Reader beware, I’m about to talk about scares. (And with the right title: it’s “What I Thought of Them,” Me from Last Fall. You mistyped your own title, you git!)
Ahem.
As always, I (the post calvin’s self-appointed Stephen King scholar) spun a randomizer wheel and picked ten Stephen King titles I’ve read and haven’t profiled in previous installments. I summarize them, give my thoughts, and rate if they’re a good first-time read.
To the books!
Dolores Claiborne (1992, 305 pages)
After being found standing over the deceased body of the elderly woman she works for, Dolores Claiborne is hauled into an interrogation room and pressed to confess to murder. Instead, she decides to let the interrogating officers in on a secret she’s been sitting on for decades.
Brief review: Writing-wise, this might be Stephen King’s most distinctive book. But for a newspaper article at the very end, the entire book is one long monologue as Dolores Claiborne spills the beans. I can genuinely say I’ve never read another book like Dolores Claiborne—a couple short stories (one of which I wrote) but not a full-length novel. It’s also notable for its film adaptation, the second Stephen King adaptation starring Kathy Bates in a leading role after her award-winning turn as Annie Wilkes in Misery. It unfortunately got its thunder stolen by the Misery movie and by The Shawshank Redemption, which is a shame because I’ve heard it’s pretty good.
Good first King read? Yeah, especially if you don’t want to read the typical King recommendations.
Mr. Mercedes (2014, 437 pages)
One foggy morning in the middle of the 2008 recession, a masked maniac steals a Mercedes-Benz and drives it through a crowd of people waiting for a job fair to open its doors. Eight people die, fifteen people are injured, and the killer escapes. A year later, Bill Hodges, the lead investigator of the “Mr. Mercedes” murders, has retired from policing with the case unsolved and is considering a more permanent retirement. That’s when a letter arrives from Mr. Mercedes, who claims his killing days are over. Bill not only knows BS when he reads it, but he can smell a killer who wants to kill again. It’s a race against time as Bill and a few unexpected allies try to find the man behind the clown mask.
Brief review: Hell yes!
Good first King read? Eternal damnation sí!
Rose Madder (1995, 420 pages)
For fourteen years, Rosie Daniels has lived in hell, serving as her husband’s punching bag. When her husband, Officer Norman Daniels, comes under scrutiny by Internal Affairs as a suspect in a prostitute’s murder, Rosie sees the writing on the wall: if she stays, Norman will kill her. With no plan, Rosie runs.
Her new life is good. She has a support system, a loving boyfriend, a fulfilling job, and a painting in her room that seems custom-painted for her. Literally: it seems to change whenever Rosie looks at it.
Norman isn’t one to take rejection well, so he follows Rosie’s trail.
But as mad as Norman is, he doesn’t realize Rose has someone—or something—Madder in her corner.
Brief review: This is not a book for the faint of heart and especially not for anyone who’s experienced domestic abuse and/or intimate partner violence. The book opens with Rosie having been beaten so badly she miscarries the baby she didn’t know she was pregnant with. Stephen King has gone on the record saying this and the book before it, Insomnia, are his least favorite, but not for the reason you’d think. King, who famously writes first and figures out the story trajectory later, planned out Insomnia and Rose Madder, and thinks the results are, in his own words, “stiff, trying too hard” novels. I’m not going to argue with Insomnia being a stinker, but I’ll respectfully disagree on Rose Madder.
Good first King read? Choose this at your own risk.
The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon (1999, 309 pages)
Nine-year-old Trisha McFarland is out on a hike with her older brother and freshly-divorced mother. She tires of their bickering and wanders off on her own while they’re distracted. Then she realizes: she has no idea where the trail is. Trisha’s supplies are limited, the forest knows no mercy, and something is stalking her.
Two things keep Trisha going: a determination to survive, and periodically listening on her Walkman to the Boston Red Sox and her favorite player, Tom Gordon.
Brief review: This book is notable to me because it was the fourth ever book I reviewed on my bookstagram page. (Follow me!) In a bit of foreshadowing, I called it, and I quote, “a good starter book for someone trying to get into Stephen King.” So…
Good first King read? So says Me from Three Years Ago.
Sleeping Beauties (2017, 702 pages; co-written with his son Owen King)
The world is in the midst of a pandemic. No, not that one, although honestly, that might be an improvement. Across the world, any woman who falls asleep is encased in a cocoon, and anyone who tries to wake them up gets an injurious and often fatal unconscious response. Codename: Aurora.
Dooling, somewhere in rural West Virginia, isn’t excluded from Aurora, but the rinky-dink town might have the solution. Eve Black, a superhumanly strong woman who made her entrance by murdering two men with her bare hands, can fall asleep and wake up normally. She could be the key to bringing the world’s women out of their slumber.
Assuming they want to come back.
Brief review: Well-written, but a little underwhelming. I mean, this is a book about half of the world’s population being incapacitated, and yet…there’s not a lot of exploration of what that could mean. I read Sleeping Beauties in February of last year. In December, I read Naomi Alderman’s The Power, which I feel did a similar-ish concept a lot better re:exploring the ramifications of a global shift like that.
Good first King Read? What do you think, Firefly-era Nathan Fillion?
Firefly-era Nathan Fillion: …
The Long Walk (1978, 370 pages; published under the Richard Bachman pseudonym)
In a totalitarian version of the United States, there’s an annual contest known simply as the Long Walk. One hundred young men walk for as long as they can under the constant supervision of armed soldiers. Slow down for too long or stop, even to sleep or take a bathroom break, and you die. The last man walking has a blank check for life: anything he wants, he gets.
Ray Garraty wants that prize. But so do ninety-nine other young men.
It’s a long road for the victor, with all kinds of unexpected and nasty surprises lying in wait for them.
Brief review: Obviously, this has gotten a boost in publicity thanks to the movie adaptation released earlier this year, but uh…blinks in Trump’s second presidency …maybe now’s not the time to be reading dystopian novels set in the US. Fun fact: chronologically, this is the first novel Stephen King wrote, even though Carrie ended up being his debut.
Good first King read? Come back to me when I drop TSKB&WITOT VI in November ‘28. We’ll talk.
Doctor Sleep (2013, 531 pages)
Since he was a young boy, Dan Torrance had the Shining, psychic powers that let him read minds, communicate telepathically, and most importantly, see spirits. So when his father unknowingly walked into a haven of malevolent ghosts by becoming caretaker of the Overlook Hotel, Dan saw the spirits that destroyed his father from the inside out. Decades later, Dan Torrance has become “Doctor Sleep,” working in a hospital and using the Shining to help elderly patients die in peace. He also finds a psychic pen pal: Abra Stone, a young girl with her own Shining.
Unbeknownst to both of them, there’s a reason they’re the only Shining people they know. For centuries, a group of immortals known as the True Knot have stretched out their lifespan with the torturous deaths of people who can Shine. Abra, in communicating with Dan, inadvertently alerts the Knot’s leader, Rose the Hat, of two of the strongest Shinings she’s seen in centuries.
Will the True Knot make Doctor Sleep take a dirt nap?
Brief review: The Shining didn’t necessarily need a sequel, but now that it’s here, I’m glad it does. I haven’t seen the movie, but I’ve heard great things about it. Stanley Kubrick famously went his own way when he adapted The Shining to film, but Mike Flanagan, King acolyte he is, managed to make the movie a sequel to both The Shining novel and movie…or so I’ve heard. So do what I haven’t done yet and give the Doctor Sleep movie a watch after you read the book.
Good first King read? No. Read The Shining first. Duh.
The Running Man (1982, 317 pages; published under the Richard Bachman pseudonym)
In another totalitarian version of the United States, Ben Richards is out of options. His baby daughter is sick, and he and his wife don’t have the money for a doctor. There’s only one option: become a contestant on one of the Network’s games. The Network keeps the masses entertained with insane game shows, ones where if the contestant wins, they’ll be filthy rich, but if they lose, they’ll be pushing daisies. Ben is the newest contestant on the most difficult game: The Running Man.
Ben must survive thirty days.
His family earns $100 for every hour he stays alive.
He has a twelve-hour head start.
Once twelve hours are up, the Network’s Hunters get on the job: putting him in a bodybag.
Game on.
Brief review: Decent book. That being said, this is unquestionably the Stephen King book with the ending that’s aged the worst. Why? You find out. Also, you know gestures in the second Trump Administration’s general direction.
Good first King read? Firefly-era Nathan Fillion, can you come back in here for a second?
Thank you.
Thinner (1984, 309 pages; published under the Richard Bachman pseudonym)
Sleazeball lawyer Billy Halleck has literally gotten away with murder. An incident of reckless driving left a Romani woman dead on the side of the road, but Billy knows people, and those people made sure he didn’t spend a minute inside of a jail cell.
Maybe he should have.
On the way out of the courthouse, an elderly man, the victim’s father, says one word to him: “Thinner.” In the following days, the overweight Billy starts losing weight. Too much weight.
A deadly amount of weight.
Brief review: I’ve reviewed three Richard Bachman books in quick succession. Noticed a pattern? Some of King’s grimmest, most downbeat work he wrote with the Richard Bachman mask on. Thinner is the worst of the bunch, with one of the cruelest endings in any of Stephen King’s books. Stephen King is a scary writer, but there’s heart to most of his writing. Thinner is the one book of his that feels mean. When I think of Thinner’s tone, my kneejerk thought is the Terrifier movies. That’s not a good thing.
Good first King read? Since I’m inviting guests, what do you say, Kurt Russell with an Awesome Mustache?
Kurt Russell with an Awesome Mustache: …
End of Watch (2016, 432 pages)
For six years, Mr. Mercedes aka Brady Hartsfield, the man who drove a car through a crowd and then tried to carve his name on history by bombing a concert, has lain in a coma. The doctors say he’ll never recover from the caved-in skull that ended his crimes.
The doctors are wrong.
Bill Hodges and his partner Holly Gibney learn of a string of bizarre suicides, and more importantly, that everyone who has died is connected to Brady Hartsfield. It doesn’t make sense, but it’s true: inside of Brady Hartsfield’s useless body is an intact mind, one with new, dangerous abilities that lets Hartsfield continue to ruin and end lives from the comfort of a hospital room. And Bill and Holly, the people who put him there, are next.
Can Bill and Holly bring Mr. Mercedes to a stop one more time?
Or is this the End of Watch?
Brief review: I have mixed feelings about introducing supernatural elements into the Bill Hodges/Holly Gibney books. On the one hand, after two grounded, gritty crime novels, it almost feels like King had a relapse. On the other hand, without the supernatural elements, we wouldn’t have End of Watch’s spin-off The Outsider, in my opinion the best Hodges and/or Gibney book. All this to say…pretty good. I’m curious how this book could have played out without making the villain a psychic, but we have what we have, and what we have’s pretty good.
Good first King read? No. Read Mr. Mercedes and Finders Keepers first. Duh.
This has been part three of ‘Ten Stephen King Books and What I Thought of Them.’ Tune in next month for…I’m not sure yet, but I’ll think of something. ¡Adios!
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I’m really Rosie, and I’m Rosie Real.
Noah Keene graduated from Calvin University in December 2021 with a major in creative writing and a minor in Spanish. He currently resides in his hometown of Detroit, Michigan. He spends his free time reading and putting his major to good use by working on his first novel. See what he’s reading by following him on Instagram @peachykeenebooks and read his other personal writing by going to thekeenechronicles.com.
