Book Review - Just After Sunset by Stephen King

Just After Sunset


Just After Sunset is Stephen King's way at getting back to basics - short stories. It's been a while since King has released a collection like this, Everything's Eventual: 14 Dark Tales, in 2002, being the most recent. Short stories are a tough thing to write, especially, it seems, for King. There is no room for too much elaboration on characters, and King has always been known for his ability to craft well-defined characters with as much detail as possible. In taking on the short story, King has put himself in the position that requires him to write only the most important facts necessary to the story.

So, is King able to craft interesting short stories? Why, yes, of course he is. One of the things that stands out about these new short stories is the fact that King has gone the route of attempting to use pre-existing stories and then making them his own. Let me explain.

Opener "Willa," about a group of people involved in a train accident waiting for a replacement train to pick them up, reminds of the original ghost tale. It almost has tones of M. Night Shyamalan's The Sixth Sense, mostly because of the fact that the main character, David, and his colleagues do not realize that they are dead until they are made conscious of the fact by Willa. But like I said before, King is not fit to simply reiterate a point someone else has made; instead, he takes the initial generic storyline and bends it to fit his own creative needs. "Willa" is country-tinged, dusty and twangy with a sense of denial that one imagines a victim of a tragic accident may feel towards passing on, but also littered with acceptance - life after death might not be so bad after all, as long as David and Willa have each other, and King's provision of an uplifting end seems to suggest that when faced with death, one need not think of what one is missing, but what one has had and will have in the afterlife.

Death seems to provide a heavy dose of creative appeal for King in this set of stories, and why shouldn't it? What is horror without death of some sort? Most of these stories deal with losing people close to the main character, and as most of the stories were written within the past 5 years or so, it seems that as King progresses in age, one of the things that he fears the most is losing his wife or family. "The Gingerbread Girl," "Harvey's Dream," "N.," "The New York Times at Special Bargain Rates," and "Ayana" all deal with the death of a very close loved one, and even "Stationary Bike," "Mute," and "A Very Tight Place" tend to touch upon a loneliness of some sort. Even King's characters are older than in his other novels, which give his stories a more frightening realness; these are the fears of all individuals as they age, and most are not totally improbable.

Although King's stories here might not be his most creative, they are certainly very inspired. "N." is the standout story here, written as a shrink's notes about a mysterious man called N. who describes a strange force attempting to break into our reality. There is an abundant usage of inventive metaphors, adding to the already surreal atmosphere of the plot. "N." is very reflective of King's love of author H.P. Lovecraft - the story is set up in the form of a diary like that of Lovecraft's The Call of Cthulhu, and also mimics the indescribable forms of the Gods that inhabit Lovecraft's mythos. There is a certain urgency to "N." that makes it very hard to walk away from, and is best read on that stormy, late night, where it is not hard to imagine a rip in the fabric of our reality.

"A Very Tight Place" also stands out, if not for its depth into the human psyche when faced with disease, then because of its sheer gross ambience. King does not need torture a la Saw to make the reader grimace; all he needs is a truly grimy, claustrophobic space to create disgust, and with his wit and sarcasm, easily entertains the reader for the majority of the story. A classic tale of revenge, it also adds a twist, in that the vengeful main character does not take the "eye-for-an-eye" low road and instead puts an intense layer of guilt on the villain that no man can (or should be able to) bear.

King has collected some of his best work, and some of his most hard-hitting. "The Things They Left Behind" deals with post-9/11 dilemmas and loss, and wonders, "What would it have been like if I was there?" This again contains some message of hope - as the main character finds his co-workers' belongings in his house (the ones who perished in the 9/11 tragedy), he understands that he must return them to the ones they are survived by. It is as if King is trying to say that during that blackest of times, our country stuck together. It was unpleasant, but we were all there to help each other in our need, and there's a sense of truth to King's fantasy.

King has put together some of his most impressive works, and has shown himself in almost all of the stories. It is so much greater when the reader can feel the author's own fears in the stories, and King transcribes his dreams and nightmares onto the paper. This is real and so much more frightening than the monsters that we know do not exist. This is life and death, and we always teeter on the brink of both. This is just after sunset, when we never know what to expect, and King surprises every time.