VanishingSpy
January 3rd, 2010, 05:07 PM
When I was 11 or 12, my dad subscribed to a book club and was sent a hardback edition of Needful Things. He was never a Stephen King fan, so he was about to send it back, but I persuaded him not to and started reading it myself.
I couldn't put the book down. I would read it on the bus on the way to school and back, at home, pretty much every chance I got. Being the age I was, I immediately identified with Brian Rusk, the young boy in the book. When Brian killed himself later in the story, I literally was crushed. I have never had a book affect me that way since then. I remember feeling really disturbed, and sad, even though logically I knew it was a story and of course was not real. I think looking back on it now that I was a little too young to be reading subject matter like that, and that my mind at the time was still working out how to separate fantasy from reality. But, whatever the reason, that book stands out to me as this dark, scary thing that none of his other works have been able to come close to. I have not read it since then; I doubt I would have the same experience. I recently read a blurb online somewhere Stephen King was talking about how his Under the Dome was going to be played straight, not a "social comedy" like Needful Things.
I can kind of see his mode of thinking in referring to it as that, now that I'm an adult, remembering what I do about NT, but at the time I read it, "comedy" would not be a word I would use to describe it.
I would just like to commend Mr. King on providing me with such a deliciously dark, disturbing part of my childhood. Saw, Hostel, and the like, despite their blood and gore, will never be able to approach the level of scariness that Needful Things elicited.
I couldn't put the book down. I would read it on the bus on the way to school and back, at home, pretty much every chance I got. Being the age I was, I immediately identified with Brian Rusk, the young boy in the book. When Brian killed himself later in the story, I literally was crushed. I have never had a book affect me that way since then. I remember feeling really disturbed, and sad, even though logically I knew it was a story and of course was not real. I think looking back on it now that I was a little too young to be reading subject matter like that, and that my mind at the time was still working out how to separate fantasy from reality. But, whatever the reason, that book stands out to me as this dark, scary thing that none of his other works have been able to come close to. I have not read it since then; I doubt I would have the same experience. I recently read a blurb online somewhere Stephen King was talking about how his Under the Dome was going to be played straight, not a "social comedy" like Needful Things.
I can kind of see his mode of thinking in referring to it as that, now that I'm an adult, remembering what I do about NT, but at the time I read it, "comedy" would not be a word I would use to describe it.
I would just like to commend Mr. King on providing me with such a deliciously dark, disturbing part of my childhood. Saw, Hostel, and the like, despite their blood and gore, will never be able to approach the level of scariness that Needful Things elicited.