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.
Gwendy’s Button Box is a novel I’ve been negative about for a while. My feeling was that it would have made a better short story than short novel. I’ve also generally had a bias against Stephen King’s collaborations over the years. I decided to enter this revisit with an open mind. And I find I like the story a lot more on a revisit.
I’m up to 2017 in Stephen King’s catalog of work. I never thought I’d see the day.
Gwendy runs the Suicide Stairs to lose weight and lose bad nicknames. These struggles signified in these stairs in multiple ways play throughout the story.
A man in black requests a palavar at the top of those stairs in true Dark Tower and Dark Man fashion. He’s reading Gravity’s Rainbow and goes by Richard Farris, a known Randal Flagg alias. Whereas Randal Flagg demonstrated a desire to see the world come down, this R.F. iteration appears to have other wishes and purposes, perhaps mixed purposes.
George Bannerman is still sheriff in this one. Nurses with syringes are mentioned in the last two King books.
Despite her troubles and struggles with the box, Gwendy experiences perpetual improvement as this artifact’s steward. She eventually distances herself from it as much as she is able before her dark visitor returns.
The prose was well-written throughout.
My next post in this series will be Before Sleeping Beauties which will be linked on the Master List of all my Stephen King Revisited posts.
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