling with perhaps feeling some sexual interest in other men. This isn’t outright stated anywhere, the author mentions that Ray has a girlfriend and enjoyed making out with her quite a lot. But Ray also experimented a bit with another boy, saying it was the boy’s suggestion to strip down and touch each other, and also doesn’t quite shy away from another male character offering a hand job. I didn’t see this the first time around, but now I wonder if the bisexuality was intentional and perhaps a reason why Ray signed up. Several characters mention that they signed up to die, as a slow version of suicide, because they knew what was expected, they knew walkers were shot. Although knowing this and experiencing it are two very different things. One or two of the characters say they thought the gun would have a paper flag that said ‘bang’ on it, rather than a real bullet.
I also think Ray inadvertently killed the second-to-last walker. As Ray went up to him and put his hand on the boy’s shoulder, the boy turned and said, “Oh, Garraty!” and fell down. Since both walkers were near-dead, I wonder if Ray accidentally gave this other boy a heart attack by surprising him like this.
While I was engrossed every step of the way I also noticed the writing was a bit clunky or clumsy. I think if this was written today an editor might be a bit more harsh about things like fragments of ideas, dialogue that wasn’t quite smooth, and what might be some shifting pov problems.
This book was just as creepy as the first time I read it, just as disturbing, and just as engrossing. The author has a talent for describing mounting psychological horror and mental breakdowns especially in the earlier works like this one. The goriness is also described easily, as easily as one would describe a meal, and something I’ve come to expect from the author. One thing stands out though, and it’s something that stood out when I first read the book: the author describes bodily functions like urinating, defecating, and even ejaculation. Most other authors skip this as the reader innately understands that bodies do these things, but this author includes the information. For this book, it was relevant to the plot and added a facet to the characters.
It’s never explained why this contest is held every year or what kind of world would have such a brutal contest. That banged around in my brain quite a lot but I was satisfied with the book without the answer.
Would I recommend this book? Maybe, as long as the reader is prepared to read something from a different time, with different references, and possibly offensive language and word choices. The story itself is hauntingly good.
Should Be Writing 