Full Dark, No Stars by Stephen King

(Source: Kelsey Darling)

I am jumping in with both feet into the world of Stephen King. I have read a few of his books already and know I enjoy his work. But now I am ready to take the full plunge. I have six of his books already, so I wrote down the titles, folded them up, and then had my dad pick one (because if IT had been the first selection, I wanted the blame for my nightmares to fall on him). The first pick is Full Dark, No Stars, which is a collection of short stories. It is also a relatively short book compared to some others on the list, so it is probably a good place to start.

1922

In 1930, Wilfred Leland James is writing his confession for what happened in 1922. He and his son, Henry Freeman James, murdered his wife, Arlette Christina Winters James, because he could not bare to think of her selling her fathers land to the Farrington's hog butchery, but she refused to let him cultivate it. So the only solution was to kill her. He turns Henry against her, and then one summer night, they kill her, hide her body in a well, and then just pretended she up and ran away because she couldn't handle farm life anymore. But the events of those nights weigh heavy on the pair; and what happens after to Henry haunts Wilfred even more. By 1930, Wilfred has decided that the only solution is to kill himself. But first, he must confess every lie of 1922.

To say Wilfred is disturbed even before he kills his wife and is haunted by her ghost would be drastically underselling how disturbed he is. He planned out the death of his wife for some time before bringing his son into the mix. And then he spends a few months winning over his son and convincing him that taking Arlette's life is the only thing that will work for them.

"I gestured to the fields, brave with new growth. 'How can you say so, when you see Heaven all around us? Yet she means to drive us away from it as surely as the angel with the flaming sword drove Adam and Eve from the Garden.'

He gazed at me, troubled. Dark. I hated to darken my son in such a way, yet part of me believed then and believes still that it was not I who did it to him, but she.

'And think,' I said. 'If she goes to Omaha, she'll dig herself an even deeper pit in Sheol. If she takes you, you'll become a city boy-'

'I never will!' He cried this so loudly that grows took wing from the fence line and swirled away into the blue sky like charred paper.

'You're young and you will,' I said. 'You'll forget all this...you'll learn city ways...and begin digging your own pit.'

If he had returned by saying that murderers had not hope of joining their victims in Heaven, I might have been stumped. But either his theology did not stretch so far or he didn't want to consider such things. And is there Hell, or do we make our own on earth? When I consider the last eight years of my life, I plump for the latter.

'How?' he asked. 'When?'" (p. 9)

And just like that, he convinced his son to be a murderer. 

But it got much worse afterwards. He begins to see rats everywhere and believes they are Arlette's minions. One night, he is attacked by a rat which leads to him losing his hand. The further into his craziness he descends, the worse his obsession with the rats, and eventually Arlette's ghost. As he is in his hotel room writing his confession, he tells the reader that his plan is to shoot himself. But what he does is much worse, and an ending I did not see coming.

(Source: Giphy)

It was an interesting read into the mind of a calculated killer who did not plan on losing his sanity in the process. 

Rating: 6/10

Big Driver

Tess is a mystery writer of the popular book series The Willow Grove Knitting Society which tells the tales of elderly women who solve crimes. When she is invited to Books & Brown Baggers to give a lecture, she gladly accepts. The last thing she expects is that she will end up in a situation way darker than the Willow Grove Knitting Society could have imagined. On her drive home, her car runs over some boards with nails and gets a flat tire. When a large but kindly man pulls over, she imagines what could happen, but does not think it will. However, it does happen, and it is much worse. When she is left for dead, she does not think she will make it; but if she does, she will make sure it never happens to another girl again.

(Source: Giphy)

This is every woman's worst nightmare. As a woman who travels for work, I am very aware of situations just like this; I take precautions, but so did Tess. Even before everything happens, Tess questions the events leading up to this moment of her being stuck on the side of the road.

"She tried to tell herself the scars of wood meant nothing, stuff like that only meant something in the kind of books she didn't write and the kind of movies she rarely watched: the nasty, bloody kind. It didn't work. Which left her with two choices. She could either go on trying to pretend because to do otherwise was terrifying, or she could take off running for the woods on the other side of the road." (p. 148)

The entire time she was being raped and trying to manage her way home, I was terrified; more terrified than I had ever been in any horror movie I have seen or book I have read. This is a fear that has crossed every woman's mind and King depicted it in such perfect detail. But what happens after she is shoved in a culvert is something I have never feared before this day, but will now.

The kind, although brusk, librarian is the reason Tess has ended up here. Not because she gave her the "short cut," but because the rapist is her son! I thought she was a little involved, but did not see that part coming. And the fact that his brother is involved as well is just plain disgusting. It is a whole family of crazy. 

Tess goes crazy too, though, although deserved. Instead of going to the authorities, she takes it into her revenge into her own hands. Once she connects the dots between the librarian and the rapists, she knows that they are in this together, and that it has happened before and will happen again. I cannot say I condone doing this; but I can understand the appeal. 

I might have been a little crazy too by the end of it. After killing all members of the family, Tess wants to kill herself. I was rooting for her though. Partially because I did not want them to win, but because of Fritzy, her cat. I did not want Fritzy to be left alone wondering what happened to his mom. Yes, he would have gone to her neighbor who is someone he knows and probably tolerates, but the neighbor is not him mom. I kept thinking of what my cats would think if I never returned home to them. I told you, I had gone a little crazy by the end. Probably because of how probable this tale is.

Rating: 10/10

Fair Extension

Dave Streeter has been diagnosed with cancer and does not have much time left. He hasn't had the heart to tell his kids or his friends yet, so currently just him and his wife know. While driving around Derry one evening, he comes across a man working a stand with a sign that says "Fair Extension." Curiosity gets the better of him and so he walks on over. There is nothing remarkable about the man who introduces himself as George Elvid. Streeter thinks the man to be crazy, especially as he describes that he sells extensions. "Everyone wants an extension,.... If you were a young woman with a love of shopping, I'd offer you a credit extension. If you were a man with a small penis-genetics can be so cruel0I'd offer  you a dick extension" (p. 252). The more Streeter listens, the more certain he is that Elvid, whose name rearranges to spell "Devil," is definitely not right of mind. But when Elvid asks if there is anyone Streeter hates, Streeter does not hesitate in saying Tom Goodhugh, Streeters best friend since grade school. Goodhugh has had incredible luck in life, and Steeter is stuck with cancer. Elvid promises Streeter that he will have at least fifteen years good luck, maybe even twenty or twenty-five; he just has to pay him 15% of his earnings for the next fifteen years. It all sounds too good to be true; but what does that matter if you are not the one paying the price?

(Source: Giphy)

There are people I hate, that I despise. But there is no one that I would wish my bad luck on. The bad luck that befalls not just Goodhugh, but his entire family, is worse than bad luck. Streeters wife, Janet, refers to it as black luck. It made me sick listening to what happened; and what made it worse was that Streeter does not care that it is his fault. He continues to bask in the good life that he and his family have suddenly been blessed with. And then he has the audacity to wish for more.

This story felt incomplete. It ends with him and his wife sitting in their car where Streeter had met Elvid years earlier and made this horrific deal, making a wish on Venus for more. It is not at the end of when his luck should be running out, just at a random point in the middle. He never sees Elvid again. I just stopped. Listening to the audio book, I thought I had accidentally hit the button to move to the next chapter or something because it so suddenly ended and Streeter never felt an ounce of regret for his decisions, or at least did not have any of it catch up to him when his extension ran out. I assume that is what will happen. Because if something sounds too good to be true, it is.

Rating: 4/10

A Good Marriage

Darcy Anderson has been married to Bob for 27 years. It has been a good 27 years. Sure, there are moments where it could have been better, but she is happy with what life has brought her. And then one night while Bob is out of town, she stumbles across a box of catalogs that he has been hiding from her to help curb her shopping. But beneath them is a magazine that is not hers; this one is for Bondage Bitches. This is shocking enough. But when she discovers a secret compartment holding the ID cards of a woman who had been raped and killed by the notorious Beadie, a killer who has been around for the better part of three decades. She does not what to believe that her sweet, cuddling husband of 27 years could do this. But the more she thinks about it and the more she digs into the past, the more she realizes that he is, in fact, Beadie. She still is not sure what she is going to do, but when he returns early and confesses and promises that he will never do it again, she is even more distraught. She does not want her family dragged into this mess; but she wants to know for certain it will never happen again. She is not sure what she will do yet, but she needs to figure it out before Beadie makes an appearance again, and maybe kill her.

"She saw the disappointment (also weirdly boyish) that came over his face when she said that, but she meant to stick to it. He had to feel punished, if only a little. That way he'd believe he had convinced her" (p. 331).

I could not image what I would do if I were in the situation Darcy found herself in. I know I would be as sick with it as she was. I do not currently have kids, so it would easy for me to say that I would turn in my husband if he did that. But if I had kids, it would be harder knowing that I would not only be ruining their beloved father for them, but also dragging them through the mud, all because I had married a man who was a killer. But I would need justice for the families of the women (and child) he killed. So I can understand her need to kill him herself and make it look like an accident. I don't know if I would be able to sleep next to him while I pretended to go back to normal life. I feel like he would have understood; he seemed to be understanding in her potentially turning him in. I guess we will never know. 

One thing I noticed about this one and in Big Driver was that King does a wonderful job of writing from the woman's perspective and not making it sexual. So many men who write from a woman's perspective have this disgusting way of making her over sexualized. Women do not think about the ray of sun entering through the window and laying across her ample breasts. I do not realize why so many male authors think that; King does not. I have always held King in high respect; I hold him in even higher respect now. 

(Source: Giphy)

Rating: 7/10

In the Afterward, King talks about his inspiration for these stories were ordinary people in extraordinary situations. For the most part, I feel that he accomplished exactly that. The only one that I feel fell short was 1922. I feel that Wilf was just an asshole who did not want his wife to win. Maybe if I was a man, or in a bitter relationship, maybe I could. But even in my worst relationship, I cannot image, one, convincing a child to help me kill them, and two, actually killing someone over land. The other three stories, though, I could easily put myself in their situations and understand their choices. I guess none of us will never know what we will do until we are in an extraordinary situation.

(Source: Giphy)

Overall Rating: 7/10

Author: Stephen King

Genres: Horror, Thriller, Short Stories

Dates Read: May 31-June 3, 2018