Review: Needful Things by Stephen King – In which this book turns out not to be needed

Novel: Horror, Comedy. Contains adult situations, violence, and disturbing imagery.

This review contains spoilers. 

When I was young, I lived in a small town in South Carolina. There was a library there, it was dusty and cramped, and had a weird smell. And when I and my siblings visited it, we didn’t really read that much. We preferred to play the games on the computers there.

But one day, when I must have been eleven or twelve I entered the back room, the “adult” fiction, and I found a treasure trove of Stephen King books. I had already known about him, I don’t quite remember how I had first heard of him, but I had a very definitive idea of what he looked like. In my mind’s eye, he looked like a nonexistent author from a Scooby-doo cartoon, with slick black hair, thick glasses with a thick neck. As it turned out, he was a scrawny fellow with gray hair and a thin face.

But I had been quite enthusiastic about writing, and my love of horror was blossoming at the time. So I had looked up his books, I knew what most were about, even though I had never read any of them. All the books were huge and thick, and if I struggle, I can remember each one. There was "Misery", "Cujo", "Dolores Claiborne", "Dark Tower III: The Wastelands", "Under the Dome", "Dark tower IV: Wizard and Glass", and of course, "Needful Things". Now none of these were child-friendly books, and when I tried to get into them ("Cujo" and "Misery" respectively) I failed. Now that isn’t to say that all children of the age would feel this way, I watched the animated movie, "Watership Down" when I was six or seven, along with my brothers. And to this day, we love the cruel madness of the animated feature.

But I found it difficult to get into. Slowly I would learn to love reading more, to have a longer attention span, and to respect a slower format.

But Needful Things is not a prime example of a slow format done well.

The book is about a man named Leland Gaunt, moving into a small town, and opening a bizarre antique shop by the name of "Needful Things". Slowly customers enter his store, and he shows them incredible objects of obscene value, which he offers for nothing more than “the change in their pocket” and a prank, to be played on a specific person in the town. Slowly small-town grudges rise to bloodthirsty attacks, and Gaunt seals the deal via selling a series of hand guns to the residents, and watching in a “mwa-hahaha” way as they turn on each other. So it’s up to guilt-ridden sheriff to try and restore order to the town, or at the very least figure out what the hell is going on.

Now I like that idea, I lived in a small town, and King wrote it as satire on the eighties (the age of consumerism), not specifically horror. Now I like the idea of Leland Gaunt as well, and I like the idea that Sheriff Pangborn (I had to look up his name, which says something about the character and book itself) isn’t lured in by Gaunt’s deceptions because he has lost the people he cares most about. Some of the moments are legitimately chilling, some of the descriptions are fairly imaginative.

But the book doesn’t work.

It doesn’t have enough jokes to sustain as gallows humor, and it doesn’t go far enough if it wants to be horror. Sure one or two parts made me chuckle, but those are few and far between. Maybe it’s because I don’t find people acting crazy that funny, but it seems too depressing to be lighthearted, and while I am not an expert on black humor, this is definitely not it. The book drags on and on, and we never go just far enough into the character’s obsessions, or they commit just vile enough an act, to constitute the act of reading further.

Gaunt, who is the only really memorable character in the book (there are a couple ladies obsessed with Elvis that I recall, but I keep getting their names confused), gets kind of ruined in the end. He changes personality and eye color just to trick whoever he makes a “special” deal with and displays the power to slightly mesmerize them. He could have been a giggling maniac, whose motivation only extends to watching humans tear each other apart. But in the end…

SPOILER! SPOILER! SPOILER!

You have been warned.

He even asks, in one of the best moments in the novel, how annoying it is when people say “I would sell my soul for a so-and-so.” But what, at the end of the book, just what, pray tell does Leland try to skip town with? 

Souls.

A bag of souls. 

...

...

Now I love The Devil as much as the next man (probably more considering the name of this blog), I love the iterations and depictions of him that crisscross our culture. But a chance to tell a story about humanity’s self-destructive nature, our selfishness and war mongering, has been lost. Maybe the bag would have worked if this was a comedy, but it is too gory and too lengthy.

I liked the idea of a traveling demon, who sells disguised junk and dangerous junk, sticking around to watch the fireworks, before packing up and leaving. But it is ruined by this silly motivation and generic idea. 

END OF SPOILER!

King is not a subtle writer, and I myself find subtly overrated. Unfortunately, the story is too on the nose, even for him. It's to the point of looking ridiculous, which once again, could have worked if it was more comedic. But whatever King was going for, failed. Personally I found it slightly interesting, but it still felt like a slog through mud. The themes about people being too afraid of breaking an object to actually use it rings true, but the characters still aren’t very likable, and while the book has a neat little “gotchya!” at the end, the conclusion is still quite absurd.

So I would not recommend it. Even if you really like the idea, and really want to read the “last Castle Rock story” (the town re-appeared in a bunch of short stories and Dark Tower stuff later, or so I've been told), I don’t recommend it. Leland’s scenes sort of makeup for the slog but the characters are mostly unmemorable, and there are only one or two scenes that might get a rise out of you.

As a final note, I find it rather ironic, that this book turns into exactly the kind of thing Gaunt might sell to a King enthusiast. “The last Castle Rock story…” A piece of junk disguised as just what you want. It is a product, a copy and cut Stephen King Story, with a little town, predictable characters, an obvious moral, and a big bang at the end that isn’t as satisfying as imagined. Just like something out of the eighties…

I don’t want to seem unfair, I like King, I just hate seeing a good opportunity go to waste, and I hope the next book of his I read will not be as disappointing.

 I rate it Bad (If you haven’t read any of my previous reviews then this will show you how I review books; Awful - Bad - Good - Great - Brilliant)

See you next Monday with Nineteen Eighty-Four, thank you for reading and have a nice day!