The Book Corner: "Full Dark, No Stars" by Stephen King

It seems contradictory to say this about someone who's sold so many multi-millions of books, but i really do think Stephen King is one of the more under-rated writers of modern times. Just because of his popularity, some people (and critics) feel he has to be nothing but a hack (and I grant you, a lot of really bad books and movies do become hugely popular). But King has always had more insight in his writing than many give him credit for, and been more willing to test the limits of what "a Stephen King Book" is supposed to be. Remember the original stories behind movies like "Stand By Me" ("The Body") and "The Shawshank Redemption"? Those stories come from his collection of novellas, "Different Seasons", and King has now once again published a collection of four novellas that give us a rather different... at least at times... view of his writing. It's good and scary, but a lot more than that.

The first story, "1922", is narrated by a man responsible for a horrible murder eight years earlier. We sense that he doesn't have much time left to tell his story, for one reason or another, and as we listen we experience a tale of a truly evil, despicable, racist man convinced that he is the only one in his world making any sense. We also get a tragic, touching example of how even the worst parental example can influence a child to become like their parent (is Stephen King trying to give us parenting lessons? Well, not quite), and how there can still be just a tiny little bit of humanity left down deep in the most evil of men. I like the fact that King leaves it up to the reader to determine whether there is or isn't an actual supernatural element in this story. Even if you decide there isn't, it's still a genuinely potent chiller.

In "Big Driver", we are asked the musical question "Is revenge and vigilante justice ever justified for even the worst crimes?" and get a rather surprising answer. It surprised me, at any rate, and I've probably read even more books than I've seen movies. Definitely no supernatural elements here... this one is very uncomfortably close to real, almost TOO real... and a very intense example of food for thought. You might find yourself going back and forth several times between your emotional response to this story and find yourself in the end winding up in a place you weren't expecting to be. It's also an example of King writing believably from the point of view of someone very unlike himself, for those who don't think he's capable of such a thing.

"Fair Exchange" is the one and only unquestionably supernatural story in the book (much like there was only one definitely supernatural tale in "Different Seasons"), but it still isn't what you might expect from King. A man with terminal cancer makes a deal with a suspiciously Satanic man, and suddenly his cancer mysteriously vanishes. The deal doesn't even require him to turn over his soul when he dies, just pay a fairly reasonable sum. But as we might suspect, there's still a catch. In a story like this, would you expect a good deal of snarky, sarcastic humor? I wouldn't either, but it's there and seems quite appropriate to the tale as King is telling it. It also asks a major philosophical question for the reader to wrestle with: how much pain and suffering would you be willing to cause others in order to preserve your own life? Really gets you thinking, that one does.

Finally, in "A Good Marriage", a woman who thinks that's exactly what she's had for many years is shocked to discover a totally unexpected secret about her husband and what he really does on those business trips he's always claiming to go on... and no, it does NOT involve an affair or another woman. What can she do about the knowledge... especially after her husband finds out that she knows his secret? This story asks some similar questions to "Big Driver", but works equally well purely and simply as a Hitchcock-like thriller... I could easily imagine Alfred turning out a delightfully macabre version of this story if it had been published during his lifetime. Another fine example of the range of King's imagination.

"Full Dark, No Stars" will undoubtedly leave Stephen King readers as satisfied as any book of his in a long time, but would probably equally intrigue readers who haven't appreciate a good non-supernatural chiller but haven't really given him much of a chance because they think they know everything they need to know about his writing. Those kinds of readers might even find themselves surprised at the depth of characterization in these stories, the pointed satire, and the strong sense of compassion even in the midst of the bloodiest, most violent moments. King really is a writer who will give you some highly entertaining surprises if you'll let him, and you haven't done that yet, "Full Dark, No Stars" is just the place to start.