Finders Keepers Journal 1: Oh Yeah!

Finders Keepers is the sequel – kind of – to Stephen King’s Mr. Mercedes.  But, in typical King fashion, the novel doesn’t quite feel like a sequel.  Because the story doesn’t pick up where Mercedes left off, it backs up and moves through scenes we’ve already been to in the first novel, but this time with different characters.  Thus we the reader relive the horror once again, but from a new angle.

Finders Keepers is certainly it’s own book; but it is wound tight with Mr. Mercedes references and story twists.

I’ve been away from reading Stephen King for a while, and the arrival of Finders Keepers caught me by surprise.  “Oh, is that this week?”  And then a little fear.  I couldn’t even remember everything Mr. Mercedes was about; details had slipped away.  Was I ready to return?  What if the magic had left?  But the warmth hasn’t gone anywhere.  Those “OH YES!” moments of reading a Stephen King novel come quick in Finders Keepers.  That’s partly because it is a second novel, so King is giving us easter eggs right from the get go.

You know about Stephen King “Oh yes!” moments, right?
That’s when Carrie burns up her school, and your heart goes, YES!
When a writer pulls off something, maybe something you didn't see coming, and you're amazed at how they did it.  When Roland steps into the world of The Stand.  Or, when the corpse comes to life in Revival.  Or when the grieving father carries his dead child up to the pet cemetery, and you know this novel has some traction.  Inside, you're going, "Oh yeah!"

I love it when two books come together and you feel distant sparks.  Like when Gerald’s Game and Dolores Claiborne touch.  Of course, Mercedes and Finders are supposed touch.  But the way King does it is mesmerizing.  He doesn’t just bop on with the story, picking up where Mercedes left off.  He starts a new story, running alongside and intersecting the time line of the first novel before eventually starting on a fresh track.  This is brilliant!  And powerful when done by a master like King.

Characters:

As with any King book, the characters take center stage in the story telling.  What I like is how very complex King makes characters.  These people feel real.  Someone injured by the evil Mr. Mercedes isn’t just a poor pitiful victim in a Stephen King novel; they are a real person.  King shows us the emotional pain a physical injury can bring to a marriage.  I like it that King allows characters, children, to make up expressions for their parents behavior.  Adults don’t just argue, it’s the arkie barkies.

By the way, any time someone digs up a buried treasure chest in a Stephen King book, your heart should start pounding.  Because -- I mean, it's Stephen King!  Who knows what's in that chest.  Could be pirates gold or money.  But it could be rotted body parts or a clown nose.

Writing:

A quick note here about the style of the book.  First, unlike Mercedes, I have not detected that the novel is told is strict present tense.

Second, there are points where the narration allows dialogue to flow like a play.  You know:
Dad:
Mom:
Dad:
(A side from the one observing.)
This is interesting because I haven’t ever seen King use this approach in a novel.  Certainly he’s written plenty of scripts, but novels usually have the normal back and forth flow of quotes mingled with narration.  In fact, I was unaware that it was “okay” for a novel to use this style until I read The Keep, by Jennifer Egan.  I was so startled by how easy she made the dialogue using this format that I incorporated into my own writing.

Just under the surface of Finders Keepers is the ever evolving discussion about The Writer.  King gave us a first glimpse into the writer in Misery.  In Finders Keepers, a writers notebooks become part of the driving force of the novel.

Of course, King has insisted he doesn’t use an idea notebook.  In fact, he’s said that a writers notebook is a great way to preserve bad ideas.  The good ones, King says, stick with you.  (This is like preachers who insist they don’t use notes. The truth is, they don’t always stay on topic and tend to talk too long.)

That aside, there are certainly piles of Stephen King notebooks we would all love to see.  Much if not all of Dream catcher was written by hand and filled a pile of notebooks.  Wouldn’t you like to have that in your collection?  Finders Keepers is partly about a guy who steals a writers notebooks.

Stephen King's Bad Guys Are Terribly Real

Have  you noticed how unnerving some of King's killers are?  It's because they seem all too real.  That's because, I think, King often bases them on real people.  There was a real Annie Wilkes and a real Mr. Mercedes.

salon.com posted an interesting article  titled, "“Mr. Mercedes”: How Stephen King’s killers mirror real-life murderers."

Mike Berry notes that the timing for Mr. Mercedes could not be less propitious, and reminds us in a side note that Black House arrived in stores September 11, 2001.  I didn't know that.

The novel’s publication date comes a little more than a week after Elliot Rodger stabbed three people to death in his apartment near UC Santa Barbara, killed three others in drive-by shootings, ran down pedestrians in his BMW and then fatally shot himself with his own gun. In the wake of the Isla Vista tragedy, this straight-ahead thriller now makes for uncomfortable reading, in a way Mr. King undoubtedly did not intend.

Of course, King gives  us two types of  bad guys.   There's  the Randall Flagg naughty boy;  he's the devil  and he'll do as he likes.  And then there is the more creepy real life murders

The scary thing about Mr. Mercedes is that he could be -- anyone.  Thus Mike Berry notes Hartfield starts off as one of King's "least interesting villains."  He reminds me of Norman Bates; only, Psycho was scarier.  Norman was scarier.  It might be the difference in media (print verses movie, Hitch verses  King.)  But what both characters emphasize is that we never really know what's going on inside someone elses head.  And that's scary.

What Berry keenly  notes is that Hartfield didn't "snap." And most killers really don't.  They plan, plot  and  think over their crimes.  They relish messing with the police and reliving their crimes.

Here are some easily overlooked villains in the Stephen King canon: 

1. Jo St. George.  A child molester, wife beater and thief, it seems ole Joe doesn't get his due in the Stephen King universe.  His wife, Dolores finished  him off in what can only be described as a brilliant execution.  I loved it!  In fact, I think Dolores Claiborne might be one of those overlooked gems that Stephen King has churned out.  And though the focus of the novel is on Dolores, Jo is one mean  dude and the reader sympathizes with Dolores' vigilante style  of justice.

Let me tell you, as creepy as Mr. Mercede's is -- and as sick as his relationship with his mommy is -- he doesn't molest little kids.  Driving cars into crowds is very, very bad.  But there is something that so deeply crosses the line with child  molestation that it stands on its own in terms of wickedness.  Allow me to go a bit preacher on this one.  Jesus said it would be better to have a millstone hung around your neck and thrown into the ocean  than to have to stand before him on Judgment day and have to answer to harming a child.  In other words, God has a special  place in hell -- literally -- for that kind of wickedness.

2. In 11.22.63, King gave us a real life killer, Lee Harvey Oswald.  By mixing fictional characters with historical, King offered a strange blend of realism. Oswald wasn't a passing character in the book, but someone we followed at some length, getting to know and to some degree understand. Yeah, he was creepy.

3. Charlie Decker, a high school student in the Bachman novel, Rage, holds his classroom hostage  and has a long talk-session with them.  The novel is tense as the reader is left wondering if these students are going to make it out alive.  And, the book  is scarier now than when it was written, since it's actually been connected directly to several  schools shootings.

That ever helpful source, Wikipedia,  gives these examples of real life school  shootings that were in some way connected to or supposedly inspired by rage:

• Jeffrey Lyne Cox, a senior at San Gabriel High School in San Gabriel, California, took a semi-automatic rifle to school on April 26, 1988 and held a humanities class of about 60 students hostage for over 30 minutes. Cox held the gun to one student when the teacher doubted he would cause harm and stated that he would prove it to her. At that time three students escaped out a rear door and were fired upon. Cox was later tackled and disarmed by another student. A friend of Cox told the press that Cox had been inspired by the Kuwait Airways Flight 422 hijacking and by the novel Rage, which Cox had read over and over again and with which he strongly identified.

• Dustin L. Pierce, a senior at Jackson County High School in McKee, Kentucky, armed himself with a shotgun and two handguns and took a history classroom hostage in a nine-hour standoff with police on September 18, 1989 that ended without injury. Police found a copy of Rage among the possessions in Pierce's bedroom, leading to speculation that he had been inspired to carry out the plot of the novel.

• Barry Loukaitis, a student at Frontier Middle School in Moses Lake, Washington, walked from his house to the school on February 2, 1996, and entered his algebra classroom during fifth period. He opened fire at students, killing two and wounding another. He then fatally shot his algebra teacher, Leona Caires, in the chest. As his classmates began to panic, Loukaitis reportedly said, "This sure beats algebra, doesn't it?" — a line erroneously believed to be taken from Rage. (No such line appears in King’s story. The closest is when Charlie Decker quips, "This sure beats panty raids.") Hearing the gunshots, gym coach Jon Lane entered the classroom. Loukaitis was holding his classmates hostage and planned to use one hostage so he could safely exit the school. Lane volunteered as the hostage, and Loukaitis was keeping Lane at gunpoint with his rifle. Lane then grabbed the weapon from Loukaitis and wrestled him to the ground, then assisted the evacuation of students.

• In December 1997 Michael Carneal shot eight fellow students at a prayer meeting in West Paducah, Kentucky. He had a copy of the book within the Richard Bachman omnibus in his locker. This was the incident that moved King to allow the book to go out of print.

SOURCE: wikipedia.org/wiki/Rage

Berry raises the concern  that Rage  can be misunderstood as celebrating the violence it actually condemns.  Comparing Rage to Mercedes, Berry writes,

[Rage] was written by a young author not fully in control of the tools of his craft. “Mr. Mercedes” is the product of an old hand, an accomplished writer of popular fiction who generally knows what he’s doing. There’s really no need to fret that the book might inspire further mayhem.

4. The Needful Thing's cast.  Leeland Gaunt is supposed to be the devil himself.  He's one bad  dude.  But he's not the scary part of Needful Things.  The town-folk are!  Willing to cut each other up in the street, slay dogs and burn their town right  to the ground, the last novel of Castle Rock was a dozy!  It is long, but it's also under-appreciated.  King really shows how the devil  works, getting us to take one small step into sin and finding that soon we are willing to do things we never thought was in our own character.

Berry misses his opportunity to really dig deeper into Hartfield's psychology.  It does seem to be what the article promised.  Instead, Berry gives us as much a review of the book itself as a deeper look at Brady Hartfield.  He declares that the novel ranks in the "middle" of King's work in terms of quality.  And where  would that be?

nowhere near the pinnacle of “The Shining” but well away from the abyss of, say, “Dreamcatcher.” 

Humm.  I liked The Shining a lot.  But I'm not sure it was the "pinnacle."  It's brilliant, absolutely brilliant, and yes -- Mr. Mercede's isn't The Shining.  But it's not King's absolute  best.  Disagree with me?  It might be a while since you've actually read the book.  The  novel is very closed  in, which is both creepy and at point tedious.  I like sprawling novels like The Stand, and, believe it or not, Doctor Sleep.

And as for  Dreamcatcher, which Berry put at the bottom of the pile; I enjoyed it!  Well, for a while.  It's both crazy and engaging.  Stick with the book, not the movie on this one.  Is it a masterpiece?  No.  But it's fun.

King Talks Dome

Right now the web is pretty flooded with Under The Dome Season Two stories.  This seattletimes.com discussion with Stephen King is pretty good.

“I knew that George R.R. Martin had written a few episodes of ‘Game of Thrones,’ and I was very jealous,” King told the Seattle Times.

Why is King writing the first episode?  He explains (apparently as they eat pizza), “It gave me a chance to set the arc in motion for the season, and it gave me a little more input into what was going to happen.”

The article cites Neal Baer saying, “We thought this would be a great way to solidify the support of the fans...”  Does the fan base need solidifying?  Maybe.

What's my reaction to another season of Under The Dome?  Fearful.  Things took off with a bang  first season, then fell apart.

Is King Writing About Hodges? . . .
After discussing his "ritual" for writing, the article notes:

That’s not to say that King lives free of the self-doubt that afflicts most, if not all, writers. In fact, he’s currently a “mess” over the troublesome third act of an upcoming book.

“I don’t usually plot in advance, the book usually tells me what to do, but I’m getting to the point where there’s a lot of mist ahead and I just sort of hope things work out,” he said. “They usually do.”

 Makes me wonder if he is hard at work on the next installment with Detective Ret. Hodges.

Mr. Mercedes and Thinner

Mr. Mercedes Journal #3

I'm loving Mr. Mercedes.  It's a different style and tone than King usually employs.  I think one reason I respect him as an artist is that he is not locked into one form of story telling.  When it comes to King and genre, he's quite versatile.

I had a long drive the other night to get my wife; and that meant lots of time to listen to Mr. Mercedes.  It's pretty cool, driving down long stretches of moon lit desert highway listening as King's story unfolds.

There is genuine mystery involved here.  King keeps me guessing -- how did the killer steal the car if the key wasn't in the ignition?  And, there's a great mid-novel plot twist.  I can't say a lot about it, except that it reminds me a lot (A LOT) of the ending to Thinner.  But in Thinner, King was just messing with readers.  In Mr. Mercedes, King is down to the serious business of story telling.  Where King ended Thinner, he is just getting started with Mr. Mercedes.  It is the sign of a more mature writer. This isn't just a Twilight Zone twist, it's a defining moment in the book and will be a driving force for the plot here on.

Anyone want some strawberry pie?

Mr. Mercedes Is The First In A Trilogy

Stephen King posted today, "MR. MERCEDES is the first novel in a projected trilogy. Hodges, Jerome, and Holly will return in FINDERS KEEPERS next year."

I can't wait!

Lilja's Pictures Of Mr. Mercedes

I'm loving the pictures Lilja's Library is posting of people with the new Stephen King book, Mr. Mercedes.  (It's not a contest, just fun)  Check it out here: www.liljas-library.com/mmspecial.php

And -- that's my Susie girl.

Link: Stephen King Mr. Mercedes Interview

Here's the link to a short interview with King about Mr. Mercedes. And a glimpse at his Bangor office.  Not quite as cool as the house. . .

stephen-king-talks-new-novel/

Reviews For Mr. Mercedes Begin To Roll In

I've got to figure out somewhere  to drive tomorrow so I can listen to this book.

The reviews are sounding upbeat.

• Think of Mr. Mercedes as an AC/DC song: uncluttered, chugging with momentum, and a lot harder to pull off than it looks. Christian Science Monitor

• Good book? Hell, yes. Good Stephen King book? Absolutely. The Guardian

• King has written a hot rod of a novel, perfect for a few summer days at the pool. Christian Science Monitor

• In some novels, King expresses outright tenderness and it’s evident here. That doesn’t mean, though, that he’s not good for scenes of brutal carnage. NY Daily News

• In “Mr. Mercedes” King displays a light touch, telling a story that could almost be characterized as sweet except of course for the sociopath on a bloody rampage. King will be King, and he’s never less than scary. Who in their right mind would want him to be?  NY Daily News

• With John Updike dead and Philip Roth retired, Stephen King might just be America’s greatest living novelist. Express.co.uk

Mr. Mercedes Audible

Look what appeared in my audible library at midnight.

Pennywsie introduces Mr. Mercedes

A smile is a frown turned upside down.
player.vimeo.com

Mr. Mercedes Audio Preview

RIFE: Mr. Mercedes Is Going Full Speed

Susan Rife has a nice review of Stephen King's upcoming book, Mr. Mercedes.  She obviously liked the story, as the bulk of the review is a retelling of the books plotline.  I'll spare you the "spoilers."  She closes the review by remarking, "the last 80 pages cannot be doled out over multiple reading sessions. You'll have to swallow them all in a single gulp."

There is also this rather satisfying note: "This being a Stephen King book, people are going to die particularly horrifying and gruesome deaths"

And for the complaints of a previous reviewer who was unsatisfied with the character development, Rife says, "With this small a cast, King is able to fully develop the characters beyond the too-common two-dimensional good guy-bad guy scenario. Brady may be a monster, but as the story unfolds, the layers that made him into a killer are made clear."

arts.heraldtribune.com

Artwork for Mr. Mercedes EW Article

Illustration for an Entertainment Weekly feature excerpt of Stephen King's upcoming novel "Mr. Mercedes." by Owen Freeman

Check these out:
www.flickr.com Mercedes 1
www.flickr.com Mercedes 2
www.flickr.com Mercedes 3

Does Mr. Mercedes Have A Flat Tire?

I saw the first review of Mr. Mercedes today -- and it made my heart sag a little. Chuck Bowen of Slant magazine, posted his thoughts today.  Bowen previously wrote an interesting article titled, Five Tips on How to Make a Good Stephen King Movie Adaptation.  It was an interesting article, but since I don't plan on making a Stephen King movie adaptation, and I do plan to read Mr. Mercedes, I dived into the review.

Bowen's review isn't very pretty.  Bowen is just flat out cruel; accusing King of not taking the craft itself seriously.  At the heart of the review if the idea that the novel is undeveloped, underwritten and reads like a screen play.  He praises King for working "outside the horror genre."  But his praise is short lived and he quickly moves to throwing eggs at Mr. King.  In fact, he not only gets his digs in at the book he is reviewing, but takes a few cheap shots at Doctor Sleep while he's at it.  Here's the bullet points:

• Bowen whines that King is publishing too quickly and not rewriting his work enough.
• The book, Bowen reports, moves too quickly.  It is too action packed.  "The pace is numbing, relentless."  (yeah, that's the kind of book I like Chucky!)
• He doesn't like King's use of emphasizing things in the text by bolding, capitalizing and italicizing.
• Bowen accuses King over using clichés and "absurd, unsatisfying plotting." 
• Sound tough?  He's not done!  "The dialogue is appallingly tone deaf," Bowen accuses the author. He goes on to say King is dishing out "crass obviousness." 

And he goes on and on.  

I get the sense that Bowen is a bit stuffy in his approach to reading.  Don't have fun with it.  Don't say a building looks like a UFO; or make the dialogue fun.  Bowen is the teacher at the front of the room demanding you use proper English and don't bold so much!  He wants that paper nice and clean, no italicizing or capitalizing.  

Bowen's greatest complaint seems to be that King drives the story hard, pushing it ever forward with energetic writing.  We can't have that, ya know?  No energetic writing!  Writing should be slow, careful and keep the reader a little sleepy.  Bowen would enjoy John Knolls A Seperate Peace or Olive Anne Burns' Cold Sassy Tree.  I want to italicize those book titles, but I won't because I wouldn't want anyone to think I'm italicizing too much.

A clue that Bowen doesn't really know his Stephen King jumps out in his previous article about adapting a Stephen King novel for screen.  He says that King should not be allowed to write the script for his movies, and then says that Pet Sematary is one of the "very worst adaptations of his work."  PET SEMATARY?  One of the worst? Maybe he didn't see Langoliers.  On the Pet Sematary rant, Bowen calls the movie a "flat, impersonal spectacle."

But it's not just Pet Sematary he doesn't like.  He's also not a fan of The Green Mile. Discussing the problem of bringing King's dialogue to screen, Bowen wrote, "But even at its best, King's dialogue is usually too stylized to be spoken out loud, and actors often sound silly in their attempts to imbue it with tossed-off spontaneity, a problem that sinks the already problematic The Green Mile."  I did not realize the Green Mile sank or that it was "problematic."  

Also note that Bowen does not like Frank Darabont's adaptations of Stephen King's work.  So his credibility is about zilch at this point.

Some Stephen King Characters I'd Like To See Fight It Out

Warner Brothers has announced that the official name for the new Batman-Superman movie is, "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice."  The film, directed  by Zack Snyter, will star Henry Cavill and Ben Affleck.  Production is set to to take place in Detroit, Africa, and the South Pacific.

So here are a few favorite Stephen King characters I'd like to pit against each other:

• Carrie v Charlie McGee (Carrie/Firestarter)
• Christine v Gage Creed (Christine/Pet Sematary)
• Alexis Machine v Pennywise (Dark Half/IT)
• Randy Flagg v. The Mist (The Stand/The Mist)
• Jack Torrance v Annie Wilkes (The Shining/Misery)
• Johnny Smith v Brady Hartfield (The Deadzone/Mr. Mercedes)
• Church v Cujo (Pet Sematary/Cujo)

I'd really like Carrie to visit Needful Things and burn the shop down.

Carrie can move things.  How about, Carrie v. The Dome.

All right, give me yours.

Mr. Mercedes Drives Toward The Big Screen

Madison Barnes at The Tracking Board posted news that the rights to Mr. Mercedes have been bought by Marty Bowen and Wyck Godfrey.  Of course, the novel hasn't even hit a store shelf yet.

Barnes offers this ominous tagline to her summery of the novel, "If you’ve never looked at a Mercedes Benz and felt the the imposing chill of death… you soon will!"

Jack Bender is set to direct the film.  Bender is known for work on “Lost,” “Alias,” “Under the Dome” and “The Sopranos.”

Barnes writes:

The producers are currently meeting with writers as they aggressively continue development on King’s story. Were it any other writer, I would say the reception of the book may be a hinderance for development, but who are we kidding? King’s fascinating horror stories have kept readers and audiences enthralled for decades, starting all the way back with “Carrie” and “The Shining,” in the late ’70s/early ’80s. You probably don’t even realize how many other movies and television series have been based on his extensive writings, including “The Shawshank Redemption,” “The Green Mile,” “Hearts in Atlantis,” “Stand by Me,” and even “Secret Window” (to name a few). He also has over 20 films currently in development, including “The Dark Tower,” “The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon,” “Doctor Sleep,” and remakes of “Children of the Corn,” “Firestarter,” and “It.”

Full Story: www.tracking-board.com

Mr. Mercedes & Revival On Amazon Pre-Sale

Looks like Mr. Mercedes and Revival are ready to go.  What format will you be reading it in?  I usually go audio book, my wife Kindle, and my kids. . . aren't allowed to read Stephen King yet.

Mr. Mercedes Cover Wrap

From my favorite Stephen King website: www.liljas-library.com/

Mr. Mercedes UK Cover

Polish Cover For Mr. Mercedes

This was posted at Lilja's Library, my favorite Stephen King website.  Lilja notes, "Can't say I like it very much though, what do you Think?" I think a car should be involved in the cover.