Later

 

Later – Stephen King

Do NOT be fooled by this 1950’s pulp-like book cover. Don’t be fooled by the tagline “The Hard Case Crime Novels of Stephen King” either.  This is not any sort of new genre than Stephen King is dabbing his finger in for some sort of writing style variety.  No, this book is your typical Stephen King creepy, leave-a-light-on-when-you-sleep story.  That’s not a bad thing when he tells the story well, which he does so here.  I just find it somewhat puzzling that he “disguises” some of his books from time to time with these stereotypical “true crime” covers.  Maybe it’s the publisher’s decision. Maybe it’s an accountant’s move.  There’s a lot of weird hand shaking and back slapping in the entertainment business, and the almighty dollar always reigns. Even a brilliant and popular author such as Stephen King can easily get sucked into all that unpleasantness when contracts are being signed.  Anyway…

Our story consists of a successful book editor and her very young son, Jamie.  Jamie is one of those kids with a peculiar “gift” that only exists in scary movies and wacky YouTube conspiracy videos.  Jamie’s “gift” can also be looked at as a curse (of course).  When mom finds out about Jamie’s gift (there’s no dad in this story) she’s perplexed, mystified, a bit skeptical, but mostly just wants to protect her young son and ensure that he has as normal a life as possible.

It just so happens that we come across a situation where Jamie can use his peculiar ability to help save Mom’s job.  They live pretty comfortably in the penthouses of New York, and without Jamie’s help, they can soon find themselves destitute overnight and living on skid row.  The only other person who knows about Jamie’s gift is mom’s girlfriend, who happens to be a cop.  So this, dear reader, is how we can somehow turn our story into a “crime novel”.   When a cop gets involved, there’s all sorts of goodies that can be achieved in the field of policework with someone with a gift like young Jamie.

Well it doesn’t take a genius to remember the story of Pandora’s Box, and let’s just say that nothing is as never neat and tidy as it seems.  When one tempts the universe with bizarre supernatural abilities, it doesn’t take long before the universe seems to say “You’re not supposed to do that, so it’s time you pay the price”.

So if you’ve read this so far (and I’m trying hard not to divulge much of the actual plot), you can probably already tell that this sort of story is right up Stephen King’s alley.  The book itself is rather short, and it can almost serve as one story in one of King’s ubiquitous “four novella” books.  Overall I enjoyed the book and can’t find anything silly or stupid that sometimes can wedge their way into Mr. King’s strange tales.  I will say that the very ending of this book seemed a bit forced an unnecessary. It didn’t hurt the story at all, it was more like a ridiculous coda.  Fortunately when the ending isn’t particularly welcome but has no bearing on the tale itself, it’s easy to forget.   The story, however, was a good one.  But please don’t think this is some sort of Micky Spillane crime story.  Don’t ever judge a book by it’s cover. Especially in this case.