Stephen King will celebrate his 75th birthday on September 21st. This is his 64th standalone novel which doesn't count short stories, novellas, non-fiction, nor books that were part of a series. In other words, the man is a writing machine.
But it's not the amount of words he writes that makes him a fan favorite, it's the quality of those words, sentences, and paragraphs that transcends our preconceived ideas of what stories can be.
This is no more evident than his latest novel, Fairy Tale. Whether you're a constant reader like me or simply pick and choose between his works, one thing can't really be disputed. One thing that he is better at than anyone else. He writes characters that are instantly familiar to us and easily recognisable by their thoughts, mannerisms, and circumstances. We know people like this or know of them. He then throws these characters into extraordinary situations that they're ill equipped to handle and we read along with bated breath hoping they succeed.
Fairy Tale is no different. Our seventeen year old protagonist is good at sports but lost beyond that. A typical teen on the brink of full blown adulthood with no clue what to do once he gets there. Until he meets a neighbor, an old man who is about as friendly as a rattlesnake in a box full of mice.
He meets this man, the mysterious curmudgeonly neighbor because of a dog sounding as if in distress. The man has had an accident and Charlie saves his life by calling an ambulance and insisting on taking care of the man's home and dog while he recuperates. Eventually, they form a strong friendship.
In case you think this story is about this newly formed relationship, you'd be mostly wrong. The dog in question is an older German Shepherd named Radar. And it's the bond between boy and dog that drives the rest of the narrative. The dog, although just an animal, is an integral part of this story and, to Mr. Kings credit, he manages to make this dog a main secondary character throughout most of this book.
When the old man dies unexpectedly, Charlie discovers something in the locked shed that has been padlocked. A hole leading down to stairs. And at the bottom is the other world. This world is fantastical. A fairy tale world, surely, but a twisted one as we'll find out.
Stephen King let's his love of these tales come to life but with his signature upside down view. In this world we'll meet people that are kind, friendly, and wish to help. But we also meet monsters, both great and small, that want to actively harm and kill Charlie. Shades of Rumplestiltskin, Three Little Pigs, the Old Lady who lives in a shoe, Jack and the Beanstalk, and others are all present.
The horrors come with psychopathic giants, living skeletons with electrifying auras, and a would be ruler and king who wishes to bring about a creature straight out of cosmic horror to destroy all who oppose him, even if it means destroying the world he inhabits.
And a seventeen year old kid and an old dog are all that stands in its way. This is, of course, the beauty of this book. Overcoming impossible odds in a world that he doesn't understand and going at it with the bravado that teenagers seem to have in abundance.
This book makes it into my list of the top ten Stephen King novels (maybe even top five) but it's also one of the best books of the year period. It's written with a lot of heart and love for the subject matter. I imagine him sitting at his keyboard, neurons firing, fingers typing away with a smile on his face. Even if not, I definitely had a huge grin on mine after I finished it.
You can purchase Fairy Tale here.
To see my full video review, check out my Horror Reads YouTube channel here.
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