Books: Holly By Stephen King (2023)

“When Penny Dahl calls the Finders Keepers detective agency hoping for help locating her missing daughter, Holly is reluctant to accept the case. Her partner, Pete, has Covid. Her (very complicated) mother has just died. And Holly is meant to be on leave. But something in Penny Dahl’s desperate voice makes it impossible for Holly to turn her down. Mere blocks from where Bonnie Dahl disappeared live Professors Rodney and Emily Harris. They are the picture of bourgeois respectability: married octogenarians, devoted to each other, and semi-retired lifelong academics. But they are harboring an unholy secret in the basement of their well-kept, book-lined home, one that may be related to Bonnie’s disappearance. And it will prove nearly impossible to discover what they are up to: they are savvy, they are patient, and they are ruthless. Holly must summon all her formidable talents to outthink and outmaneuver the shockingly twisted professors.”

Early in his prolific career, I read an article that took King to task for setting his tales of terror in a very specific period in history or, if I may borrow a Doctor Who phrase, a fixed point in time. The general complaint was that by using pop cultural references, by using current brand names, by saying what year the tales are set, his books become less universal, less likely to stand the test of time. That three hundred years from now (if we survive), people reading his tales will not understand the references he makes. As someone pointed out recently on a Facebook page dedicated to King, they had recently watched the 1976 movie version of King’s first novel, 1974’s Carrie. The poster said the film held up because it plot could take place today, nearly fifty years after the publication and film, that because the book and film avoided pop cultural references, it holds up.

Here with Holly, King sets his tale at a very exact era in recent American history –the COVID years. He also takes on a former president he has been very vocal about in disliking, along with that former president’s acolytes. COVID plays a central part of the story, which is set after the events of the novella If it Bleeds. Holly, who through various tales, has grown from a shy, recluse woman on the autism spectrum, to a brave and ethical women running the private investigation company Finders Keepers, which was started by her late friend, Bill Hodges.

King, also, has never been one to keep quiet his political feelings. They’re there through most of his works, sometime subtle, but of recent years, mostly there on the page (see Gwendy’s Final Task for where that really busted through). So the virus and Donald Trump become secondary background characters in King’s dark and often creepy tale of murder and cannibalism. But for some of his Constant Readers, this open display of political theater has angered them. Some, like maybe King’s early critics, hate the idea that the legendary writer has decided to add his liberal politics to what should be an horror tale that could’ve taken place in 1974 or 2023. That it’s no longer a universal tale, but a story (maybe a historical genre tale?) set in one period of time and place. Who knows if this is good or bad? King does not care –he’s now 75, very rich, and no longer needs to pander to anyone but himself.

Those aspects aside, the book is good, with villains you want to hate. Holly Gibney remains a character you love or hate, though, but she is growing and that’s good. The more the character evolves the more real she becomes. Both Jerome and his sister Barbara become more supporting characters here, though both go through some dramatic personal changes (and writers like to have characters that write, so I can see why King took the Robinson’s in that direction. I mean, both his sons have become writers, and his wife has had novels published, so it only seems logical these characters move this way as well.

Overall, Holly is a good mixing of horror, mystery, historical realness, and procedural private eye work. It may never reach a wider audience than his Constant Readers, but King remains at the top of his game. King has stated he plans a large short story collection planned for 2024, and at least one more adventure featuring Holly. And what of a second sequel to The Talisman? King has said he has ideas, including a long letter sent by co-writer Peter Straub before he passed last year with even more ideas for a third book. But King seems a bit unsure at the moment. Perhaps, it’s because a third book would mean a few years of commitment and lengthy book, as well. The “epic” books are on the way out, as publishers are less and less interested in long books.

But it still would be worth the wait.

Books: If It Bleeds: New Fiction By Stephen King (2020)

 If It Bleeds is a collection of four stories by Stephen King

Mr. Harrigan’s Phone is a tale of mortality and friendship starting out in 2004 (and plays out like an old episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents). We meet nine-year-old Craig, who runs errands for Mr Harrigan, a retired tycoon. In return for this, Harrigan gives Craig money and occasional scratch off lottery card. As everything’s eventual in the world of Stephen King, a few years later, one of those lottery ticket pays off to the tune of $3,000. While socking the money away, Craig wants to thank old Harrigan and uses some of the money to buy the tycoon an iPhone.  While not trusting them at first, eventually Mr. Harrigan finds uses for the device. But when the man dies, and Craig is heartbroken, he slips the phone into the pocket of the dead man at his open coffin funeral. Months later, Criag decides to call Harrigan’s number.

The Life of Chuck is another grim reaper tale and King admits in his afterword he has no idea where the story came from, though its genesis what in billboard sign congratulating someone named Chuck who gave 39 years to something. King wrote two stories featuring this Chuck and then wrote a third, all them with the theme of how terrifying life would be if you knew how and when you, or the person closest to you, were going to die. The fact that it’s told backwards –like some variation on Christopher Nolan’s Memento, adds to the fun.

The third, and longest story is, If It Bleeds. It features the return of Holly Gibney – who King admits has become one of his most favorite characters, a “quirky walk-on” who quickly found herself at the center of some very unpleasant goings-on in Finder Keepers, End of Watch, Mr. Mercedes, and The Outsider. Speaking of The Outsider, in my review of that book, I noted that King did not go into any detail about what this monster was, where it comes from, why it exists, but either he didn't feel the need to or we're bound to run into this monster in a novel yet to be written. Here it’s been a few years since the events of that book, and Finder Keepers have been running smoothly with Holly at the helm. When a bomb goes off in a school, killing scores of kids and teachers, while watching the coverage, private detective Holly Gibney can’t help thinking that the journalist appears to be feeding rather too eagerly for her liking on the unfolding horror around him. She decides to investigate. Her instincts pay off and she eventually comes to the conclusion that this on scene reporter is just like the creature she encountered before. It's not be the same one –but it clearly seems to be variation on the one readers saw in The Outsider, with its shape-shifting abilities being different, but they both seem to enjoy killing people and feeding off the sorrow. I was also struck by the idea that the creatures in The Outsider, the one here in If It Bleeds and the one in The Storm of the Century could be all somehow related. Wishful thinking, I guess.  It’s a terrific sequel/continuation of The Outsider’s themes and I do enjoy Holly a lot (and its here we get more background on how and why Holly is the way she is).

Rat comes from the department of Careful-What-You-Wish-For and is filled with some a bunch of meta-referential things King likes to pepper through his novels and short stories. It’s a bit of hallucinate tale at that, as we meet troubled writer Drew Larson who is struggling to write a novel. Something happened three years ago when he last tried to write a novel, and his wife Lucy is sacred that it could happen again, especially when Drew wants to isolate himself in the family cabin. There is a destiny-altering encounter with rodent, and of course a writer protagonist who makes a deal with the devil for success that he thinks will outsmart the fates. No such luck, of course. 

While I continue to enjoy King's novels more than his short-fiction and novellas, I'm never generally disappointed in these collections.The same goes for Joe Hill, as I see his last collection of stories, Full Throttle, still sitting on my shelf.