Elevation

In Castle Rock, Maine, web designer Scott Carey develops a mysterious condition that causes him to rapidly lose weight despite no apparent changes to his physical appearance. He turns to his friend, retired doctor Bob Ellis, for insight, but the latter is equally baffled. Meanwhile, Scott also tries to repair his strained relationship with his neighbors, lesbian restauranteurs who have been ostracized by much of the town.

Writers as prolific as Stephen King are susceptible to self-plagiarism. Just as From a Buick 8 evoked Christine, so too does Elevation call to mind Thinner. But beyond the rapid weight loss conceit, the former is tonally different not only from Thinner but from much of King’s oeuvre. Here, King trades in despair for a more hopeful message. This makes Elevation hard to hate even though it is in many ways one of King’s weaker efforts.

No matter how far removed from his prime King may be, he continues to show a masterful grasp of small-town dynamics and local color. In this case, he captures the paradoxes of blue-collar Maine provincialism: on the one hand, conservative and hostile to (geographic and cultural) outsiders but on the other hand community-minded and neighborly (or at least valuing the appearance thereof). However, one wishes King had not revisited Castle Rock here. The oft-used fictional backdrop has seen so many threats and oddities (some supernatural, some not) over the years that the lack of explanation for Scott’s condition as well as its disconnect from other Castle Rock capers seems like an oversight.

This omission is one of several unfortunate ways that form dictates function. Elevation is a trim 144-page novella rather than one of King’s 1,000-page doorstoppers. As a result, we are given a protagonist that we don’t get to know very well and a conflict that resolves improbably quickly: the outcome of a local footrace seems to have a disproportionate impact on everyone’s attitude.

King has been a vociferous critic of President Trump, and a rebuke of Trumpian politics is showcased prominently in this novella alongside a message of acceptance. The treatment of theme is pointed here, but Elevation mercifully spares us the obnoxious filibustering of Sleeping Beauties. Characters are presented as being flawed without being entirely unsympathetic, and they are allowed to grow and change. This latter quality is what imbues Elevation with a hopeful tone and also makes its ending bittersweet.

Closer in spirit to It’s a Wonderful Life than to prior King works, Elevation is both an optimistic reminder of our ability to do good as well as a compressed and compacted tale that leaves us wishing there was more.