Thank for your insightful review. King is an amazing writer who I have been reading since the 1980s. When I went back to college to finish my English teaching degree in the late 1990's, the mention of King received a disdainful attitude and a mutter about "pop culture". I think that has changed over time or at least hope that it has.
Having said that, while I'm about 100 pages away from finishing The Outsiders, not his best work so far. I am bemused why he felt the need to recycle Holly. I am hoping he doesn't drag Jerome back at the last minute either. While I like Stephen King overall, I am uncomfortable with his portrayal of people of color. (yep, I know he grew up in Maine, the whitest of the States and I believe he is a genuinely good guy with good intentions on racial issues). But there are some troubling things. Start with Spike Lee's analysis on the Magical Negro, very evident in King's work, look at the whole Jerome character in the last few Bill Hodges/Mercedes Killer novel(THERE IS NO WAY A BLACK KID IS GOING TO DO A Step and fetch it routine/accent with a white ex cop-and aside from a casual mention that Jerome was his lawnboy(well, maybe that's more satirical than I realized)-but I am still uneasy about King's portrayal of African Americans.
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I loved it, but it should really be considered Bill Hodges 3.5. If you haven't already, I'd read Mr. Mercedes, Finders Keepers and End of Watch first.
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I have read the bulk of King's huge Oeuvre. King is one of the few authors who, while reading, I stop mid-paragraph to just admire the quality of his craft. I had this experience several times while reading the Outsider.
The first half was as good of a "police procedural / detective novel as I have read (and, being a private detective myself, I have read hundreds of them). The last part of the novel is, well, pure Stephen King at his absolute finest and in full command of his craft. This is a very fine novel that ultimately is just about everyday people dealing with the inexplicable -- which, after all, is life as we all know it.
I very, very highly recommend this book which may be, all things considered, his finest yet!
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Almost always love King's work. A long time fan!
I did indeed read the "Outsider" and read it in two big chunks! Along with the recent "Bill Hodges Trilogy" (started with Mr. Mercedes, referenced in the review) I consider these four books to be some of the best writing King has done in a long time!
I agree with the points the reviewer made about "Outsider" and really appreciate that he didn't feel it necessary to give "spoilers" in the review!
I've never been able to read a King novel all the way through. Here's another 560 pages I can skip.
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So sad that so many adults no longer read, 560 is too much? Do we blame this on Twitter, do most Americans now only have a 140 character attention span?
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I think scrumble was saying s/he is not a fan of King's work...not that the books are too long.
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YES, attention spans are decreasing and more and more young people simply do not read books at all.
(Based on my younger son's statement and what he has witnessed in college and after).
I do blame social media, and also commercials, shorter movies, and so on.
How to reverse this trend? NO IDEA, sadly!
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I get that the writer likes the piece, and you can feel the warmth they have towards King (me too!) but cultural appropriation *still* isn't a thing. Say sorry.
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Yeah, I'm an American white guy and I just had Chinese food for lunch. Cultural appropriation? Uh, no.
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Stephen King was the best-selling American novelist for the last half of the 20th Century. And for good reason! Although I don't like ALL of his books, most of the time, he strikes the chord I've come to long for since "Carrie." I've also discovered that his audio books played before I doze off at night give me dreams. I don't mean nightmares, either. Somehow what he writes awakens portions of my brain and make me a better person
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Agree!
I think the first King book I read was Carrie, but even more I appreciated "Salem's Lot" and "The Shining"!
By the way I also agree with the character in the "Outsider" who didn't like the movie version of "The Shining"!!!
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"The Stand", "The Shining", "It", "Firestarter," "The Green Mile" and on and on. My fave New Yorker cartoon: a massive tome with the title "HERNIA, by Stephen King." Steve is every writer's "guilty secret." (I think Philip Roth said that, but anyway, it was someone way more "highbrow" and true.) Now and then there is a clunker, like "The Dome," but some of his short stories are genius, like "The Shawshank Redemption," which is imprinted on everyone's brain. (It seems that films made of his movies are kind of everlasting). "The Walking Dude" is my favorite villain (always saw him as a giant, red-faced Ronald Reagan) and of course that evil clown in the sewers. Sadly, we have a clown in the White House who's terrorizing us, with orange hair and tiny hands. Please tell us he's a kid's nightmare you dreamed up, Steve. We'll believe you!
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Meant to say "films made of his books"
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I am going to get this book! My favorite Stephen King book: 11/22/63
If you like books about time travel, you will LOVE this book!
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11/22/63 is the best book her ever wrote, IMO.
But right up there with it: "The Green Mile," "Dream Catacher," and "Misery." And "The Stand" and "The Shining," too of course.
Also not to be missed: "On Writing." I use it as a resource for my Composition classes.
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"On Writing" is exquisite. I love his rip roaring fiction but that is an amazing book, as is his "Dance Macabre", his analysis of horror fiction.
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YES! I love King's book "On Writing" which seems to be a very open autobiography of his years up the time he wrote that book!
Personally I was terribly disappointed with "11/22/63" ; and like you, didn't like "the Dome".....
My favorites of his are still, after all these years, "Salem's Lot" and "the Shining" (though I HATED the movie made from it.)
Also liked "Pet Sematary" which I am incapable of re-reading, and my young adult son won't see the re-make of "It" due to the trauma the TV version put him through. (and he also has read the book(s) of King....).
As for Shawshank Redemption? One of the very few films made from a King book that was, in my opinion, better than the book.
At age 12, my local librarian refused to allow me to check out It, telling me I wouldn't sleep for a week. She took the book from my hands and returned it to the adult section...where I promptly went every day after school to read it quietly in the corner, chapter by chapter without getting caught (and I only missed a few nights of sleep). Hooked, I plowed through The Stand with a flashlight under the covers (how I hated Harold Lauder) and so many others.
To this day, seeing a new Stephen King book appear is like a gift...I've just ordered The Outsider from my local library, where I'm happily old enough (by decades) to check out King's Night Shift while waiting for the new novel.
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Be sure to go back and read his earlier work: my favorite King novels are "Salem's Lot" and "the Shining", still!!
Also see the little known book by King "On Writing" which essentially is his autobiography up to the age when he wrote it.
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I love this post!
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Thank you. I will order the book.
4
Salem's Lot hooked me in the 70s and now I live with a lifetime of King's creations in my head: little Danny floating outside his brother's bedroom window, "Captain Trips" and an old woman dragging her bag of chickens as she fights off the rats, the gunslinger chewing that aspirin, a giant St. Bernard waiting out his family trapped in their car, a doorway through time, aliens in the woods. What a treat to know that when I retire I'll have time to visit them all again, just as I left them (how much of life can that be said of?), and take King's wild ride all over again. But first, the latest King world to enter. Can't wait. Life is good!
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Why would I read a novel that might terrorize me? I can just watch the news to see how many high school students were murdered today because the students' parents value their guns more than they value the lives of their own children.
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You are conflating separate issues.
King's type of 'horror' novels have little to do with "real life" in my opinion.
Check out the lists (google it) of which Congressmen receive how much money yearly from the NRA to see WHY no meaningful gun legislation is ever passed.
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Is this about Trump?
4
No. The book is about a monster that preys on people's inability to believe it exists. And the article is about writers (who aren't King) writing about stuff they aren't familiar with in a gimmicky way.
4
I'm a constant reader, and have read all of Stephen Kings' stories, starting with the The Stand, which in my opinion is one of the greatest ever written.
The ease with which he brings the world in his books, to life, is extraordinary.
Of course several of his other books are outstanding, but for me The Stand is simply masterful.
Can't wait to buy his latest.
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The other day a friend who has traveled the world started to laugh when in mentioning she was getting pressure to write her life story I reminded her that she does not have a literary agent and is not under contract like Stephen King to meet a dead-line.
Stephen King has been my American historian. It started with his 'Long Walk', then 'Thinner' and branched out into The Shining, The Stand, Misery, Desperation. A friend and I both found his "IT" chilling. Some of his books are extraordinarily graphic and 'Bag O'Bones' nearly polished this reader off.
A friend in London visiting her elderly parents wrote that she had spent the entire night reading 11/22/63 and found it brilliant. When a couple from Ethiopia arrived on the eve of a presidential election, I wrote what to expect as a culture shock, adding that the head of the household should find a key hidden under the rented residence and no 'Cujo' to greet him.
There is a spiritual side to some of Stephen King's writings that appeal to a friend with whom I share a psychic link. The most rational person usually does not deny that there may be the reality of second sight among us.
Thank you, Mr. King. You may be a moral hero. Sending you and your spouse, your offspring and friends, all good wishes for a pleasant spring in Maine.
It is chilly here on Main Street, and Our Town is turning ghostly in the silence of May.
10
Agree 100% about Stephen King's talent and how he weaves so much into his writing - but never false appropriation. I feel as though I am intimately familiar with Maine, even though I've only been there once. I read my first Stephen King book years ago on my honeymoon - "The Stand" - and I remember my husband began complaining because I couldn't put it down, it was that mesmerizing. I've been hooked every since. No longer with the husband, but I still have all King's books!
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I loved The Stand too. It was such an elemental book, the final fight between good and evil, with some characters who were so well drawn. It is a book which could inspire a great Netflix series.
Mr King's writing has been a little uneven over the journey but when he is good, he is very, very good.
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If he was anything like the husband I no longer have, the books are far more valuable and add much more to your life.
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I've been reading Mr. King's books since I was 7 years old, when a Schenectady elementary school added a Richard Bachman four story novella to the reading library without quite understanding what it had done.
I appreciated and valued your comment, the distinction between appropriation and inspiration is 'presumption versus humility', and Stephen King indeed has the ability to make that distinction while continuing to take risks. A great author can breathe life into a set of characters, and the story takes on a life of its own. The ability to write a character that isn't contrived to fit a storyline is the real deus ex machina- imperfections and blemishes are what turn the plot into a bulldozer. The ability to do it again (and again) are what separate great from good authors.
You've inspired me to purchase my first King book since his 11/22/63.
10
If you haven't read the "Bill Hodges Trilogy" starting with "Mr Mercedes", followed by "Finders Keepers" then "End of Watch", is excellent.
"Mr Mercedes" won the 2015 Edgar Award for best novel....Highly recommended, all three of them!
2
I haven't read Stephen King for a while; this review will get me going again.
Seriously, though, he put Maine on the map! I swear the library in IT was MY childhood library, and the firetrucks came from as far away as Brunswick in CARRIE. THE DEAD ZONE, 'SALEM's LOT....I reread his "classics" every fall.
If I ever see Mr. King, and there's a decent chance I might, we have a powerful connection. I sure hope he won't mind too, too, too much when I march right up and proclaim myself as being from Maine!
...more MAINE, Mr. King, more MAINE!
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Glad to hear the Stephen King has still got it (sometimes).
I wasn't overly impressed with the Bill Hodges detective series, but I'll give this a whirl.
1
What a fantastic and well-written review! You are a very talented writer.
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America appears to be in the grip of Tak, where a Metamorphosis is taking place. Thank you, Mr. Lavalle, for an excellent review on a popular author who knows his Country.
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