According to the old, yellowed bookmark -- a subscription flyer from
a guitar magazine -- I started reading Stephen King's first short
story collection in the summer of 1989 and eventually made it halfway
through. I read it anew this summer and got through the whole thing.
The experience was pretty much completely fresh as I don't really
remember much from the previous attempt. Having read three of his
novels recently, it's easy to compare his short stories with the more
epic long-form ones. Some of the things that I really enjoy about
King's writing, like the slow, creepy buildups, and the large and
dynamic casts, are largely missing in these stories. Here the premise
is set quickly, often just on the first page, and then we're kept in
suspense for a dozen or so pages before the mystery resolves.
Sometimes tragically, sometimes happily. Some of the stories remind
me of Roald Dahl's writing in the same genre. A poor soul needs to
resolve an impossible moral dilemma, usually forced onto them by a
sadistic person who holds power over them, and it gets morbid and
violent. I don't really enjoy these staged scenarios much, it's all a
little predictable, feels a bit old. The stories date from 1968 and
ten years on, a few of them can be classified as "early" texts from
the author. It's interesting to see him experimenting with different
styles and techniques. A couple of the texts, like Night Surf and I
am the Doorway, take on more of a sci fi style.
In a few of the stories, everyday objects take on a murderous
autonomy. Toys, trucks or a laundry machinery come to life and our
hero has to fight to survive. One of these were eventually developed
into the motion picture Maximum Overdrive. Two of the stories, which
I enjoyed very much, are related to 'salem's Lot, and are set up as a
prequel and a sequel to the novel. The prequel, named Jerusalem's Lot,
adds a cool Lovecraftian element to the universe. And Lovecraft's
unspeakable tome Necronomicon gets a mention in another story, I Know
What You Need.
Another highlight for me was Children of the Corn. I discovered
Stephen King through Anthrax's Among the Living when I was 13, and
there were quite a few other bands that used King's stories as source
material. Having listened to Testament's Disciples of the Watch for
well over 35 years and pretty much knowing the lyrics by heart, it
was cool to read the full story and to finally get to know who
Malachai was.
At last I'd like to mention Sometimes They Come Back, which reminds
me of -- and has more of the qualities of -- his longer stories. It
has a bit of an epic edge. The story takes place in the 1950s and the
1970. The present day is interleaved with memories from the past
(like in It). We get a bit of the greaser/car culture of the 50s
(like in The Body) and the tragic and brutal death of teenagers
(again, like in The Body). It seems that the ideas he came up with
here were developed further in several of his later books.
