Tuesday, April 10, 2018

Books read in 2018: No. 23 -- Full Dark, No Stars

by Stephen King

Started: April 6
Finished: April 10

Notes: In my opinion, King is usually stronger in his shorter works, so I thought I'd check out this collection of four novellas. Funny thing, I accidentally picked up a large-type edition, and I still need my reading glasses!

Mini review: These were pretty good stories. In "1922," it's the Dust Bowl era and a father entices his son to commit a vicious crime, then cover it up, but the outcome is one screwed-up son. In "Big Driver," a victim of violence manages to survive and seeks her own personal form of closure, all while hoping to avoid law enforcement. In the story "Fair Extension," a man with cancer makes a deal to have his cancer vanish, but then someone else has to suffer. And in "A Good Marriage," a wife discovers her husband is more than she had known, much more, and then she has to deal with it. Interestingly, at least to me, all these tales are about men committing violence, or at least doing something awful, and women suffering from it, often having to deal with the ramifications afterwards. Sometimes other males also suffer, but generally they are more of a byproduct of tragedy, with women suffering the most or being the initial target. I don't know if King consciously set out for this collection to contain such stories, or if his editor(s) realized it at the time, but that's how it came out. I'm making no judgment here, just an observation, and these are all good tales.

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