In Defense of Stephen King

When I did my review of Thinner, I had a few more things I wanted to say about King the writer, but did not feel like they fit in with the theme of the review. I still wanted to share them, however. Here they are, expanded a bit.

The idea that I've read nearly a dozen Stephen King books and that doesn't even cover a third of his total output is pretty amazing to me. Not so much the number of books--think of how many Danielle Steel has written--but the variety of those books is what impresses me. We have short story collections, non-fiction, how-to, horror, mystery, collaborations, series, exclusive e-books (anyone else remember The Plant?), and even books released a chapter or two at a time.

King is not afraid to experiment with his writing. Sometimes it works extremely well and other times it falls flat on its face. But instead of simply writing the same book over and over again, King uses different formats, points of view, and other ways to keep his stories varied.

Are there some similarities? Certainly. I was a bit unsure about Cell, because it reminded me a lot of the Stand in some ways (one of those King productions I've only seen in movie form, to be honest). Most of King's books are set in New England, so the supporting characters and settings are often familiar. He's also the King of product placement, for which many often criticize him. (King's argument, if I remember correctly, is that people are less likely to be thrown out of a narrative if you use the real thing. I think that's sound logic.)

However, I don't think any writer is immune to repeating themselves here and there if they have a long literary career. I'm not even talking about people who write formula books, where the audience wants the repetition. (I like Tony Hillerman a lot, and part of that is when Chee and Leaphorn are in character, not out of it.) I'm looking more here at those that are considered literary writers, such as Margaret Atwood or Joyce Carol Oates, because that's where I think King belongs.

It's my contention that King's writing, while pulpy, often crude, and filled with vile people doing vile things, also has a depth that stays with you after you finish the book. Look at the concept of justice explored in Thinner. Yes, there are supernatural elements but scratch beneath the surface and you have questions that don't get an easy answer. Or take a look at Different Seasons, which features a man determined not to let his situation kill his spirit, the wonders of discovery in childhood, the nature of absolute evil, and, okay, that last story isn't as good as the other three but you get the idea.

We also see the nature of good and evil as a recurring theme, and how situations can corrupt even the best of us. If you stripped out the demons and resurrections and things from several of King's books, I have a feeling the literary critics would praise him to the heights of the canon. To me, the fact that King can make me think as a reader while terrifying/entertaining me at the same time makes his work even better than one that only contains the moral quandaries. Why is it such a crime that King gives us characters that talk and feel like real people who swear and fight and drink Coke? Is it just because they also have to deal with evils that have their roots in classical mythology of all cultures? We don't think less of "Homer" for adding in Greek Gods to his tale of humanity's foibles, so why do that to King?

I call this a defense of Stephen King, as though he needs it. The man is obviously extremely popular, has quite a few books left in his brain, will almost certainly get more movie deals, and is not exactly hurting for money. Whether or not he's appreciated by the New York Times Book Review set is secondary to the fact that he has millions of fans, including my wife and me. Yet I admit it bothers me that more people dismiss King as being "a hack" or a "writer for the masses" (as though that last one is a bad thing) while praising Charles "I got paid by the word and it shows" Dickens as being a pillar of quality writing.

Take a look at the Pickwick Papers sometime and try that one again, huh?

That's why I feel like I need to defend Stephen King and through him, the idea of popular literature in general. King is popular, true, but he's also a great writer. As his work ages, I think people are coming around to this idea. I often say that in 100 years, we'll be teaching King in schools, and they'll look back on all those articles and laugh as they describe him as a classic writer of the late 20th Century.

Some of us knew that all along.

Thinner by Stephen King

[I read this an audio book, in case that makes a difference to you.]

For a few minutes, I thought about marking this as being by Richard Bachman, but it's not like anyone is fooled these days by Stephen King's pseudonym and it makes it easier to find for those who might want to see my thoughts on books I've read by one of the masters of horror.

All told, this is my 11th Stephen King book, and that's not even a third of his total output. It is, however, one of the best I've read, and I think it might just be my favorite now. (Previously, that was held by Different Seasons, closely followed by Cujo. Clearly, I like early 80s King.)

Thinner is the story of attorney Billy Halleck, a man living the American Dream. He's got an amazing job, a sexy wife, and a darling daughter, all while living in one of the most prestigious areas in New England. Not even making an arrogant mistake while behind the wheel can stop him. After all, powerful white men like Halleck have powerful friends, who can help him out when he's in legal difficulty.

You see, Billy Halleck has killed someone, and gotten off scott free because it's only a Gypsy. Who cares, right? They're drifters, nobodies--people who are so far below Halleck and his ilk, they might as well be ants.

Maybe, maybe not. An old Gypsy man cares, and when he takes the law into his own hands, Halleck and his friends find themselves dying in various, hideous ways. Only Halleck, the man with the biggest guilt complex, can figure out why. The trouble is, what can he do about it? Can he convince the old Gypsy to take off the curse, even as he takes off pounds faster than a Photoshopped picture? His time, like his very self, is getting...Thinner.

The book begins in media res, which is a bit different for a horror story but works quite well. As we see Halleck's situation slowly growing worse, we also see inside his mind, as he links his problems to the events of a night in which neither he nor his wife used good judgment. Halleck's mental guilt drives a lot of the horror early on, which might disappoint those looking for a more splatter-filled book. There's quite a bit of build-up going on, even if King splashes a bit of horror here and there. If you want immediate gratification, you're likely going to be disappointed.

Since I am a fan of the horrors of the mind, I found this part of the book to be quite a bit of fun, especially since it stays with us, even as Halleck's desperation leads him to allow very uncomfortable--and bloody--choices to be made on his behalf. Even if they work, Halleck will have a lot to live with for a very long time. The old Gypsy's death won't be the only thing on his conscience, and that fact is allowed to sink in nice and slowly, fitting again with the psychological horror theme.

And oh boy, does this book get some bloody imagery by the end. There are dead bodies, severed limbs, and dripping blood--and that doesn't count the stuff going on inside Halleck's head. Yet none of it feels added on to please those who want blood. Every action in this book, no matter how horrible, relates back to the story in a natural way. Halleck is in the middle of a blood feud, and the results happen accordingly.

One of the things I found most interesting about the book is that the reader should never want Halleck to win--after all, he's guilty as sin--yet they must follow his quest and listen to his perspective. The Gypsies are the wronged party, and King makes that abundantly clear. All through the book, you can see King's social commentary about how rich white people treat those they consider beneath them, especially the Gypsies. Even Halleck comes around to this idea, although far too late to help him.

When the time comes for Halleck to strike back, using his friend Ginelli the Mobster, there is a sense that maybe we are to root for Halleck. After all, Ginelli is built up to be the likable Italian Gangster. However, as he plows onto the scene and starts using horrible means to get his way, both Halleck and the reader learn that no matter how nice, a killer is a killer. King's description of the maniacal glee that Ginelli gets in bringing pain to the Gypsies is just as chilling as his depiction of the curses. Perhaps even more so.

As much as I enjoyed the way in which this story builds, the ending is one of the best payoffs, because it's exactly what you think might happen, if you're following along closely. I like when a book has an ending that meshes nicely with what's come before. Halleck thinks he can be rid of his sins, but our old, seemingly ageless Gypsy antagonist knows better. So do we, and so does King. When we get to the final scene, it hits Halleck worse than the car he used to kill the old Gypsy woman in the first place. The setup and execution are about as well done as I've read in a good long time.

In some ways, this book is more literary than it appears. We have violence, but it's almost secondary to Halleck's reflection on the way he--and many, many others--live our their daily lives. We don't think about how much we have until something causes us to lose those advantages. (Think of how many people out of work now who never gave a thought about the other 5% of the country who are chronically and constantly unemployed.) We try to dismiss that which we cannot control, and ultimately, look to blame others for our problems. We keep our dirty little secrets, and hope like hell they never come to light, all the while hating those who share in them.

Come on, you know you have a few. Don't try to deny it. You can't, and neither can I. By the end, neither can Halleck. That's a commentary worthy of being taught in school, and frankly is made all the more interesting because it contains supernatural elements and bloodthirsty mobsters.

Thinner is a great horror story on its face, with multiple levels of commentary weaved in and out of the descriptions of nightmares and cancerous tumors. It's a tribute to King's qualities as a writer that he can do both without taking away from either one. If you only think of Stephen King as a schlocky master of cheap horror, think again. Try Thinner on for size--you might just change your mind.

Blockade Billy by Stephen King

Sometimes I feel a little strange when I'm writing up my first review for a book by a major author, because while I may have been reading them for years, this could be their first appearance on the blog.

Thus, if I'm not happy with the book I read, it can feel like I don't like the author, which is often not true. Such is the case with Blockade Billy, a book that feels like it could have been a lot more had King taken the time to write it well instead of tossing it out there in time for baseball season.

Blockade Billy is the story of a baseball player no one's heard of, because he's been erased from the record books. Only a few old timers know him, and one is willing to tell all to King himself, as it beats the boredom of sitting in a nursing home.

Soon we learn about Billy, an amazingly talented ballplayer that clearly has something to hide. As we move deeper into his magical season, you know something has to give, and it does--with a bang that's about as obvious as when a player is out at home by 30 feet.

Written in the narrative style with multiple references to the old ballplayer talking to King, it's formatted much like Deloris Claiborne, another King work I wasn't fond of, for much the same reason. Both tales never offer much on what the promise and in the end, I was disappointed. The twists just don't materialize, and I expect better from King as a writer.

In the case of this book, part of the problem is length. This book is barely 50 pages long, and I was able to read it in only a little over a half hour. As a magazine story, which was much of King's early career, it might have worked. As a novella, with the King name attached, I figured on a lot more writing. Its brevity is not refreshing for the wordy King. Instead, it constricts him, and leaves time only for a quick summary of the details as to why Billy's tale must come to the end it does.

From what I understand, King wrote this in about two weeks, and it shows. There's little plot, the character of Billy is a cipher, and if you don't know much about baseball, I'm not sure this book will mean anything to you. The trouble is, if you *do* know a lot about baseball, King's puzzling decision to make his team major-league level just creates all sorts of logistical headaches for no good reason. (Perhaps the biggest of which is the way in which Billy gets on the team in the first place. No big league club, even in this 1950s setting, would have done what this fake team from Jersey does.)

Billy could easily have played for a minor league team, and still do all that he does. In fact, the drama of having him come so close to being in the bigs before the crucial moment would have added so much. That's a lost layer of drama here.

Unfortunately, that's what happens when you rush things. Details that might be otherwise thought out get missed, and it mars the overall quality. Blockade Billy's logical leaps, obvious conclusion, and wandering text all make me nostalgic for the days when books were given stricter editing.

It doesn't help that the ending, while predictable in terms of general concept, throws more things at you as a reader than a five-tool pitcher. So many gaps in the story are covered in the last ten pages, you'd think it was a set of working notes rather than finished product. I appreciate the closure, but if your story is that complex, then take the time to flesh it out. There's no harm in more pages, especially when you're Stephen King.

I also found the setting to be weak, despite efforts to ground the text in the past. It's obvious King knows and loves his baseball history, but the references to vintage players don't fall into place very well. It's name dropping for name dropping sake. The idea of a simpler time when the game was played hard is probably what's supposed to come across, but I just didn't get anything other than a feeling of grumpiness. It didn't make me pine for the old days--except maybe Stephen King's old days.

The narrative style of the book is vintage King, and you either like it or hate it by now, after he's had such a long career. This narrator talks like so many others in King's books, and I like it, except when they're narrative first person, as this one is. The natural tone of King's best characters just feels forced to me when I have to read it like this. Let the point of view stand on its own, and don't get in the way with comments about needing water, especially if you've already done that before in your career.

Stephen King may love baseball, but his two attempts at it in fiction, Blockade Billy and Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, just don't serve his beloved sport well. He's an all-star writer that in this case, managed to strike out. For the price of this book and the size of its text, Blockade Billy just isn't recommendable. I'd turn elsewhere for my baseball or King fixes. Maybe next time the two meet, the results will be better. For now though, let this one ride the pine.

Poe's Children edited by Peter Straub

I'm a big fan of classic horror, but for some reason, I have a hard time managing to find good new horror writers. I was hoping that maybe this anthology, collected by a veteran of the horror genre, would help me find a new voice or two.

Fortunately for me, it did, but overall, I'm not sure that there's enough quality stories to make this anthology one I'd recommend to others. There's just not quite enough there worth reading, at least for me, to balance out the stories I didn't like.

I really enjoyed the first story, "The Bees," where a man trying to run from his past may have it brought back on him no matter what he does. It's a classic horror trick, using a character's failings to drive the narrative and Dan Chaon uses it to good effect. I was left with a strong hope that maybe this would be the time I got the stories I wanted in a horror collection.

Sadly, that vibe didn't last long, as most of the other stories just didn't have enough going on for me to want to read more from that writer. They weren't bad, per se (though I found Elizabeth Hand's story to be offensive and skipped it after about getting halfway through), but I didn't really get into the writing or feel anything, positive or negative, towards them.

In a few cases, the author tries a bit too hard. "The Man on the Ceiling", a joint effort between Melanie and Steve Tem, probably overreached in its attempt to be experimental. I'm still not sure I understood what they were trying for, other than their lives impact on the stories they write? "Louise's Ghost" didn't seem to have a reason to be a ghost story, which is clearly a problem. A simple re-write, and it's a standard piece of literary fiction.

"The Voice of the Beach" by Ramsey Campbell, was probably my favorite story. Our narrator finds that a part of a beach has a strange attraction for certain people, and finds that call is irresistible. As with Chaon, Campbell uses a classic concept to good effect, and I guess it shows my story bias that I like these tales more than the rest. (In addition, I see that Campbell is not a new writer, either, which makes me a bit sad.)

As my reading went on, I just wasn't satisfied with the selections made by Mr. Straub, finding that they had the same problems I've seen in other anthologies of this type, with writers adding sex to give an otherwise boring story some shock value. Others seem to wander too much and don't ever end up really giving me a thrill in the way that I can get by reading the atmospheric horror of Poe or others from the 19th Century.

I think the problem is that horror is a much harder genre to write than people give it credit for. You almost have to write it over and over again, and know that you're going to have some hits and misses. I think Stephen King is the best example of this. Cujo is horrifying but Needful Things was just annoying. Spend too much time grossing people out, and you lose me. But if you don't give me some really terrible stuff to imagine in my head, then I'm wandering off to other stories.

In this book, there are more misses than hits, which is why I can't really recommend it to someone else. There's the obvious good stories by King, Straub himself, and Neil Gaiman, but you can get those writers elsewhere, either in other anthologies or in their own collections or full length books. Beyond that, it gets a bit tricky.

For every "Plot Twist," where David J. Schow places his characters in a Twilight-zone like scenario where nothing seems to change except the characters' ability to wrong each other, there's a "Leda," the story before it, where I feel like a victimized woman's feelings are reduced to story fodder for a weird fantasy that involves predatory animals.

After awhile, I became rather disheartened because an anthology where you're only getting stories you like about a third of the time is a bit rough. I usually hope for at least better than half, between love and like. Straub's selections, when you take out the major writers, just didn't click with me sufficiently for this book to be one I'd want to read again.

If you go into Poe's Children looking for some new voices and can deal with hitting more than a few tales you won't remember for long after reading them, it should be okay. But if you are iffy on anthologies in the first place, and only want a book that features a level playing field, I think you're best served to look elsewhere.