The plan is to reread all of Stephen King’s works in the order that they were published. Richard Chizmar of Cemetery Dance had the vision. I’m doing it because I am a writer and I want to improve my fiction. And I love Stephen King’s stories. I think there is something to be learned through this process.
You can also go back to the beginning and read Before Carrie or any of my other posts up through this one and beyond by checking out this link to the Master List of all my #StephenKingRevisited posts.
Full Dark, No Stars is another of Stephen King’s four novella collections. This one was completed in December of 2009. This is where he shines and after rereading this collection, I think it might be one of his strongest works in this format.
Dedicated “For Tabby. Still.”
1922
King says he was trying to capture the feel of old photographs he’d seen of the time period. I think he captured that mood quite well. It’s a well formed, gritty transgressive story. Most of the stories in this collection are transgressive. Our main characters or co-main characters in all these tales walk a thin line between morality and savagery.
We begin with a 1930 murder confession. The confession takes us back to Hemingford Home where Mother Abigail began her character arc in The Stand and where a character from It finds himself prior to having to return to the evils of Derry.
Hell may be Omaha, our confessor muses. “If God rewards good deeds, perhaps the Devil rewards bad ones.” There is so much to this line.
The loss of innocence and sanity looms large over this tale and all its characters.
He goes so far as to tell us this is a ghost story before there is a dead character to haunt us.
They refer to a particular unborn baby as “a chap” much like Sussanah’s alter ego does in one of the later Dark Tower series books.
We get a newspaper article summary of a tale well-crafted in the confessional note before the article. It all leaves us with the impression that we aren’t sure what is real anymore.
Snood!
Big Driver
I forgot a lot of the intricacies of this particular story.
This is a rough one involving tough taboos that are often written poorly and ham-handedly by lesser writers. King pulls off a skilled story that would likely be covered in trigger warnings if released today. In the afterword, he is apologetically unapologetic about the heavy nature of the darkness he put us through in this collection and maybe in this story in particular. He does offer to walk with us back to the light once the journey is finished.
King has tackled this particular taboo in this story and the novel immediately preceding this collection. It’s a jarring turn from a description of book touring, but of course, being a writer in a Stephen King story comes with its perils.
Always a sucker for a shortcut. Stephen King has written some great and chilling stories involving the search for shortcuts.
A plug-in TomTom GPS plays a big role in this story. That is a very specific window of time in terms of technology. You could also rent DVDs from Blockbuster Video during this window of time.
“Life imitates art and the cruder the art the closer the imitation.” Awesome line.
We get an imperfect crime, but complete and maybe enough in the end.
Fair Extension
I remembered this story differently and maybe got it confused with another shorter tale.
We’re back in Derry which I might guess appears in as many or more Stephen King stories as Castle Rock. We’re specifically revisiting the extension road out behind the airport where you find gravel, picnic areas where old people hang out, and where sellers park themselves on tables with strange gatherings of goods. This was a big spot in the novel Insomnia. The Barrens from It get a little mention as well.
“Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar” is repeated in several stories and novels before and after this one.
There are a ton of cultural references and specific pop culture events in celebrities lives that get mentioned throughout this story to mark the passing of time in interesting ways. I was going to list several, but decided there were so many that just leaving them all to the reader to experience was a better play in this case.
“We say children are hostage to our fortune, but I think children hold the parents hostage.” Interesting line for a particular character.
After making his deal and getting his temporary rewards, he wished for more.
A Good Marriage
In any other collection, this would be the runaway best story and maybe it is still the best, but at most, this wonderful tale of horror and transgressive fiction might have to settle for being in a three-way tie and the story I would put in fourth place wasn’t bad at all. It speaks to the strength of this collection.
So, how’s your marriage? Our main characters have seen better days.
King paints a picture of a three-dimensional relation on the normal side of the story’s twist discovery. It makes the wife’s difficult choices tougher to make even from the reader’s perspective.
The story is full of interesting conversations and dilemmas. Each time, the discoveries are far worse than our character thought.
Afterword
King says these stories were hard to read as well as hard to write.
He wrote The Long Walk at eighteen years old. Amazing! He says from this point forward he always took fiction seriously. He has trouble with writers who don’t.
In this great discussion he says great fiction should be propulsive and assaultive. He explains his meaning around this well and I think he achieved it with all four of these tales.
The book might be worth getting because of this essay, aside from the four amazing, propulsive, assaultive stories it offers too.
My next post in this series will be Before 11/22/63 which will be linked on the Master List of all my Stephen King Revisited posts.
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