King’s English
If It Bleeds Stephen King Scribner Stephen King’s affinity for the novella form goes back to the early stages of his long, prolific career. In 1982, King published Different Seasons, a quartet of long stories that contained some of his finest work, and eventually led to some memorable film adaptations, among them The Shawshank Redemption and Stand by Me. Since then, at roughly 10-year intervals,
King has produced three similar volumes that have allowed him to play with a wide variety of themes, scenes and settings. The latest of these, If It Bleeds, contains four new, exceptionally compelling novellas that reaffirm his mastery of the form.
Mr. Harrigan’s Phone, for example, is yet another reflection of King’s sometimes baleful fascination with technology. At the heart of the story is the relationship between Craig, the adolescent narrator, and John Harrigan, retired billionaire and borderline Luddite. As their uneven relationship develops, Craig gifts the older man a cellphone, connecting the world of rural Maine to the unknown world beyond.
The Life of Chuck gets my vote as the collection’s most original story. It opens on the image of billboards bearing the portrait of a middle-aged accountant named Charles Krantz. Each billboard bears the words: “39 GREAT YEARS! THANKS, CHUCK!” Who is Chuck? Constructed in three acts, the story moves backward in time to Chuck’s early life. The result is a slightly surreal, wholly engaging narrative about dance, music, mortality and acceptance, and about the bedrock notion that all of us, like Chuck, contain multitudes.
Rat returns to one of King’s recurring subjects: the problematic nature of the writing life.
His protagonist, Drew Larson, is a struggling writer who has produced a half-dozen short stories, and has tried and failed three times to finish a novel, each failure bringing with it a greater degree of psychological damage. Isolated in a cabin in Northern Maine, he learns once again that art is a double-edged sword, one that can lead to exhilaration, despair and — in extreme moments — madness.
The centrepiece is the title story. If It Bleeds is a fully developed short novel with multiple ties to King’s recent fiction. The protagonist is Holly Gibney, the damaged, savant-like young woman who first appeared in 2014’s Mr. Mercedes, and who played a pivotal role in King’s 2018 novel The Outsider. If It Bleeds, a direct but stand-alone sequel to the latter, finds her battling a similarly daunting monster. Holly is that rarest of creations: a wholly admirable person. King’s affection for her is evident on every page.
At its best, King’s work remains deeply empathetic and compulsively readable. May the reservoir never run dry.