If I Read Only One Stephen King Book, What Should It Be?
W ith more than 70 books in his catalog, Stephen Rex has long been i of the few blockbuster writers who regularly publishes short fiction. "If It Bleeds," his new collection, is a strong reminder that — for an author who has produced more a few novels of staggering length — some of his most interesting work has fallen on the shorter side. (If you lot're looking for stories to sample, his early books "Night Shift" and "Skeleton Crew" are full of nasty tales with "Twilight Zone"-esque endings.)
Reviewing "If It Bleeds" in The New York Times Book Review, Ruth Franklin says that every bit "the headlines grow more than apocalyptic by the day, I might first working my way through King's backlist."
She'd exist in for a treat, as would you. Hither is a brief starter guide to the works of Stephen Rex.
Stephen Edwin Male monarch, born in 1947, published his kickoff novel, Carrie, in 1974. Since and then, he has written more than 70 novels, nonfiction books and story collections. King has lived in Bangor, Maine, since 1980.
I Desire to Read a King Archetype
Normally I would recommend "The Shining," but that novel is so fixed in the cultural dictionary that starting time-time readers might feel as if they already know where the story will go. (Plus, the cabin-fever vibes might hit as well close to domicile now.) Instead, start with the vampire novel "'Salem's Lot." Information technology contains many of the most recognizable King elements: a writer protagonist, a Maine town full of idiosyncratic characters, echoes of genre fiction standards and memorably creepy setpieces (the school bus, God, the school bus).
I Want to Bulldoze Into the Skid
Why non employ this moment of worry and self-isolation to read a 1000-plus folio book near a superflu that kills nearly of Earth's population? Cut by hundreds of pages upon its initial release in 1978, "The Stand" was re-published in 1990 in its original version, with its timeline and cultural references updated to the early on '90s. Here's the matter to know about the novel that might make yous more open up to reading information technology now, though: Only the outset tertiary or so is about the virus that kills billions. Everything after that is a rich post-apocalyptic clash between the forces of good and evil. Once you get to that part, the book's scariest elements subside and it shifts into a story about survival, friendship and sacrifice.
I'chiliad a Scaredy-Cat, OK?
Information technology's fine to not similar scary things! That doesn't mean yous tin can't read some Stephen King. Though he'south near famous for his horror novels and stories, at this point he has written a significant amount outside of the genre. Early on in his career — less than a decade after the publication of his debut novel "Carrie" — King released "Dissimilar Seasons," a collection of four novellas. Three of them take nothing to do with the supernatural. Two of them were adapted into height-tier King movies: "Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption" became, well, you know, and "The Body" was filmed as "Stand By Me." Both are fix in Maine in the early 1960s, and both requite a sense of how lovingly King can draw his characters.
Actually, I'thou Non a Scaredy-True cat, OK?
Relax! No one said you were. "It" is probably Male monarch'due south purest horror volume, just information technology's also one of his biggest and most dense and … the catastrophe has problems. Permit'due south call it role of your graduate study. This starter guide will instead go with "Pet Sematary." At that place'south something elemental almost its simplicity: A young family moves into a new house, and terrible things happen subsequently they find an ancient burial ground deep in the wood. Contrary to what you might call up of Male monarch's novels, given the style in which he typically works, many of them do finish with a sense of hard-won victory and optimism. Not this ane. It's as grim every bit he's ever gotten.
I Take Time to Begin an Epic Journey
King has referred to "The Stand" as his attempt to do an American version of "The Lord of the Rings." But his seven-volume "Dark Tower" series (an eighth book was published afterwards the story proper ended), is Male monarch's truthful Tolkein analogue.
Indeed, it's one of the bang-up American genre series — a multi-genre epic (horror, sci-fi, fantasy, Western) about a gunslinger-knight who is trying to relieve his world and ours from complete destruction by his foe, the Man in Black. Published over the course of 20 years, the series has go the center of a King extended universe, with multiple novels and stories connecting to characters and locations. The first volume, "The Gunslinger," is one of the shortest, and it volition give you a tiny taste of how weird and inventive the series gets.
I Want Pure Suspense
At that place's a decent percentage of Male monarch's work that features writers as chief characters, from "'Salem'southward Lot" and "The Shining" to "The Tommyknockers" and "The Night Half" to "Bag of Bones" and "Lisey's Story" to "Rat," ane of the stories in his latest book.
Paul Sheldon, the protagonist of "Misery," is however some other writer, one who finds himself in a peculiarly horrifying situation— held captive, post-car accident, by an obsessed fan, Annie Wilkes, who wants him to write a book but for her. The subtext is articulate: Sometimes, fame can feel like a trap. And Rex, a recovering aficionado, has talked well-nigh the sub-subtext, proverb, "Annie was my drug problem, and she was my No. 1 fan. God, she never wanted to leave." Just none of that matters much when you're deep into the middle of this novel and Paul sleeps a piddling also long and wakes upwards and yous realize what's going to happen and your tummy just plummets.
I'1000 Looking For a Large Fat Read
For a certain generation — King'due south generation — the assassinations of the 1960s were their cracking traumas. If Lee Harvey Oswald hadn't killed John F. Kennedy, what would the next decade-plus have looked similar? In "11/22/1963" Rex imagines a scenario in which Maine school teacher Jake Epping finds he can travel dorsum to the year 1958 through the pantry in a local diner, and uses that ability to try to stop J.F.Thou. from dying on that titular 24-hour interval in Dallas.
A big part of the book's pleasures (and over 800 pages, there are many) come from the procedural-like manner in which Jake must establish a new identity in a new era and alive in real-time without revealing his true mission. By the volume's dorsum half, when he begins to cross paths with existent historical figures and events, you're fully invested in Jake. It's one cloak-and-dagger of King's success — that so many of his characters experience as ordinary every bit we believe ourselves to be.
I Desire a Great Crime Novel
If y'all didn't sentry the recent HBO serial based on this 2018 volume (the novelist Richard Price was the showrunner and Dennis Lehane wrote ii episodes), and so the twists of this supernatural detective story remain intact. Information technology's an irresistible gear up-up. In a small Oklahoma town, a teacher and Fiddling League coach is arrested for the brutal murder of a young boy. The evidence against him is overwhelming. Until, that is, overwhelming evidence comes to light placing him in a completely different town at the aforementioned time.
How could a person exist in two places at once? One of the chief characters — Holly Gibney — doesn't show up until halfway through the novel and while she's a character in a prior serial of Rex crime novels, it'southward non necessary to take read them beforehand, though you might want to afterwards finishing this one. (The longest story in "If Information technology Bleeds," the length of a brusque novel, is essentially a sequel to "The Outsider.")
I Want a Deep Cut
This tale of a group of Pennsylvania state troopers and the odd car they keep hidden in a shed has e'er felt like information technology got unfairly lost, somehow. Released the year earlier Rex finished his "Night Tower" epic in a three-volume, 2-twelvemonth rush, "Buick 8" is an oft contemplative novel that also happens to feature the gnarly dissection of an inter-dimensional bat. While gross beings make several appearances hither (resulting in a few of the most unsettling descriptions King has ever written), it'southward ultimately a volume near how many things in life are inexplicable and how sometimes there is no resolution. Feels particularly appropriate now.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/05/04/arts/best-stephen-king-books.html
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