pitch darkness

No stars

Author's Name: Stephen King

Only Stephen King knows how to step into the dark with determination and resolve, how to transform his steps into a subject for reception and a novelistic achievement that reveals the hidden side of the human psyche. Such that exploring all dark areas and exploring their tensions, outside the constraints of the laws of good and evil, becomes a novelistic justification and an unavoidable human challenge for the writer. Especially if the writer is Stephen King, who wrote his first novel, "The Long Walk," at the age of eighteen and did not rest until all his novels achieved New York Times bestseller status. This book contains four short stories, collected in "Pitch Dark, No Stars," distinguished by their ability to represent the hidden natures and behaviors among humans and exploit them for control and benefit. Stephen King has done his utmost in these stories to document what people might do and how they might behave in some horrific circumstances. The first story, "1922," was inspired by a true story in a book called "A Wisconsin Death Ride" (1973) by Michael Lisi, which includes photographs taken in the small town of Black River Falls, Wisconsin. Stephen King was fascinated by the rural isolation in those photographs, and the looks of cruelty and deprivation depicted on many of the people's faces. He wanted to express that feeling in his story. The story's protagonist, Wilfred Leland James, confesses spontaneously that he killed his wife, Arlette Christina James, and hid her body by throwing it in an old well, after tricking his son into doing so. The reason was a dispute over land she had inherited from her father. King was inspired to write "The Big Driver" when he was traveling on Interstate 84 and stopped at a rest stop to get a meal. He left the rest stop and saw a woman with a flat tire, speaking earnestly to a truck driver parked next to hers, asking for help. The story's heroine, "Tsen," is a distinguished writer who has received an invitation from a publishing house that perfectly suits her needs. Tsen is driving down that cursed Highway 84, her car stalls, and she asks a large young man for help. He pounces on her, turning everything into darkness. In this story, Tsen never has to tell it to anyone, but she can write it herself, cutting out whatever needs to be cut. The author's inspiration for "Reasonable Length" came from his favorite shop, "The Golf Ball Man," in his hometown of Bangor, where he lives. Every day, when the weather is nice, he sees the Golf Ball Man go to the Bangor Municipal Golf Course to collect hundreds of golf balls left behind in the snow by golfers. Stephen King says, "When I saw him one day, the idea for 'Reasonable Length' came to mind. Of course, I set the story in Derry, the town of the deceased and unmourned clown Pennywar, because Derry is just Bangor disguised by a different name." The story's hero is "Streeter," who lived a hard life but managed to establish a waste company called Derry to remove and recycle waste. He also succeeded in raising a family whose members became media moguls. After a long life experience, he became convinced that "life is fair" and that "things have their own way of finding balance in the end." The final story in this book, "A Good Marriage," comes after the author reads an article about Dennis Rader, the killer known as "Bind, Torture, Kill," who murdered ten people—mostly women, but two of his victims were boys—over a period of approximately sixteen years. In many cases, the killer sent pieces of his victims' identities to the police. Paula Rader remained married to this monster for thirty-four years, and many in the Wichita area, where Rader killed his victims, refused to believe she could live with him and not know what he was doing. The story revolves around a married woman who discovers her husband's secret hiding place in the garage. She begins to suspect him of being a murderer. Stephen King wrote this story to explore what might happen in such a case if a wife suddenly discovered her husband's horrific hobby. He also expressed the idea that it is impossible to fully know anyone, even the people we love most.