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.
The entire time I read The Outsider I kept waffling on how good I thought it was or wasn’t. There are so many high quality books one after the other in recent years by Stephen King that I’m starting to hold him to a higher standard. I enjoyed the story throughout and maybe that should be the only measure that matters when it comes to the books we read. I guess I have worked myself into this mode as I approach the end of Stephen King’s catalog of work where I’m trying to list and relist his greatest works in order in my mind over and over.
Published in 2018, this novel opens with a dramatic arrest and an impossible contradiction which aren’t the last dramatic events or impossible paradoxes we must face in this story. How can someone be in two places at once? A horrific crime forces characters to answer this question somehow.
I’m still torn on a surprising event early in this novel. It changed the entire direction of the story. It pulled the rug out from under me as a reader. It changed the stakes and even the type of novel it was. I’m still floored by it, which probably means it was a great and brave choice. It did cement the mystery in a way that might have made the plot easier on the writer. It may have also deepened the sorrow. I’m still not convinced there isn’t a better novel where this event played out differently. Not my call though.
“No forest, just trees, no trees, just bark.” Great line about losing the big picture.
More than one character has visions of some manifestation with “straws for eyes.” Very dark stuff all the way through this novel.
“A sound like a chuckle like it was all some cosmic joke, but you had to be in a coma to get it.” Great line in and out of context.
Alex Trebek is still hosting Jeopardy! in this book. Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan pops up in this story as I’m sure it haunts the mind of the author during these years. The slenderman legend among preteen girls is mentioned as well. The world is full of monsters.
King takes a shot at Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining movie in these pages.
Finders Keepers pops up in this novel making it an unofficial fourth Bill Hodges book in a tangential way. This is the series that sticks hard to the notion that a sock full of nickels is the greatest weapon ever imagined by the human race or maybe the greatest Stephen King can imagine.
We find ourselves investigating a hole in the ground looking for old evil similar to Desperation. It also harkens back to “The Little Sisters of Eluria” and even mentions Ka.
This is a solid novel. As I mentioned at the beginning, I struggle with how good it is or isn’t. I enjoyed the story, and my only struggle may be after reading everything that preceded this in order, I struggle with a broad catalog of comparisons.
My next post in this series will be Before Elevation which will be linked on the Master List of all my Stephen King Revisited posts.
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