For the last few years, Stephen King, in addition to writing his now usual yearly blockbuster (this year’s is Billy Summers, out now) has been writing shorter stories for the Hard Case Crime series (although here in the UK they’re under Titan Books.) I’ve reviewed a couple of them myself already – Joyland (reviewed HERE) and The Colorado Kid (reviewed HERE.) They’re both decent reads.
LATER (in capital letters) is the latest of those. It is, I think, the best of the series so far – and possibly one of the best of his recent novels, full stop.
Suggesting that this is one of the best Stephen King’s that I’ve read in a long time was not what I expected to type when I first started reading. Because to start with, LATER is something that at first glance we’ve read about before. The story is a narrative for James/Jamie Conklin, and told by him. His mother is a book editor, his father is unknown and long gone. All of this sounds quite cosmopolitan. Where the King-ness comes in though is that Jimmy has a special talent that is revealed at the end of the first very short chapter – he can see dead people.
And at that point, we realise that this is not just a crime story, but Stephen King in Twilight Zone territory. Jimmy himself describes it as a horror story. And whilst the regular readers of the genre are dragged into a sense that we may have read or seen something like this before, as a sort of “The-Shining-Meets-The-Sixth-Sense” type of story*, this is something more.
It being Stephen King, there, of course, lots of little references to some of his other work, which are there if you want to look for them (and I’m not going to spoil them for you), but they are not obtrusive nor so important that casual King readers can feel short-changed.
So why does this one work so well for me? Well, its part-thriller, part-horror story is nicely done. It reminded me of some of King’s earlier work, like The Dead Zone and The Shining in that the concern here is not with expanding the literary consciousness but more about telling a story. Each short chapter in LATER is a masterclass in how to move a story onward and yet at the same time keep the reader in suspense. There’s no frills and no major sideways sojourns, which it could have should the author want to build it up into something bigger.
But because the story is focused on Jimmy, there is a tight focus, even when the dialogue given by Jimmy can appear to be rambling. Focus on Jimmy here is everything, which is more impressive when you read it, as naturalistic dialogue from a potentially unreliable narrator. It also helps that the flow of the story is deceptively easy and natural, which lulls the reader into a false sense of security, which means that when key things are mentioned you may not actually realise what a key revelation something was.
LATER was surprisingly better than I thought it was going to be. It’s short, tight, and doesn’t outstay its welcome. In short, it reminds me more of the Shining/Dead Zone-era King than more the recent stories like The Outsider. LATER’s purpose is to tell a tale, and it does that supremely well. With more modest outcomes than some of his recent material, LATER has King doing what he does best – he grabs your attention from the start and holds it, keeping you in the story’s grasp until the end.
For those wondering what the fuss about Stephen King is about, this might be a good place to start. For others who know King’s books, I think that this is a superior example of his work, and certainly of his more recent efforts.
*Jimmy at one point even refers to the Night Shyamalan movie in a nicely wry gesture.
LATER by Stephen King
Published by Titan Books, March 2021
Book 147 of the Hard Case Crime series
252 pages
ISBN: 978-1789096491
