Pet Sematary

Out of any of the books, I dreaded reading this one the most.  I fear "It" (and several others), but dread "Pet Sematary" - it hits way too close to home on so many different levels.  This is also one of the few books that I have seen the movie for (wait tell I tell you how that came about) and so this makes the imagery of this story so much more real.

In 1990, when I was 17 my brother, who had just turned 20, was killed in a car accident outside of Rosarita, Mexico. He had gone for Labor Day with some friends to go party and have a good time - a simple, innocent, common occurrence for young, single men. However, they had too much to drink, elected to continue driving, took a small and narrow mountain road, and ran head on into a cement truck. My brother was thrown through the windshield into the side of the mountain. His friend, who had a seatbelt on, suffered some very serious injuries, but survived the accident.  So what does this have to do with the story, not a lot, other than I can relate and to also say that the day after I found out about my brothers death, my closest friends came over to sit with me and to try and help me get my mind off of it.  One of them decided it would be a good idea to watch some movies, so they rented "Steel Magnolias" and "Pet Sematary".  (I still have a hard time understanding what would possess them, only to think that teenagers are pretty fucking dumb and self-absorbed.  I am SURE they had the best intentions, but it did not take my mind of it as you can imagine)

Anyway, that does not really have relevance to the story, but for my reading as that memory followed me the whole time I read this book.  The other thing you should probably know, if you don't already, is that I also lost a child.  The pain is beyond belief, and yes, you would do anything to have that child back. ANYTHING.

What struck me most about this book is the inability by the father to see past his grief and think rationally.  I realize that the burial grounds holds a magic and a will that forces people to do its bidding, however the continual drawing in was a little much for me.

I will end by saying I will be glad to not read this book ever again.

Different Seasons

I was very excited to read this collection of short stories again as it was one of the first books of his I read and it contains several of my favorite stories.  Again, people will recognize two of these for sure as they were both made into very successful (and I think well done) movies, with slightly different names; Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption and The Body (which became the movie Stand By Me). Apt Pupil was also a movie, not one that I have ever seen and I am not sure just how successful it was. Just as with Night Shift, I want to go through these one by one and give my opinion and insights into the stories.

Hope Springs Eternal - Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption

Most will be familiar with this story, a man is convicted of killing his wife and her lover, goes to prison, has some struggles and then finds out a way to make himself useful to the guards and wardens (probably too useful), this becomes a prison within the prison, and eventually he makes his escape by burrowing a hole through the wall (the hole is covered by Rita Hayworth and eventually other pin-ups) down into the sewer system where he crawls through a half-mile of shit to his freedom. The big difference in the book versus the movie to me is that in the book Andy takes over a fake identity that he set up before he went to prison along with the bank accounts under that name.  In the movie, he swindles the warden out of money that he helped him launder and embezzle. Personally, no offense Mr. King, I like the second version better as the source of his freedom.  However, the book as a whole is much better than the movie (aren't they always?) because it is not just about the terror of being sent to prison and innocent man - it is about the walls we build for ourselves and how we make our way in the world.  The means we use to escape and the patience that is necessary to see a goal through to the end.  I admire Andy Dufresne tremendously.

Summer of Corruption - Apt Pupil

Such a disturbing story on so many levels.  I will admit that this took me a while to get through as at parts it was just to morally appalling.  This is about a young boy, about 13, who discovers that a man who lives in his neighborhood is actually a Nazi war criminal who is hiding under an assumed name an identity.  Todd, the boy, tells Mr. Decker (Dussander) that he will expose him for his crimes unless he tells him everything about serving in the concentration camps, the torture, the experiments, etc.  Like I said, disturbing.  Todd is a young psychopath in the making who gets off on this tales. Mr. Decker is an old man who would rather forget it, but eventually finds himself enjoying the memories as much as the boy.  Eventually they both are tormented by nightmares and find themselves linked by their own horrific fantasies about murder.  Which leads to real murder, more secrets, more blackmail, and on.

Fall from Innocence - The Body

I love this story, maybe more than I should, but this sums up all the joy, wonder, agony, and disillusion of childhood better than most anything else I have read.  It is a coming of age story in some of the worst possible circumstances and I am sure that I relate as I about the age of this kids in this story when I read it.  (The movie really helped confirm it's greatness in my mind).



A Winter's Tale - The Breathing Method

This is a story about love, plain an simple.  I am sure there is argument to that that it is a story about telling stories, or some other nonsense, but stripped to its most basic idea - it is love. This story is about a young pregnant unwed women who is a patient of a doctor who advises her to use the breathing method (later to be known as lamaze) to help her through the birth as she wants to do it all natural. She practices this religiously so she can be prepared and on the night that she goes into labor it is this method tat ultimately leads to her demise, and saves her sons life.  The story of this women is told at a secret club for men who get together and share stories.  Some disturbing, some funny, and some terrifying. To me, this story felt the most like an old Poe or something similar, which may be why I really enjoyed it.

The Running Man

This is another Richard Bachman book and most people probably know this story (or think they do) from the movie of the same name with Arnold Schwarzenegger. However, the title is about the only two things that the book and movie have in common, to say it was loosely based on the book would be exaggerating.  Personally, I never really cared for the movie and believe that if they had made a movie that followed the book more closely, it would have been much better.  I can see why King wants to maintain creative control or input on the movies - yikes!  Anyway, I will get off my soap box now.

So this story takes place in the future, 2025, and the world is much different, but not for the better.  The classes are very divided, unemployment is extremely high, and the government controls pretty much everything that the populations see or hears. (Ok, so maybe it is not all that different - j/k)  Ben Richards is the hero in this book and he is faced with providing money to care for his wife and sick infant daughter, without many means or ways to do that. So he turns to the "Network" and tries out for their endless list of game shows that are designed to pay for little for the ultimate sacrifice of the contestant.  This range from anything to running on a treadmill to your heart bursts, to losing a limb to crocodiles, to the grand-daddy of them all, The Running Man.

This show pays the most, but it is almost the most brutal as a person is basically sent out to the world with some money and his wits and he has to see how long he can survive without being caught and killed.  The catch is, everyone knows what you look like as it is plastered on the Free Vee which all citizens watch all the time. The longer you survive the more money there will be for your family, so you can see the appeal.  Along the way, some people may help, but most will not and the trick is finding those who will. You are also required to check in while running, which of course is one way they hunt you down and track your location.

I loved this book because in some ways it seems like something that could happen, which is also what makes it more terrifying.  As it is a Bachman, don't expect a happy ending.  But, do expect a page turning thrill read that will make you wonder what you would do and that forces you to question what our own government tells us.

Cujo

So this is the first book so far that has really freaked me out. I imagine it is the new perspective of being a parent that I have since I last read it.  I have never been a dog person, I tolerate them most of the time, but typically keep my distance and I can say that this book only reinforced my position.  This story combines a lot of the elements that really make me love Stephen King however.  Bringing in characters from other stories, telling a story in a way that makes you keep reading through the horror, building a variety of sub-plots or alternate situations that create an unbelievable amount of tension, etc.

Cujo is at its core a story about a dog who gets rabies and becomes a killing machine. However it is more than just that as there a multitude of complex relationships happening as well that further complicate the story.     At the center is a family, the Trenton's, with the dad who works as an adman and who uprooted his wife from NYC to Maine to start his own firm with a partner. They have a 4 year old son named Tad.  Also included are the family that own the dog, the Cambers who run an automotive shop on their desolate property. Side players are their drunken neighbor, the lover of Donna Trenton, a tennis bum named Steve Kemp, Vic Trenton's partner Roger, and Mrs. Cambers sister.

The Trenton's and Cambers paths cross when Vic's Jaguar starts acting up and she has to take it to the garage for repairs. There they meet Cujo for the first time, who is a wonderfully gentle and sweet St. Bernard that plays with Tad and watches out for him while the family waits for the repairs. Next a terrible chain of events and coincidences occur which lead to a horrific conclusion. First Cujo contracts rabies from a bat, next Mrs. Cambers wins some money in the lottery and plans to go away with her son Brett to visit her sister out of state. While she is gone her husband and the neighbor decide that they will also leave town and party in Boston. (Which means he cancels the mail) Vic Trenton and his partner have to go on a week long business trip to help save a huge account, so Donna and Tad will be alone. Donna breaks off the affair with Steve Kemp, who in a fit of rage will send a letter to the husband about the affair which he gets right before the trip, and Steve will also trash the house and in the process destroy some important information. It is a record high temperature July for Maine. The last and most crucial piece is Donna's Pinto is having problems and Vic does not get it fixed before he leaves so she has to take care of it herself.

All of these circumstances come together to create a situation where a woman and her child are trapped in a sweltering car for several days with a homicidal dog steps away from their car. I cannot and do not want to even imagine the hell that this must be, but it stayed with me after I put this book down. Well done Mr. King.

Roadwork

This is the third of the first four Bachman books.  This book has to do with a man who is horrified at the thought of the city building a road not only through his business, but through his house as well. Bart Dawes is a man that most people would probably not pay much attention to at first glance, ordinary looking, in his 40's, worked the same job for almost 20 years, middle class, etc. But, deep down Bart is anything but ordinary.  He is a man possessed with one single thought, destroying those who are seeking to destroy his life, regardless of the cast.

So over the course of this book Bart starts doing some strange things on the path to his destruction.  Which really started with the death of his son, this roadwork is just the proverbial straw. He buys several guys without realizing why. He fails to buy a new location for the laundromat to move to. He fails to move on a new house for he and his wife. He drinks to excess. Eventually the truth comes crashing down, he is fired, his wife leaves him, he hooks up with a couple of unsavory characters that get him in all sorts of trouble, and he commits acts of vandalism against the road construction company. In the end, he comes up with a brilliant plan to draw attention to this issue of eminent domain and to destroy all that he loved in the process before those bastards do it for him.

This is a beautifully crafted story that really sucks you in to the torture that he is going through and in the end you end up rooting for old George after all.

Firestarter

Most people identify with this through the movie as it was when Drew Barrymore was still a cute little kid and not very long after ET it seems to me.  I don't remember the movie, not sure that I saw it.  The book is about a couple who meet in college when both sign up for Lot Six tests as they need the $200 that is being offered for participating in the test. This drug, Lot Six, is a government experiment to see if you can cause a mutation in people that will make them effective weapons against our enemies. The man and woman involved in these tests both gain some telekinetic ability, but their daughter, Charlie, is the real prize as she is a pure mutation from the two of them. She is a pyrokinetic and has the ability to light objects on fire with her mind. Her dad has what he calls "the push", which means that he can push people into thinking specific things or doing things that he needs them to. Unfortunately, using his talent causes him physical pain in the form of debilitating headaches.  His wife had the ability to move objects using her mind.  One day the government decides to move on them and take Charlie as they are worried that the parents are on to them and will run with her.  They torture and kill the mom to find Charlie and then take her on the run. The did gets the feeling that something is wrong and he manages to chase them down and get Charlie back.  From that moment on the two of them are constantly on the run.  Along the way they hurt some people and destroy a home of people who helped them.

Eventually Charlie and her dad are caught and taking to the "Shop" for testing.  While there they are separated and forced to undergo testing to determine the extent of their abilities. Charlie refuses to cooperate as she is scared of her abilities. This is where the bad guy, Rainbird, comes in to befriend her and trick her into using her abilities. Of course he is going to betray her as once she has performed for the government he is going to kill her. Andy pushes several of his captors and comes up with an escape plan, that then goes horribly wrong.  At this time it is up to Charlie to figure out a way to be free of the shop and be accepted for her abilities.

This is a pretty good story, I love the affection between Charlie and her dad, the tension builds up nicely and leaves you eagerly anticipating the next chapter. I actually would love to see this story revisited, what Charlie is like now as a grown up, is the Shop still after her, that kind of thing.

The Dead Zone

I am going to confess right up front that I have seen both the movie based on this book with Christopher Walken and the TV series with Anthony Michael Hall.  And I loved them both.  (Well to be fair, I loved the TV series until it started getting too absorbed in the Armageddon stuff, which was close to the end of the series anyway)

This book is about a man who has a car accident on the way home from a date with his girlfriend and ends up in a coma for 4+ years.  During that time his girlfriend moved on, his mom has become a religious zealot, and Johnny has withered away. When he awakens he has this new "gift", the ability to see in to people's past or their future.  Sometimes this works out for the best when he is able to save lives or prevent harm to people, in other cases it causes nothing but heartache and misery. After recovering Johnny tries to get back to his normal life, he wants to go back as a teacher, but the board will not allow it because of these visions. He helps a sheriff solve a serial killing, and eventually ends up as a tutor to the son of a wealthy man. 

Along the way he develops an interest in a politician, named Stillson. When he attends one of his rallies, Johnny touches him and learns that this man will one day become President and that if he does, it will lead us into a nuclear war with devastating consequences. Johnny then grapples with the question that many have pondered, if you could go back in the past and stop Hitler, would you? For Johnny he feels he is facing that same situation as he knows without a doubt that Stillson is a bad man and that his visions always are true. 

This is a book that I enjoy as it does make you think about what a burden or curse a gift like that would be. You  would be constantly hounding by people seeking help or answers, just as Johnny was in the book. And then when you had something really important, there will be those who will not believe you. Not to mention, how difficult it must be to wake up feeling like you just went to sleep yesterday and realizing that for everyone else it has been years. 

The Long Walk

Picture yourself going on a journey - a long journey with nothing but what you can carry and you have to walk for as long as you can. If you fall behind the required speed, if you stop for any reason, or if you are injured and cannot walk anymore, you will be killed. The person at the end who stays walking the longest wins the prize, essentially money or whatever they wish and their life.  This is the basis for The Long Walk, the 2nd Bachman Book.

This has always been one of my favorites because the idea of forcing children to participate in a walk like this, with armed guards at the ready with their warnings and meriting out punishments, and with spectators cheering on their favorites is so disturbing and fascinating.  Why would people watch, why would they participate, what they hell happened that we would allow such an event?  I picture these boys walking side by side, eating their homemade sandwiches, trying to have jovial conversations, while knowing that their are marching to their death and imagined the terror that each must feel. That drive to just outlast those next to them. That disregard for someone else who has been shot down, because you are thankful it is not you. That agonizing boredom of one foot after another. The horror of it all is unbearable, almost.

Bachman masterfully moves the story onward across Maine as we witness these 100 boys basically walk through their shoes down to their socks.  We feel them going crazy slowly and cringe as they meet their fate. And we root for the one who we know is going to win in the end. Ah, but does he? That is the question you are left with at the end of this book.

The Stand

So I savored reading this book a little bit because it is my favorite.  I love this book for the basic idea of good versus evil and the innate nature it seems of man to destroy himself. I think it is also held a fascination because where the book mainly takes place, the mountain West, is an area that I am very familiar with, which makes it hit closer to home I guess. There was also a TV movie made about this book that aired in the 90's I think.  I vaguely remember it and have thought now that I finish the book that I should watch it to see how closely it matches the book.

The Stand is about a super flu virus that the government has created for biological warfare that infects people at the laboratory and then gets out in the general public.  Captain Trips, as it came to be known, rapidly infects the entire nation and I would gather the world, and within weeks only about 1% of the population is left. Why this people did not get infected is always a mystery, but these survivors have a vastly different world to live in. When you really start thinking of what that would be like to have bodies laying all over, cars jamming up the roads, power out, food going rotten, the sense of loneliness and isolation, I just cannot begin to imagine how that would feel.  Very soon after the outbreak the survivors start having dreams.  Some of them dream of an old woman in Nebraska named Mother Abigail.  Others dream of the Dark Man/Walking Dude/Randall Flagg who is on his way to Las Vegas. Most dream of both and it really depends on who you are in your heart and soul as to where you end up.

For most people they decide that staying where they are is not an option, so most start traveling by whatever means they can to either Nebraska or Las Vegas. The main characters in this book are Stu Redman, who was in the town in Texas where the first signs of the outbreak started and was taken to a government disease facility to be put under observation. Fran Goldman who is pregnant and from a small coastal town in Maine. With her for a good part of the book is Harold Lauder, he is the geeky, overweight kid who loves Fran and has a massive chip on his shoulder.  Fran and Harold leave from Maine and meet up with Stu along the way. Stu had met a man who was a college sociology professor named Glen Bateman and he comes along with them. Also heading to Nebraska from the East is Larry Underwood, a musician who had a hit record weeks before Captain Trips.  He meets a mysterious woman named Nadine Cross and with her is a young wild boy they call Joe.  (Later they discover his name is really Leo) There is also a deaf and mute man named Nick Andros who meets up with a mentally challenged man named Tom Cullen.  There are others on this side too like Ralph, Lucy, and Sue, but they are not as important as these main characters.

As for Las Vegas, all that is really important there is that Randall Flagg is there and he has two henchmen that he recruits, Lloyd Henreid and the Trashcan Man who plays with fire.  Other than that most everyone is a bit player in a horrible plan. The group heading to Nebraska meets up with Mother Abigail and from there they all head to Boulder. This woman becomes their prophet in the new world so to speak, as she was a part of their dreams, knows things about them, and is able in some ways to predict the future. Both communities start creating new communities in there respective locations, but Flagg's group seems to be a little faster at is as he motivates by fear and the punishment of death. The group in Boulder goes about things with a sense of returning to the old ways and re-establishing what was lost. (Uh, what you had is what lead to your destruction in the first place, but I digress)

Along this journey Fran and Stu become lovers, Harold discovers this and what Fran really thinks of him and starts plotting his revenge upon them and his journey to the Dark Man. He will eventually be joined by Nadine Cross who is the promised virginal bride to the Dark Man.  They plot over several weeks to destroy the committee in Boulder and they almost succeed, if not for Mother Abigail.  From this point on in the book the good and evil is very obvious and the tension builds as both sides fight for total dominance in the new world.  I don't want to give more away than that for anyone who may not have read it.  But, I will say that I love this book for the message of hope and light when all seems lost and for the love story and the bonds between friends. If you don't read any other works by Stephen King, read this one.  I promise you will not regret it.

Night Shift

Night Shift encompasses 20 short stories, some of which go on to become other books or that go along with other works by King. Jerusalem's Lot and Night Surf being the main two.  Jerusalem's Lot ties into Salem's Lot only in name and subject matter, the style and tone are completely different, as well as the time frame which is roughly a century earlier here. (One for the Road is also connected) Night Surf is the first mention of Captain Trips and all fans of the Stand are very familiar with that. This is the second collection of short stories that I read by King, I read Different Seasons first.  I do have to say that while I like several of the stories, it is not my favorite collection by far.  However, there always hidden gems in his collections.

So, to get started, let's go through them one by one.

Jerusalem's Lot - This is the story done in a very Brahm Stoker style with the storytelling done through letters of Charles and the pocket journal of Calvin McCann.  I know that there are several readers who love this story, but I will be honest that it is not my favorite.  I have a hard time being invested in these characters or caring much about them, so I honestly read this one as fast as I could to move on to the next.  The gist of this is that the town of Jerusalem's Lot  Basically this is the story of vampires who took out a whole town and how this impacts the descendent when he finds out about it. Sins of the father is what it makes me think of.  Like I said, not a favorite, so not going to elaborate more.

Graveyard Shift - Bosses are the worst.  That is the message of this story.  Management sucks and the things they ask us to do are ridiculous.  But, we go along with it because we need the extra money or pad to our record, whatever. This story is about a group of guys who work at a fabric plant and are asked to work the Graveyard Shift and help with cleaning out the basement of this factory.  This basement is filled with rats, the work is dirty and terrible, the conditions are worse yet, and the boss is an ass.  One of the workers decides that he just can't take it and the manager anymore, so when they are asked to go down and clear out the subbasement, he makes this manager come along. Unfortunately, this space is full of rats who are none to friendly to invaders in their space.  It does not end happily for anyone is pretty much all you need to know.

Night Surf - This is what I would call an addition to the Stand or maybe the inspiration, don't know exactly. What I do know is it is one I love because of the feeling of it. This story takes place on a beach and is about a group of teenage kids who discover a man in his car who is infected with Captain Trips (terrible flu like disease that wiped out most of the planet) and they decide to burn him on the beach...alive. What I love about this story is the idea that you are one of few left alone in the world. It is your opportunity to then decide what to do to make it better or worse.

I am the Doorway - On my book, this is the cover art, the hand with bandages and eyes all over the hand.  Which is a little freaky for sure. This story is about an astronaut who picked up something either in space or who knows where and this "parasite" comes through his hands in the form of several eyeballs that can not only see through his hands, but can make him do things that he does not want to do, like harm someone else. What fascinates me about this story is the idea that not only can they see (which he in turn can see through their eyes in a weird sort of way) but that he can sense their mind (his mind?) shifting and what they intend to do.  But he has no control over it or his body.  It is even more odd in that he is wheelchair bound, but when they make him do things, that does not matter.  His solution for solving the problem and the subsequent result is one of my favorite endings to a King short story.

The Mangler - Just when you thought it was safe to go to work, the machines eat you!  This story is another favorite and is based on the theory that machines are, or can be, alive. And when that happens, their intentions are not always the best. This takes place in a laundromat and the Mangler is a huge ironing/pressing machine that gets a taste for blood, becomes possessed and decides that one person is not enough. Eventually people try to stop it, good idea gone horribly wrong, and the Mangler breaks free.  Picture that thing running lose on the streets.

The Boogeyman - I hate this story.  I probably liked it fine before I had kids, but now that I have them, and have already lost one, this story is definitely not a favorite.  I am sure this will be multiplied when I get to Pet Semetary.  This story is about a boogeyman that hides in the closet of a family and over the course of several years kills all three of their children in various horrific ways.  Each one can be explained as an accident, but the father knows better.  He is visiting a therapist and working telling him what happened with his kids, and let's just say the therapist is not who he appears to be. Yeah, won't be reading this one again.

Gray Matter - This is what happens when you are a lazy son of a bitch who sits around and drinks too much beer.  You turn into a big, fat, worthless, disgusting slob. Who ruins the lives of everyone around you.

Battleground - I love this story for it is so Twilight Zone and so visual.  A hit man takes out his target and his family retaliates by sending in toy soldiers.

Trucks - I think I remember this being a movie, but called something else. Anyway, imagine what would happen if the trucks and tankers, along with other vehicles who knows, became alive and decided that they were in charge of us.  Not just in charge, but want to eliminate all of us, but those they need to do their bidding.

Sometimes They Come Back - Again, I think that this, or at least this idea, was made into a movie or TV show, but I never saw it. So what if when you were younger some older kids did something terrible to you, something that affected you your whole life? And then as an adult they come back to do it again.

Strawberry Spring - So who is murdering the kids on the college campus? Is it the narrator, is it some other unknown person? I love this as you just never know exactly what is happening and are left to come to your own conclusions. Beautifully crafted and descriptive story.

The Ledge - Very gangster feel to this one. A man whose wife has had an affair with the local tennis pro decides to make a wager with the tennis pro and it involves walking around the Penthouse ledge of a high rise...a ledge that is 5 inches wide and below window level. If he makes it he walks with money, his life, and the wife, if not, well problem solved. Of course, we all know that gangsters are not honorable men.

The Lawnmower Man - Imagine hiring a lawn mowing service to cut your grass, only to discover that the lawnmower runs on its own and the man follows along in the nude and like a goat eats whatever clippings the lawnmower leaves. Grass, twigs, dead animals, etc. And God help you if you try to tell anyone else is what happening or you just may end up being mowed over.

Quitters, Inc. - This is a long standing favorite that again reminds me of a Twilight or Hitchcock.  We all know how addicting cigarettes are, more so than most anything else. So the need to quit and be successful is tremendous. That is where Quitters, Inc. comes in. They have a 98% success rate for all of their clients, while also keeping your weight down. Their methods are very effective, but maybe not the most ethical.

I Know What You Need - Another favorite about a girl at college who meets a boy, a nerdy sort of boy, who claims to know what she needs and gives her the answers to a test. From there he pops up in her life after her boyfriend dies, he comforts her, and she starts falling in love. He seems perfect to her, like the guy who knows the right things to do all the time, what to say, what she likes. Alas, turns out that too good to be true, usually is.

Children of the Corn - I know that this one is a movie and one I watched part of.  Ever since I read this book corn fields have not been the same. This is the story about a town surrounded by corn and a supernatural being that lives in the corn, who the towns people make sacrifice to. Basically anyone older than 19 is sacrificed, all the crazy kids have taken on biblical names and are very extreme in their beliefs. It starts out with a couple that run over a boy, so they happen on the town to report it when they discover that he was murdered and not killed by the car.  The wife wants to leave as she has a bad feeling about the town, the man insists on staying and well, that as they say, is the end of that.  So, the moral of the story is listen to your intuition and your wife.

The Last Rung on the Ladder - This is a heartbreaking story, maybe it is more so for me because in some ways I relate since I had an older brother who I thought would always be there for me. And he was, until he died tragically at 20. This story for me is about how events in our lives shape us and we take different paths from our families, and how if we are not careful, we will lose the ones we love. To me it is also about faith in those we love and the ties that bind between siblings.

The Man Who Loved Flowers - Fun and twisted little story about a man who by all appearances is in love with a woman in spring, and there is nothing better than that. Being in love, the proper thing to do is bring her little gift, like sweets, jewelry, and flowers. So he buys a bouquet of flowers from a street vendor for her, for his love Norma. And as romantic as this is, the rest of Norma's life is not so rosy.

One for the Road - This story is one more piece to the Jerusalem's Lot/Salem's Lot stories. I found this one particularly scary because it takes place in winter and I could just imagine and feel the cold and desperation. The premise of this is a man and his family are traveling from New Jersey to Maine and they take a little side trip on accident into Jerusalem's Lot. Of course, this does not end well for them as we all know that this town is full of Vampires.  I will add this to my increasing list of reasons not to visit Maine.

The Woman in the Room - A sweet sad story about a woman dying of cancer and her son who visits her in the hospital. I think this is a story that most people could relate to if our parents were ill and in a lot of pain.  There is that part of you that wants them around forever, and that other part that wants to help them move on. I wondered while reading this story if King was working through his own feelings with his mother, but I am probably reading too much into it.

So, there ends Night Shift.  Now it is on to The Stand - my favorite!

The Shining

This story seems to most people to be intricately linked with the movie done by Stanley Kubrick and starring Jack Nicholson. For most people, when they think of the Shining, that is what they relate it to (or maybe the TV movie, I don't know).  Personally, I don't really like to watch movies that are based on King's work as rarely does it do it justice.  (Shawshank Redemption, Green Mile, Misery, Stand, and Dolores Claiborne are the exceptions and honestly most people don't even realize those are Stephen King books when I mention them). There is no "All work and no play" or "Here's Johnny!" in the book.

Anyway, for me the Shining is completely different from the movie.  There is no "All work and no play" or "Here's Johnny!" in the book for example. And sure there are similarities, but there is so much more to this book than just a man going crazy and wanting to kill his family.  This is the story of our demons and how we are never free from them, how easy it is to keep returning to the things we know that are bad for us. Jack Torrance is a man who cannot control his temper very well and who is an alcoholic, not surprising his father was an alcoholic as well. Jack is a writer who had a few successful stories published and had a teaching job, until he lost his temper and beat up a kid. He is now forced to take his wife Wendy and their son Danny (Doc) to Colorado where one of his fellow teachers got him a job as the winter caretaker of the Overlook Hotel.

The problem is the Overlook Hotel is possessed and Danny has the "Shine" or the ability to see an feel things normal people cannot. Because of this ability the hotel wants Danny and it will use his father to get him.  I love this book because King does such a great job of making you feel cold, isolated, and terrified all at the same time. The idea of being alone in a massive hotel all winter, snowed in without any way out or real ability to communicate is terrifying.  Then on top of it you add the fact that the hotel is doing things to your loved ones and making them lose their sanity.

What this book has made me think about the past 4 days since I finished it, and yes it has stayed with me that long, is that each of us could be Jack Torrance.  We all have inner demons that we struggle with all the time. And while I believe that nothing would make me harm my children or husband, I also believe that there is a lot more that goes on in this world than I could ever hope to understand.

Rage

Rage is the first Richard Bachman book published by King under his pseudonym. This is a story he wrote years earlier and that went in his "trunk" to be brought out, or not, someday.  It is a very interesting story about a teenage boy who has been bullied by his father, ignored by his peers, and shit on by life. One day he fights back by bringing a gun to school, which he uses to murder two teachers and hold hostage a classroom full of his peers. The most interesting part of this book to me is the use of stories, the stories that everyone has that are embarrassing or in some way personally eventful, by Charlie and eventually those in the class.  The telling of these stories causes the students over the course of the morning to turn from being scared of Charlie to supporting and defending him.

All but Ted that is. For there is always the nemesis that we must face in some way, the monster we must destroy if we are to save ourselves. For Charlie there are several of those, his father, the principal, the psychiatrist he had been seeing, and Ted. What this story tells me is that some people never have the chance, their circumstances in life combine with that switch that just did not flip in their brains and they turn out to be a sociopath. That, unfortunately, is Charlie.  The brilliant thing that King did with this book in my opinion is make me feel a deep connection and sense of empathy for Charlie.  In the end, I was rooting for him too.

I read this in the Bachman Books collection, which contains Rage, The Long Walk, Roadwork, and The Running Man.  The cool thing with this book is it also has an introduction by King on why he wrote as Bachman, what prompted him to do it.  I found this very insightful as I am not that person who reads every interview on King, in fact I think I read one and that was on his favorite movie lines.  I prefer to read what he writes and leave his personal life or his motivation to him. In my mind, it is not really my business. My business is to read, enjoy, and what I get out of it, is what I get out of it.

But, the part about his introduction that amazes me is where he mentions that he thought he could write the books, publish them, and no one would know it was him. Which he realized is pretty ridiculous, of course the Constant Readers would know. I always think of Richard Bachman as Stephen King in a really bad mood. The books are not as scary or gory (I dislike that word, but nothing else comes to mind). They rarely end happily. They most definitely feel like King in style and cadence. And most of the time they are terrifying because the horror is much closer to reality. Personally, I am sad that Bachman died, I kind of like the grumpy bastard.

Salem's Lot

Salem's Lot (short for Jerusalem's Lot) is the story of a small town in Maine (of course) that is haunted by an event that happened many years earlier and how this event brings evil to the town again. Years before the story takes place a man in town who lived in the spooky house on the hill killed his wife and hung himself. The house stood empty for many years until two mysterious gentlemen buy the house and a local shop in town where they sell antiques. The one man Straker is tall, charming, and creepy.  The second man, Kurt Barlow, is rarely seen as he seems to be always away on "business", however as the story moves along you come to realize that he is a vampire and is the harbinger of evil.

The main characters are Ben Mears, an author and widower, and Susan Norton a local girl who becomes involved with Ben. As always, there is an amazing supporting cast of characters that you don't want to get too emotionally involved with as you know nothing good will come to them. Ben comes to town about the same time as Straker and Barlow, and actually hoped to rent the Marsten house, but ended up at the local boarding house instead. He is returning to the town from his childhood as he wants to write a book based on the Marsten house.  He had a scary experience with that house as a child and it has haunted him ever since.

The story unfolds with strange events happening in the town.  First a dog is hung on the cemetery gates, next a little boy goes missing and his brother becomes very sick with anemia.  Then the brother dies. Then the local gravedigger becomes very sick and he dies. Each time the person dies, the body disappears from the morgue or the cemetery. The local teacher Matt Burke becomes friends with Ben and the two of them are the first to put together the theory about the vampires. They involve Matt's doctor Jim Cody, along with Susan. Soon a boy, Mark Petrie is also involved as well as Father Callahan.

I won't go through the whole plot, but let's just say that people underestimate the situation, some make very bad decisions and very few people make it out alive. The last 100 pages were by far the most creepy for me and I could not wait to get through it at that point.  I really finished this about 4 days ago, but it has made me do some serious thinking about confession and the role of faith and hope in how we live out our daily lives. The first time I read this, is was pretty forgettable for me, but now I find myself thinking about it over and over. I doubt it will ever be a favorite however, there are just too many characters for that.

Now on to Rage and The Shining.

Carrie

To be honest, it has been about 25 years since I read Carrie and what I do remember of it seems to really come from the movie and Sissy Spacek's incredible representation. So, I was very excited to read this again.  Not just for that, but also because it was the book pulled from the trash that started it all.

What surprised me at first is how short it is.  Mind you, I have been reading 11/22/63 and Under the Dome as of late, both of which are big enough to hold a door open in a hurricane.  The second thing about this is how well it endures. I finished this book for the second time in 2 days and only then because I have a job and kids.

This is my take on this story.  Bullying sucks, flat out. And if you are stupid or mean enough to pick on others for being different, well then you get what you get I suppose. I am not intending to be flippant, but with everything that goes on these days with bullying, this is just as relevant now as when it was written. This was Columbine before there was such a thing.  What scares me about this book and what makes it so wonderful is not the fact that this could happen.  That it does happen.  Not in this way I agree, but it happens nonetheless.

I think every person remembers or knows someone in there school who is like Carrie, who is that time-bomb that at one point will have had enough. This story makes me feel so bad for Carrie, for everything - her crazy home life, the torture at school, feeling like you don't fit in, then having hope only to be brutally humiliated in front of the whole school - terrible.

So after having read it again, I am glad I came back to it.  I am very happy that it was published in the first place as it is still an engrossing read and it has given me another book to put in the pile for when my girls are older.

Now, on to Salem's Lot.

The Beginning

I started reading Stephen King at 13 when I picked up Christine at the used bookstore in my town. From the first chapter he had me and has had me ever since. Once I finished this book, I went back to the store and bought all the rest I could find, what they did not have I borrowed from the library until I was caught up with everything he had published.  Then the torture truly began as I had to wait for each work to be written and published. At times it really helped me understand poor Annie in Misery, sometimes the waiting is the hardest part.

I have since read almost everything, except for his book on writing and the newest addition to the Dark Tower series. This newest book inspired me to revisit Roland and read them in order as I had never done that with all the other books in between.  Which got me thinking, that if I were to reread these, I might as well read them all again, but this time I would read them all in order of when they were published.  I decided that for my 40th birthday, this would be my goal, to read every Stephen King novel again, in order, excluding the Dark Tower series which I want to read all together at the end finishing with the new novel in one year.  (This last bit in itself is asking a lot as I will have to wait an entire year to read the new novel)

Hence, the Stephen King Project was born and as a way for me to track my progress and my thoughts on each novel, I decided to create the blog.  So, constant reader, follow along as down the rabbit hole (or storm drains) we go.