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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Thursday, March 21, 2002

BOOK REVIEW
'King of Creep' adds personal touch to stories

By Deirdre Donahue
USA Today

"Everything's Eventual" by Stephen King; Scribner, 459 pages, $28
In his new collection of short stories, just out this week, Stephen King ladles out a compelling hodgepodge of styles, themes and personal details. Among the 14 stories collected in "Everything's Eventual," there are a few so brilliantly creepy that some readers will find their brain dendrites still wigged out long after they have finished the book — always the sign of something weirdly wonderful. And then there are stories that, frankly, qualify as labor to get through.

For his ravenous fans, the most interesting element in the book is the personal asides that the "King of Creep" includes. For example, where the inspiration for certain stories came from, how he evaluates his own work. (He admits his judgment is spotty: A short story he considers "humdrum," "The Man in the Black Suit," won the O. Henry Award. It's a show-stopper that mixes terror and emotion.)

He touches on being famous: Having fans, "Constant Readers," he enjoys. Being hounded in public after publishing "Riding the Bullet" as an e-book bothered him, because no one talked about whether the story was any good. The world fixated on whether it was selling and the future of publishing. King suspects many who downloaded the story didn't actually read it.

The title tale is a standout and illuminates King's ability to convey the utter misery of being a pimpled teenager with few prospects. Dinky is a high school dropout who works at a supermarket where he is regularly bullied.

But Dinky has been touched by the divine fire of genius. He can kill people with a mental ability to transmit symbols and words. He falls into the grip of a mysterious man in a Mercedes who provides him with all the creature comforts a young man might want. It's the emotional touches that strengthen this tale of soul-selling.

A more subtle tale involves a lonely gourmet food salesman who collects the graffiti found in public toilets, grasping its folklore value. Depressed, he intends to kill himself in a Motel 6 outside Lincoln, Neb.

King calls "L.T.'s Theory of Pets" his favorite story in the collection. It mixes murder and marriage, but to this reader it lacks a coherent ending. Well, King himself admits he's not the best judge of his own work, but he sure can write.