There was a set of dictums.

This is an interesting reread for me because I have distinct memories of getting this audiobook as a kid and listening to it on a car trip. It was on audio cassette and I was horrified by it, because like some percentage of Stephen King novels, this one more or less is not supernatural, but still awful. I also distinctly thinking (and this would have been maybe 1993-94) that this book represented a much much older time period than it actually does. It takes place in about 1980 and most of the frame story takes place 45 years earlier, so somewhere around 1930 or so. So it’s a weird thing because to me now, this doesn’t seem all that long ago, even though it’s something like 90 years, but when I was only 60 years removed it felt much more ancient. I was exactly surprised as I was listening to this that it wasn’t nearly as old as I had thought. I created a memory version of it that was more like the 1890s or something out of Henry James.

And it IS something out of Henry James, or a little Joseph Conrad, because the story is a frame story told at a gentleman’s club on a Christmas evening designed around macabre stories, mostly populated by the older gentlemen’s war stories.

So once in the frame we told of the story of a doctor treating a pregnant, single woman in 1930 or so, falling in love with her, and something tragic happening.

It’s not a great story and the setup and atmosphere, as well as the writing, over sell the actual plot.

(Photo: https://www.amazon.com/Breathing-Method-Stephen-King/dp/1508218560/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1548285210&sr=8-1&keywords=the+breathing+method)