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.

I’ve been looking forward to reading The Outsider ever since it came out. I’ve purposely avoided the television show which I heard from several friends was good. I’m sure I would find much to love in it as I do with everything from Stephen King whether other people like it or not.

I wanted my first exposure to it to be the novel itself. This is sort of my reward to myself for making it this far through my Stephen King Revisited reading.

The premise seems to be the paradox of a man being in two places at once. Add to that one place a man who is innocent and the other a man who is guilty of terrible things and now you have a serious problem on your hands, one with far-reaching consequences.

There is a possibility this might be like The Dark Half. This concept of an outsider in the horror of Stephen King has been hinted at and played with through a lot of King’s writing over the decades. The misfit and the cosmic force beyond our clean reality has been described in that way often. How it manifests in this work that takes that term as its title will be interesting.

I’m on the cusp of catching up with the present. So, let’s not waste any time because there are books still to read.

My next post in this series will be After The Outsider which will be linked on the Master List of all my Stephen King Revisited posts.

Jay Wilburn

Jay Wilburn has a Masters Degree in Education that goes mostly unused since he quit teaching to write about zombies. Jay writes horror because he tends to find the light by facing down the darkness. His is doing well following a life saving kidney transplant. Jay is the author of Maidens of Zombie Kingdom a young adult fantasy trilogy, Lake Scatter Wood Tales adventure books for elementary and middle school readers, Vampire Christ a trilogy of political and religious satire, and The Dead Song Legend. He cowrote The Enemy Held Near, Yard Full of Bones, and The Hidden Truth with Armand Rosamilia. You can also find Jay's work in Best Horror of the Year volume 5. He is a staff writer with Dark Moon Digest, LitReactor, and the Still Water Bay series with Crystal Lake Publishing.

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