From the book jacket:
"Is horror all you write?" is the second most frequent question Stephen King encounters,* he tells us in the Afterword to this superlative quartet of novels. Although he is by now a world-class grand master of the horrific, he resists entombment in that genre. that he can transcend horror is proved triumphantly in these four works. At the same time, nobody in searchof the utterly distinctive King brand of driving narrative, graphically rendered scene and character, and stamp-on-the-clinging-fingers cliffhanger plot will go away unsatisfied. Consider the four:
Hope Springs Eternal
Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption--the most satisfying tale of unjust inprisonment and offbeat escape since The Count of Monte Cristo.
Movie Adaptation: The Shawshank Redemption
Summer of Corruption
Apt Pupil--a golden California schoolboy and an old man whose hideous past he uncers enter in to a fateful and chilling mutual parasitism.
Movie Adaptation: Apt Pupil
Fall from Innocence
The Body--four rambunctious young boys venture into the Maine woods and in sunlight and thunder find life, death, and intimations of their own mortality.
Movie Adaptation: Stand by Me
A Winter's Tale
The Breathing Method--a tale told in a strange club about a woman determined to give birth no matter what.
If these tales turn out to have an interlacing of nightmarish elements after all, the reason is not the occult, but twentieth-century humanity's apparent determination to return to the Dark Ages, a time for which Stephen King is obviously the ideal bard.
Moe's Review
This was one of the first Stephen King books I ever read. I remember reading it in 8th grade, primarily because I wanted to read "The Body" which is what the movie "Stand By Me" was based off.
This is a great collection of short novellas. It starts with "Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption" which is an excellent story. This story was also turned into a classic movie, "The Shawshank Redemption". If this was the only good story in the book (which it is not) it would make reading it worthwhile.
Apt Pupil is the next story in the book. I really enjoyed Apt Pupil (the book is WAY better than the movie). It has great characters and is tightly written.
The Body. The reason that I read the book way back when. Great story and they made a great movie off the book as well. This is a great example of King writing outside of the horror genre he is so well known for.
The Breathing Method. Easily my least favorite story in the book. If I were to re-read the book again at a later date I would probably skip this story. It's not that it's bad, it's just really forgettable. |
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