![]() ![]() His insurance-adjuster father drowns his grief in alcohol, and for a while Charlie himself goes wrong, palling around with a bad seed and engaging in destructive and occasionally cruel pranks. When Charlie, an only child, is 8, his mother goes out to pick up a fried chicken dinner for the family and is hit by a truck skidding on an icy bridge grating. Instead, he first carefully builds a portrait of Charlie’s present-day life in the small Illinois town of Sentry’s Rest. Not for King, the brisk dispensing of the mundane real world in favor of the thrilling vistas of Narnia or Wonderland. His hero, high school senior Charlie Reade, doesn’t begin his trek down the stone stairs spiraling underground in his neighbor’s backyard until about a quarter of the way through the book. ![]() The more of them I read, the more I appreciate King’s set-ups. The book’s alternate world combines Grimmian fairy-tale elements with Lovecraftian cosmic horror, but it takes a while to get there. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |