If It Bleeds

Stephen King’s latest is a four-piece novella collection, the same format used for the iconic Different Seasons. If It Bleeds is not of the same caliber, of course – a collection that yielded what would become The Shawshank Redemption and Stand By Me would be difficult for anyone to match – but it is still a commendable effort, showing King’s willingness to grow and experiment even as he revisits familiar themes.

The volume’s first story, “Mr. Harrigan’s Phone,” concerns Craig, a boy hired to read to the title character, a wealthy retired industrialist. The two become friends, and Craig gifts Harrigan an iPhone, which continues to send him messages after the old man is dead and gone. Though the setup suggests a dose of techno-pessimism ala Cell, King actually takes a more nuanced approach here, casting the phone, like its former owner, as something capable of both positively transforming and ruining lives.

The next piece, “The Life of Chuck,” is the most imaginative of the bunch. It opens with an absurdist take on the end of the world, loaded with criticism of consumer culture, and then runs backwards through the life (or, more accurately, alternate lives) of the title character, an unassuming businessman. It comes across as incoherent until fusing together toward the end and King writes Chuck’s grandparents as Jewish borderline stereotypes, but there is enough magically infectious strangeness to keep this story afloat.

The title story is the book’s longest work and the one most likely to please fans of King’s recent supernaturally-tinged crime fiction. Here, private investigator Holly Gibney (of the Mr. Mercedes Trilogy and The Outsider) finds herself chasing down another appearance-changing bogeyman: this one a TV news reporter with a knack for showing up after major disasters to emotionally feed on the tragedy. The title and the antagonist’s role are an obvious dig at sensationalist media, but King otherwise stays off his soapbox here. More impressively, he finally succeeds and transforming Holly into a good protagonist. Once an annoying, deeply problematic (as in Autistic People Are Magic) supporting character, she’s given more depth, complexity, and nuance in a lead role as she steps out of the shadow of her policeman partners and her toxic mother as well as showing other ways of taking on a monster besides simply trying to beat it with a bearing-loaded sock. The plot may not break any new ground, but “If It Bleeds” is an exciting read.

The final story, “Rat,” will also feel familiar as a writer isolates himself amid menacing weather in order to finish a novel. Despite his hard-headedness, Drew is a good deal more genial than The Shining’s Jack Torrance, and King convincingly captures the frustrations of writer’s block (ironic, given his own prolific output). However, the Faustian bargain that Drew ultimately makes to complete his work is cliched, the old Monkey’s Paw plot having been done better so many times before. Whereas “Mr. Harrigan’s Phone” explores the cost of success chillingly, it is here given a goofier, more melodramatic treatment.

Even in his 70s, King seems to be good for at least a book a year, and If It Bleeds should allay any fears that there is nothing left in the tank creatively.