If It Bleeds

by Stephen King

Hardcover, 2020

Status

Available

Call number

813.54

Publication

Scribner (2020), Edition: First Edition, 10th printing, 448 pages

Description

"The four never-before-published novellas in this collection represent horror master King at his finest, using the weird and uncanny to riff on mortality, the price of creativity, and the unpredictable consequences of material attachments. A teenager discovers that a dead friend's cell phone, which was buried with the body, still communicates from beyond the grave in 'Mr. Harrigan's Phone,' which reads like a Twilight Zone episode infused with an EC Comics vibe. In the profoundly moving 'The Life of Chuck,' a series of apocalyptic incidents bear out one character's claim that 'when a man or a woman dies, a whole world falls to ruin.' 'Rat' sees a frustrated writer strike a Faustian bargain to complete his novel, and in the title story, private investigator Holly Gibney, the recurring heroine of King's Bill Hodges trilogy and The Outsider, faces off against a ghoulish television newscaster who vampirically feeds off the anguish he provokes in his audience by covering horrific tragedies"--Publishers Weekly (03/09/2020).… (more)

Media reviews

USA Today

...as classic as his novels are, his shorter fiction has been just as gripping over the years, and includes such classics as "The Body" and "Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption."...King still owns the fright business like none other, but the iconic author will keep you up late at night engrossed

in four tales about our dreams and our frailties.

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— 5 more

Washington Post

...the mid-length narrative suits his talents particularly well, permitting a degree of expansiveness while maintaining a controlled, disciplined approach to the material at hand. The results are stories that cover a surprising amount of emotional territory but can still be read in a sitting....In

“If It Bleeds,” King continues to draw from a rich and varied reservoir of stories. At its best, his work remains deeply empathetic and compulsively readable. May the reservoir never run dry.

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New York Times

The straightforward cadences of King’s voice, paired with his signature sit-down-and-let-me-tell-you-a-story style, were immediately soothing. And the stories he was telling — about the seductions and corruptions of technology, the extremes of beauty and depravity in even the most ordinary

life, the workings of a universe we can never entirely understand — were somehow exactly what I wanted to read right now.... I wouldn’t begrudge any reader refuge in familiar pleasures, least of all now. We all need solace wherever we can find it... As sirens blare outside my Brooklyn window and the headlines grow more apocalyptic by the day, I might start working my way through King’s backlist. He’s good company in the dark.

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Kirkus Reviews

The master of supernatural disaster returns with four horror-laced novellas....King has gone a far piece from the killer clowns and vampires of old, with his monsters and monstrosities taking on far more quotidian forms—which makes them all the scarier. Vintage King: a pleasure for his many fans

and not a bad place to start if you’re new to him.

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Booklist

This set of novellas is thought-provoking, terrifying, and, at times, outright charming, showcasing King’s breadth as a master storyteller. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: King’s love of short fiction makes this a powerful addition to his megapopular oeuvre and fans will be on the hunt.

Publisher's Weekly

The four never-before-published novellas in this collection represent horror master King at his finest, using the weird and uncanny to riff on mortality, the price of creativity, and the unpredictable consequences of material attachments.... King clearly loves his characters, and the care with

which he develops their personalities draws the reader ineluctably into their deeply unsettling experiences. This excellent collection delivers exactly the kind of bravura storytelling King’s readers expect.

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