So I did the audio on this one, and I definitely think that affected my reading, for the better. Will Patton is a good narrator (he’s the same one who narrated the Bill Hodges trilogy). Sometimes books are significantly affected by a good or bad audiobook narrator, so I just wanted to say up front that I think that is going on here for me, and I think you should know that going in. I probably would have been less forgiving without the audio. Some slight […]
The Way Out Is Through
An under-remarked facet of Stephen King’s genius is his eye. Like John Updike or Joseph Conrad, he sees more than we do, then carefully sets down what he sees, until a bright yellow bra strap or red lips moving in a black goatee become sharp, silvery hooks. Try and free yourself. The Outsider, in which that eye sees quite a bit, is at least two novels, imperfectly grafted. The first–and best–centers on a Little League baseball coach arrested for a terrible violation: the rape and murder […]
…and his name that sat upon him was Death, and Hell followed with him
Out on a lonely stretch of desert highway, there’s a cop. This cop is not the sort you’d ever want to meet, let alone so far from civilisation, but a bunch of unrelated travellers – a family, a couple, a writer and his road trip manager – are about to do so anyway, and find themselves entering a living nightmare in the aptly named town of Desperation. A lot of this book feels incredibly cinematic, with the images of the open door of the abandoned […]
“What am I going to say if I end up standing in front of God the Father Almighty and He asks me to explain why I did it. That it was my job?”
For some years now, I’ve been reading through the works of Stephen King in chronological order. I’d avoided picking this one up for a while, having watched the movie a zillion times, but while the storyline held no surprises for me, what did surprise me was just how insanely good it was regardless, with King’s words rapidly catching hold of me and not letting go until I’d stayed up way past bedtime, breathlessly turning pages and gulping back tears. In case you’re one of the […]