‘They ate as they came, rolling up narrow strips of the world…’
In 1982, Stephen King published Different Seasons – a collection of four novellas that in Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption and The Body (later adapted by Rob Reiner as Stand By Me) features some of King’s very best work. Four Past Midnight, King’s second novella collection, published in 1990, categorically does not feature any of King’s best work. Quite the opposite…
The Langoliers
Famously adapted into a punishingly terrible 180-minute TV movie, The Langoliers is a solid enough premise. A bunch of passengers (plus one of the pilots) fall asleep on a red-eye flight and awaken to find that everyone else on the plane is missing. From there, the story becomes a mind-bending (and faintly ridiculous) meditation on time travel, survival and what happens when the past literally catches up with you.
As with many of the novellas in this collection, The Langoliers is far too long. Most of the characters are either flat-out obnoxious (Nick Hopewell), completely forgettable (most of them) or incongruous to the rest of the story (Craig Toomy – although I will concede he is by far the most interesting character). This isn’t a terrible piece of work, but it’s certainly one of King’s worst, and while the description of the titular langoliers literally eating people is pretty satisfying, this particular story very much feels like it was created with perspiration rather than inspiration.
Secret Window, Secret Garden
The second story in the collection sees King playing the hits. A troubled and morally ambiguous writer as the protagonist. A marriage falling apart. Derry. And yet, it never really comes together to form a satisfying whole. I will say that the ticking clock device is employed so effectively that I read this novella very quickly and found it to be an easy breezy read, but I also never really connected with any of the characters and the ‘twist’ in this story feels old hat now (although perhaps it didn’t back in 1990). Also, if you’re going to go to Derry, you might as well include some connective tissue to King’s other Derry-based tales (IT, Insomnia, Bag of Bones, Dreamcatcher, etc). We get none of that here. A missed opportunity.
The Library Policeman
Now we’re talking. This one is vintage King and by far the best story in this collection. Sam Peebles is a small-town businessman preparing for a big speech at his local Rotary Club. Naomi Higgins, an assistant in Sam’s office, suggests that he visit the local library to find some books to help him prepare his speech (how quaint). Upon arrival, however, Sam is met by Ardelia Lortz, a strange and severe librarian, who warns him (seemingly jokingly at first) that if he doesn’t return the books in time, she will send the eponymous library policeman after him.
One of the more controversial stories in King’s oeuvre because it contains a genuinely upsetting and horrific depiction of child abuse, The Library Policeman is weird, unnerving and utterly unique. The abuse scene will be too much for some (I nearly stopped reading), but it’s earned rather than gratuitous, and the rest of the story is genuinely propulsive and compelling – an underrated gem (but not for the faint-hearted).
The Sun Dog
One of King’s many Castle Rock stories, this one serves as a bridge between The Dark Half and Needful Things, but crucially, it also works on its own terms. Kevin Delevan receives a Sun 660 Polaroid camera for his fifteenth birthday and soon discovers something very wrong with it. Rather than photograph the thing in front of it (as cameras are traditionally wont to do), this particular camera seems to depict the same dog sitting in front of the same fence over and over again. Upon further inspection, Kevin discovers that the photographs are changing slightly each time. He takes the camera to local junk shop owner Pop Merrill (uncle of King favourite Ace Merrill), who promptly steals it.
As with the previous story in the collection, this one is very strange indeed, and as with the first two stories we covered, it’s too long. It has the same Twilight Zone feel as the other three tales in Four Past Midnight, but the inclusion of Castle Rock marks it out as something different, and the characters are more likeable and better drawn than most of the other characters in the collection. I was actively rooting for Kevin and his father by the end of the novella, and Pop Merrill, perhaps King’s most Dickensian character, is a joy to spend time with.
All in all, Four Past Midnight is very much a mixed bag. The highs are pretty high, but the lows are as low as King has sunk in any of his other collections. It doesn’t help that both The Langoliers and Secret Window, Secret Garden spawned terrible TV and film adaptations, respectively. Maybe one for King obsessives only, this one.