The newest Stephen King is always a literary event, and today is no exception. The Bazaar Of Bad Dreams brings us a collection of visits to the dark side – the side of no happy endings. Although my favorite Stephen King creations are his giant 1,000+ pagers where you get lost inside the perilous journey, he tells these little stories very well too. His short stories are always like little scary appetizers that almost always end ambiguously. For you movie-over-books people (nothing wrong with that), they are like the tales in Creepshow – short and eerie, with bad, weird, or worse endings left to your own imagination.
Check out the synopsis and the list of stories below.
Stephen King did it to me again. In less than 5,000 words, he made me think I knew with certainty the innocence or guilt of Jim Trusdale and then 4,000 words later, I was surprised. Or was I? I don’t know. A Death is an easy read with just enough details to give it depth, and ends (no spoilers) leaving you wondering.
This new short story debuts in the March 9th issue of The New Yorker, but you can read it now online for free. A Death tells the story of Jim Trusdale, not the sharpest tool in the shed, who is accused of killing 10-year-old Rebecca Cline on her birthday and stealing her silver dollar. The story is set in 1889 in the Dakotas, before it became part of the United States, as referenced in the story. It’s not a scary story, but one can be filled with horror at the thought of how justice worked in the Old West.
Students of the Unusual™ comic cover used with permission of 3BoysProductions
The Mercuri Bros.™ comic cover used with permission of Prodigal Son Press
