This novella- 164 pages, I read it in an hour- is not what I
expected from Stephen King. It’s not horror at all; it’s more of a parable or
even just a profile of a character.
In the summer of 1974, 12 year old Gwendy runs up the
Suicide Stairs every day. She is bullied at school for being overweight, and is
determined to lose weight before starting middle school. One day when she comes
to the top, there is a man sitting on a bench, who wants to talk to her.
Despite knowing not to talk to strangers, she is lured into conversation, and he
gives her a box with buttons on it (not a box of shirt buttons, as I had
assumed). Some of the buttons stand for the continents (Asia, Africa, etc) and
will cause a destructive incident. The red one takes out whatever she is
thinking about, while the black one will cause world annihilation. Then there
are two levers on the ends; one causes the box to decant a small chocolate
candy that makes a person feel wonderful, want to eat only healthy food, and
causes them to become thin, an ace at sports, and a straight A student. The
other decants an antique silver dollar worth several hundred dollars. This is a
test; Gwendy is to be the box’s caretaker and see how she deals with its power.
Despite being the queen bee at school, Gwendy never bullies,
although she does slowly dump her best friend. Her life is not completely
perfect; the school bully hates her because she is no longer someone he can
make fun of (he used to call her ‘Goodyear’ as in ‘blimp’).
The story takes us from that incident when she is 12 until
she is 22. You would think that a story of a teenager with a doomsday box would
have a lot of tension and possibly horror to it, but you’d be wrong. Frankly,
when I got to the end my reaction was “What??” because there was just so little
drama and no real horror. Three stars.
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Sounds odd and as you say, unlike King. For some reason I gave up reading King years ago. I think along about "Cujo" (can't even remember how to spell it)
ReplyDeleteSounds odd and as you say, unlike King. For some reason I gave up reading King years ago. I think along about "Cujo" (can't even remember how to spell it)
ReplyDelete