Different Seasons : Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption; Apt Pupil; The Body; The Breathing Method

by Stephen King

1983

Status

Available

Publication

Signet (1983)

Description

From the Magical Pen of Stephen King, Four Mesmerizing Novellas… “Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption” An unjustly imprisoned convict seeks a strange and startling revenge…the basis for the Best Picture Academy Award nominee The Shawshank Redemption. “Apt Pupil” Todd Bowden is one of the top students in his high school class and a typical American sixteen-year-old—until he becomes obsessed about the dark and deadly past of an older man in town. The inspiration for the film Apt Pupil from Phoenix Pictures. “The Body” Four rambunctious young boys plunge through the fa#65533;ade of a small town and come face-to-face with life, death, and intimations of their own mortality. The film Stand By Me is based on this novella. “The Breathing Method” A disgraced woman is determined to triumph over death.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member jseger9000
Different Seasons is a showcase for Stephen King. Four diverse novellas, only one of them the kind of horror tale he is synonymous with (and it may be the weakest of the bunch).

The book is divided into four 'seasons': Hope Springs Eternal (Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption), Summer of
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Corruption (Apt Pupil), Fall From Innocence (The Body) and A Winter's Tale (The Breathing Method). The tones of the stories alternate between light and dark, with Apt Pupil perhaps being the darkest thing he has ever written.

Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption is a mini-masterpiece of a tale. A tale of hope set in a prison, dealing with a man whose spirit remains free despite all obstacles. I'd originally read it years before the legendary movie, and was worried that it wouldn't be quite the same reading it now. Luckily King's narrative holds up. Even knowing what was coming, the story telling was as gripping as ever.

Apt Pupil. I was almost dreading rereading Apt Pupil. A well written but morally disturbing tale of the mutually parasitic relationship between a young California golden boy and the Nazi war criminal he has blackmailed. It is an excellent dark thriller, but it is so powerfully written and so pitch black, you are kept in suspense while feeling the need to cleanse yourself of the story being told. I remember the 'Bachman book' Rage felt a little like this, but Apt Pupil provokes a much stronger reaction and is a better book overall.

Third up is The Body which was famously (and very faithfully) adapted into the movie Stand By Me. This is Stephen King’s coming of age tale of four boys in 1960 who head out through the woods to find the body of a boy that was struck by a train.

Though all four of the stories are top-notch Stephen King, I believe I enjoyed The Body the most. King so expertly captures the bittersweet feeling of the boys, two of which at least understand that they are going through a life changing experience; that things will not be the same from here on.

The Breathing Method is the closest to Stephen King’s ‘typical’ supernatural spook story. This one (appropriately dedicated to Peter Straub) seems to be King’s answer to Straub’s Chowder Society (see Straub's Ghost Story), as it deals with a group of old men that belong to a mysterious ‘gentleman’s club’ where they tell each other stories.

Earlier I called The Breathing Method the weakest story here. It is, but please don't take that to mean that the story isn't worth reading. It is a good read that only pales because the other three stories shine so brightly.

This is the book I would loan to someone who looked down on King without reading any of his work. He shows that while he can write some very scary spook stories, that isn't why he sells so many books. Each of the four stories is King writing at the top of the game. There's a reason three of the four stories have been turned into movies and they are three of the best screen adaptations he's had.
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LibraryThing member BookConcierge
This is a collection of four short stories/novellas, with seasonal divisions:
Hope Springs Eternal – Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption
Summer of Corruption – Apt Pupil
Fall from Innocence – The Body
A Winter’s Tale – The Birthing Method

In the Afterword King writes: Although “Where
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do you get your ideas?” has always been the question I’m most frequently asked … the runner-up is undoubtedly this one: “Is horror all you write?” When I say it isn’t, it’s hard to tell if the questioner seems relieved or disappointed.

This was the first Stephen King book published which wasn’t specifically in the horror genre, and his publisher was hesitant. Of course, since publication, two of these stories have been immortalized in very popular films, so apparently readers WOULD buy and appreciate a non-horror novel by King. Make no mistake, however; the hallmarks of King’s writing are still here: tight plotting, graphically vivid scenes, memorable characters, great dialogue. There were times as I was reading that would I simply stop and exclaim aloud, “Damn, he can write!”

The two stories which have not been filmed were the two I found most disturbing. Apt Pupil shows two characters – a young boy and a frail old man – bound by a secret and a shared passion for inflicting pain. I was horrified, and mesmerized. I certainly don’t think it’s a coincidence that King gives his young character the same initials as Ted Bundy!

In The Breathing Method King has the members of an exclusive gentleman’s club meeting regularly to share stories. Their tradition is to save a particularly chilling horror story for their Christmas meeting. At one such meeting one member tells the story of a young, unmarried woman in 1935 who is determined to have her baby. The ending is tragic and horrific and disturbing.

I think my favorite of the four stories was The Body because of his descriptions of four boys’ adventure in the woods.
There’s something horrible and fascinating about the way dark comes to the woods, its coming unsoftened by headlights or streetlights or houselights or neon. It comes with no mothers’ voices, calling for their kids to leave off and come on in now, to herald it. If you’re used to the town, the coming of the dark in the woods seems more like a natural disaster than a natural phenomenon; it rises like the Castle River rises in the spring.
I couldn’t help but think of all the times when I was a child that my brother and I would join with friends to take off into the woods on our own – no parents hovering over us. Like the four boys in this story we had learned how to make a fire and find shelter, knew the plants and streams and hiding places of that environment from endless hours, days, seasons, years of exploring. And we had the capacity to scare ourselves silly with our own imaginations. Like most kids our imaginations were far more real to us than the actual dangers we might have encountered. And that, in a nutshell, is why I love reading fiction in general, and King in particular.
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LibraryThing member LisaMaria_C
King in an afterword describes these four novellas of about 20 to 35 thousand words as stories of "an off-beat prison-break, an old man and a young boy locked up in a gruesome relationship based on mutual parasitism, a quartet of country boys on a journey of discovery, and an off the wall horror
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story about a young woman determined to give birth to her child no matter what." The first three of those stories have been made into films ("The Body" into Stand by Me) and aren't even horror, even if they each have horrific elements. All in all though I think this is some of the best work by King and shows there's a lot more to him than a writer of poltergeist-like adolescents, haunted hotels, vampire-ridden towns and possessed cars.

Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption is that prison story, and the most moving story I've ever read by King. In his way, Andy Dufresne, it's subject, is the most heroic figure ever written by King, an author who usually serves up very ordinary men to center extraordinary events upon. He's the "unbowed" man in the poem Invictus who can walk across a prison yard as a prisoner as if clothed in a suit in a cocktail party--who keeps his soul and dignity intact. The story is told by his friend "Red," that man in prison who can get you almost anything for a price--and one of those things is a poster of Rita Hayworth for Andy and there hangs a tale--one spanning 27 years that despite dark elements is the sunniest and most hopeful story I've read by King. Five Stars

Apt Pupil is that story of an old man and young boy in a "gruesome relationship." Thirteen-year-old Todd Bowden, an "all-American kid," discovers this 76-year old man in his neighborhood is actually a Nazi war criminal, Kurt Dussander. So does he expose him? No, he goes to him and extorts him into telling him all the gory details, because the holocaust and the Nazis thrill him. I thought most of this tale chilling and brilliant, but I think the impact is blunted by King inserting a serial killer subplot I think is unnecessary and I'd have thought it more effective if things had unraveled otherwise, and spoken more of the ordinary nature of evil. (I also thought a certain dream of the boy over the top--unnecessary to demonstrate this is one creepy kid that even a Nazi death camp commandant can rightly call a "monster" soon after meeting him.) Four Stars

The Body is about four 12-year-old boys in late Summer of 1960--and friendship. How it could drag you down or buoy you up. It's an appropriate story to represent Fall--because it is autumnal in the nostalgic way of a mature man recollecting boyhood as well as bittersweet. There's Gordy, the first person narrator who is an obvious stand-in for Stephen King, the crazy half-blind and deaf Teddy, "feebie" Vern, and above all Chris--who King makes you care about a great deal. Just as moving in its way as "Shawshank Redemption." (And I found amusing the references to other King tales--such as Cujo). Five Stars

The Breathing Method is the shortest story, and the only one that is a genre horror tale. I wasn't as fond of this one as the others, and not just because this is where I finally got irked by King's gazillionth idiot characterization of Republicans. (Memo to Mr King: Republican does not equal ignorant bigoted bully and lots of us I'm sure are among your readers.) I thought the ending of the core story really ludicrous. On the positive side, I thought Sandra Stanfield, a single pregnant woman in the 1930s, one of King's stronger and more appealing female characters. I also loved the frame to the story. The tale is embedded as being told in the same upscale New York City's gentleman's club first found in "The Man Who Would Not Shake Hands" from Skeleton Crew. A brownstone with an unaging servant named Stevens in which you can find in the library novels and poems you can't find outside the club, with many rooms and "entrances and exits" into other worlds. Three Stars
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LibraryThing member OscarWilde87
Different Seasons is a collection of four novellas by Stephen King that the author himself thought hard to publish because of their length as they are somewhere in the range between a short story and a novel. Each story is assigned to a different season, which I thought was quite a nice idea to
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structure the collection. I will review each of the four novellas separately to do them more justice.

"Rita Hayworth & Shawshank Redemption"
The first novella in Different Seasons is “Rita Hayworth & Shawshank Redemption“. Narrated by protagonist Andy Dufresne's fellow prison inmate Red, the story gives an account of Andy Dufresne's life in prison. Dufresne, a banker, was convicted for the double murder of his wife and her lover, which he claimed to be innocent of. As readers we follow his rough start of rape and abuse in prison to his final ascent to power in the hierarchy of the penitentiary.

"Apt Pupil"
"Apt Pupil", the second novella in the book, is centered around protagonist Todd Bowden, initially a good student and generally a curious boy. The story starts with Todd confronting German immigrant Arthur Denker at the latter's doorstep with his Nazi past. Arthur Denker is actually Kurt Dussander, a former SS officer and Nazi war criminal. While everything starts with Todd blackmailing Dussander into telling him stories about Dussander's role as a commander in a concentration camp the relationship slowly starts to shift to Dussander being the one pressuring Todd Bowden. I found the exploration of the abyss of the human mind at the example of the two characters in this story particularly frightening and seeming all too real and plausible. The novella gave me shudders at various points and made me come away highly thoughtful and profoundly disturbed after each reading session.

"The Body"
This story is a rare case where I have seen the movie first and read the story afterwards. The movie is actually the reason I wanted to read the story and bought this collection. I have to say that I liked the book as much as I liked the movie as it expresses a certain youthful carelessness and freedom which I sometimes miss being an adult. So what is the story about? Summed up briefly, four friends hear about a dead body in the woods near the fictional town of Castle Rock, Maine. They decide to go and see it and in addition to relating their adventure the story explores the boys' different personal backgrounds. The whole story is told in retrospect by one of the boys who was twelve at the time and is now a grown-up and the only one of the four who is still alive.

"The Breathing Method"
The fourth novella in the collection is probably the most classical King horror. On the surface it is about an unmarried woman, Sandra, who is pregnant. As the story is set in the 1930s this a big issue as society is still very critical about 'illegitimate' children. Her doctor, however, is quite forward-thinking and treats her like any other patient, maybe even better as he admires her courage and her way of dealing with her situation. He suggests a breathing method, which was also unusual in the thirties, to help her through childbirth. When on a wintry December night Sandra is in the final stages of her labor she takes a cab to the hospital. Right in front of the hospital the cab crashes into an ambulance and Sandra is decapitated in the accident. However, her body mysteriously still continues to breathe until her doctor can deliver the child. Oh, and her head is still able to thank the doctor, in case you were wondering. On another level, the story might be about a mysterious men's club where this story within the story is narrated on a night before Christmas. I have not quite figured out what to make of this, though.

I enjoyed this collection of novellas a lot. As I am generally drawn by King's stories my rating of four stars might be a bit biased, but then again stories in this book have been turned into quite successful movies. I found Stephen King's assessment of his own writing quite witty and maybe an explanation for my (and so many other people's) literary cravings:
"Most of [my novels] have been plain fiction for plain folks, the literary equivalent of a Big Mac and a large fries from McDonald's."
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LibraryThing member Molave
Without the usual haunted cars, possessed animals, and typically garish Halloween tricks for which he is known, Stephen King's real talent comes to the fore in this anthology of four very American novellas.

Given its eye for nostalgic detail and sensitivity towards what matters most to the average
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Joe, this book was a joy to read.
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LibraryThing member RoboJonelle
I grew up reading Stephen King and this collection is the one I always come back too. Stephen King is, of course, the "king" of horror, but when he writes about life, just how it is, it's brilliant. The way it's set it is quite clever-with each season representing it's own story, own characters and
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own over all "feeling". But there is an overall theme within the book that King nails: the art of how different people grow through out their lives. This really brings the reader on a "one on one" feeling with the characters in all the stories. How a man can go from the lowest point in his life to have hope again in "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption". How a man can go from forgetting a terrible past to eventually, in a sense, going crazy with it in "Apt Pupil". How four boys in (one of my favorite reads of all time) "The Body" can grow up by joining together to do something that may seem silly. And how a gentleman's club might make you realize something in yourself in "The Breathing Method". Such great writing and stories, that even when I think about them now, I crave to read them again. Good for the Stephen King fan, but great for anybody who just loves a good short story.
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LibraryThing member SlySionnach
While many know Stephen King for his well-known horror novels like It or Pet Sematary, it seems a lot of people forget that he can write amazing stories about the horror that could be lurking in the people we sit next to on the train. This collection contains "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank
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Redemption," "The Body," "Apt Pupil," and "The Breathing Method" set to different seasons (Spring, Summer, Winter and Fall).

My favorite short stories were "The Body" and "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redeption." King has a way of writing that puts you right into the novel and makes each character feel like your best friend. Like you're sitting next to them on a barstool as they tell you the stories of their youth which are, most of the time, believable. Who says that Gordie Lachance isn't relating to you that one time he got the scare of his life? Or that Red isn't telling you another prison yarn?

"Apt Pupil" was, frankly, disturbing. It's hard to believe that a young boy could get so enamoured with the Nazi Movement that he goes as far as he does. I will say, though, that I thought the ending was fairly obvious as soon as a certain character was brought into the novel.

"The Breathing Method" involves a group of older men who get together and tell stories. The story within the story that ends up being the main focus is another creepy, disturbing story that focuses on a pregnant woman in the 1930s.

I love King's blatant horror with vampires and telekinetic girls and clowns-that-aren't-clowns but I have to admit that it's these stories that make him a fantastic writer in my eyes. I think anyone who's seen the movies or just wants a really good story should pick up this book.
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LibraryThing member Lukerik
A really fine collection. Any other author would have published these separately and called them major novels.
LibraryThing member bekkil1977
"Different Seasons" is probably my favorite collection of SK novellas.
"Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption" is so beautiful. Andy Dufrense is sent to Shawshank for murdering his cheating wife and her lover, only he's innocent. He meets Red, who actually is guilty of murder. Red is the go to
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guy who can get you things in prison, and over the years he gets a few things for Andy: rock polishing tools, a poster of Rita Hayworth. The ending is just brilliant.
"Apt Pupil" is quite frightening, actually. A teenage boy named Todd figures out his neighbor was a Nazi during WW2 and insists he describe to him, in graphic detail, all the atrocities he committed.
"The Body" is the one the movie "Stand By Me" is based on. It's actually a very sweet story about childhood friendships. Four young boys who are all misfits in some way decide to go hunt for a dead body rumored to be in the woods by the railroad tracks. Supposedly SK saw a dead body when he was just a kid and was traumatized by it, and that gave him the basis for this story.
And finally. "Breathing Method", about a woman who is determined to give birth to her baby no matter what. All in all a solid collection of stories.
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LibraryThing member wyvernfriend
I've resisted reading a lot of King stories but these four were very interesting.

The first was Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption I've seen a few times and I know several people for whom it's a favourite, and the novella is also an interesting read. The story of a prison escape is good.

Apt
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Pupil, the second story has also been filmed, it's one I haven't seen but it's an interesting story of a older man, a man who was in charge of a concentration camp during the Nazi era and a young man who finds him and mines him for information, the pair of them feed of each other, and not in a good way.

The Body was the source for the film Stand By Me and is also an interesting story of four friend during a summer where they discover the whereabouts of a body. During this journey they find out more about themselves. The asides from the older author are also interesting.

The last story, The Breathing Method, had potential for further stories in the style of the Black Widower series by Isaac Asimov. A man is introduced to a storytelling group of men and finds himself interested in the group and gives some snippets of stories before recounting a maternity story that finishes with a gruesome twist.

All in all an interesting series of stories and I might try a few more, I'll have to pick the brains of a Stephen King fan or two.
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LibraryThing member Bookmarque
An excellent collection of novellas that break free of King's supernatural / horror pigeon hole. The most famous two are Shawshank and The Body (Stand By Me) because of their movie adaptations. They are also probably the best of the four, although Apt Pupil really opened my eyes up about a lot of
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things when I first read it at the tender age of 14. Very powerful tales of human emotion and relationships.
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LibraryThing member RavinElise
I believe this book is a must read not only for King fans, but for book fans in general. I think that everyone, it least once in their lives, needs to read the story 'Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption'.
LibraryThing member joshuakennison
a must read. Contains the original 'Shawshank Redemption', 'Apt Pupil'. And also a nice little horrifying short story called 'The Breathing Method', which will leave your skin crawling a little.
LibraryThing member Grandeplease
Not the traditional horror for which Stephen King is known, yet dark all the same. The best of Stephen King or at least very close.
LibraryThing member santhony
Four novellas comprise this work, most notably Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption which was adapted into a truly magnificent motion picture.
LibraryThing member atlaswinks
One of my favorite works by King. Two of the novellas have only a few elements of horror and by reading these you can see that King could have been a successful writer in mainstream fiction.
LibraryThing member Zachry23
This was my first read of any of Stephen King's. Stephen King is a little different than what I'm accustomed to reading(see my library), but it was a very enjoyable going down this new road. I only read Rita Hayworth & the Shawshank Redemption and The Body. The Shawshank Redemption was excellent,
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while The Body was good too. I plan on reading more of King now, and will probably next try something with a little more Horror! AHHHHHH!!!!
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LibraryThing member Suso711
My favorite Stephen King book - even though it's a collection of novellas.
LibraryThing member karieh
I loved these stories when I first read them (ESPECIALLY) "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Remeption". Who knew (3) of the (4) stories would become movies - and that (2) of those would become classics?
LibraryThing member andyray
The four nouvellas comprising this book are excellent, and three of them were made into films. There is an afterword by SK where he says "nouvellas are hard to place" and "I may not write great literature, but my stories have weight, and they do! Even after watching the movies and reading the book
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twice, I'm still drawn into SK's world and I DO NOT WANT TO LEAVE. Maybe that's the mark of a great storyteller, eh?
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LibraryThing member labwriter
My ALL TIME FAVORITE Stephen King story: "The Body," made into the movie, Stand By Me. Stephen King "gets" 12-year-old boys better than any other writer around. I once read an interview with him where he said, "There will never be another story like "The Body." I assume he meant that he would never
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write another one like it. I'd like to know more about what he meant, although I think I know what he was driving at.
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LibraryThing member smully
My favorite Stephen King by far. I do enjoy his more typical "horror" stuff, but this is an enjoyable shift that showcases his ability for more traditional fiction and the art of the novella (which he executes quite well). I was drawn in by the frankness and intimacy of the story telling. And the
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recurring theme of family was nice continuity. In "The Body" we get a glimpse of how 4 boys' friendship at age 12 was stronger than any familial bond. And how those bonds faded but remained valued. "Apt Pupil" delves into the psyche of a war criminal and a sociopathic youth. The elder adopting a controlling father role with evil intent and manipulation only to be betrayed by the even colder "son" figure. "Rita Hayworth and The Shawshank Redemption".....I loved this story before it became a movie. The unsinkable Andy Dufresne and his connection as strong as blood with Red, a man who couldn't be more different from Andy on the outside. The last story, "The Breathing Method" gives an unusual look at the bond between mother and child and how the desire to protect one's young can literally be stronger than the call of death. King is the consummate storyteller here- evoking questions, satisfying with answers, and reamining interesting.
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LibraryThing member goofyfootfeather
The first Stephen King book I read [I think] and the one that proved that King is a genius, to me. How can someone write such diverse novellas - books that all became some of the most powerful movies of all time?; Stand By Me [The Body], Apt Pupil, [Rita Hayworth and the ] Shawshank Redemption.
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Only The Breathing Method remains somewhat of a cold wet slap in the face with a half frozen salmon.
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LibraryThing member Anagarika-Sean
Vintage King short stories. All four were good, but I preferred Apt Pupil. It was an excellent read. One of his best shorter ones.
LibraryThing member CayenneEllis
Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption:

I've actually never seen the movie, so I came into this with no preconceived notions - and I expected Rita Hayworth to be one of the characters because I was unfamiliar with the person herself. Whoops! That said, I really enjoyed this story. I think King
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has a great skill for foreshadowing without giving the point away - I did not expect the ending at all, much less the method(s) of escape involved. I also really loved the characters in this one, especially Red. I happened to think the length of this novella is perfect (an opinion that only becomes important when compared with the next story.)

Apt Pupil:

Oh, how I hated this story, let me count the ways. This. Story. Drug. It was a good 130 pages longer than it needed to be! Although the ending surprised me, and was a good one, and although there were several twists along the way, all that shined in this story came long after I had stopped caring about the characters. This from the girl who adored King's 1000 page epic Under the Dome. This story was just incredibly tedious and overlong. That said, I did enjoy the concept, Dussander's character and the ending, I just wish it had come 100 pages sooner.

The Body:

This was as good as everyone claims it is! Although I don't tend to like growing up stories and am always wary when King ventures from his well trod horror niche, I found this story to be a grand success. All four of the boys were well developed (especially Chris) and it all tied together very neatly. The ending was excellent without being shocking. This is an average story of average boys on an unusual adventure. It didn't need the regular grand ending that King provides and I'm glad he recognized that.

The Breathing Method:

Although i loved this story, it was kind of all over the place. Was it about the club or about the pregnancy? King references this in the afterword of this edition as a strong point of the story - I thought the whole thing could have easily worked as two separate, excellent stories, and maybe in the process made two short stories (which, as is mentioned in the afterword, are much easier to deal with) versus one kind of rambling novella. That said, I think, if King was set on making this one story instead of two, it should have been longer. The main story got the attention it deserved, but the frame of it, which was just as interesting, was sadly neglected.

In conclusion, is this collection worth reading? Absolutely. But, unless you know what you're in for, don't trust the other reviews and avoid Apt Pupil!
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Awards

Locus Award (Nominee — 1983)
World Fantasy Award (Nominee — Collection / Anthology — 1983)

Original language

English

Original publication date

1982-08-27

Physical description

6.9 inches

ISBN

0451167538 / 9780451167538

Barcode

1601000
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