Elevation has been reviewed here at least once already, but I’ll give you a brief summary. Which will be easy, as it’s a rather brief book.
“Hands on a clock, numbers on a bathroom scale, weren’t they only ways of trying to measure invisible forces that had visible effects?”
Scott Carey lives in King’s well known little town of Castle Rock. He’s recently divorced, living alone with his cat, and has noticed something strange. He’s losing weight. Pretty steadily, in fact, and for no reason at all. And even more strangely, it has not affected his appearance at all. Meanwhile, his new neighbors — married women– are about to lose their restaurant because the citizens of Castle Rock have a bit of a problem with gay folks getting married. Their attitude basically boils down to, well it’s okay if you’re gay behind closed doors but for god’s sake, don’t flaunt it. And come on, don’t we all have a relative who has said that verbatim to us? Or at least posted it on Facebook. Anyway, Carey embarks on a bit of a campaign to get the town to accept these women, with the numbers on the scale serving as a countdown of his time to do so.
Stephen King carries a life-long free pass for me. I have been a Constant Reader since middle school, and the man basically walks on water in my mind. As such, I tend to let him get away with a lot. So if anyone else had written this book, I might have used words like…sappy…and…schlocky…in my review. But Mr. King, like myself, is living blue in a red state — not to mention a terrifying country — so I’m hoping his sweet little tale illustrating that, you know, gay people are people, too (no, really!) will resonate with people who might disagree. If King wants to use his immense platform to change some hearts and minds, I commend him.
(even if the writing in this one is a little hacky)
My library can’t keep this book on the shelves, so I haven’t read it yet. I’m going to circle back to your review after I’ve gotten a copy!