Volume 33, Number 20 · December 18, 1986
Gulp!
By Thomas R. Edwards
It
by Stephen King
Viking, 1138 pp., $22.95
Whirlwind
by James Clavell
William Morrow, 1147 pp., $22.95
Stephen King's books contain much that is childish, even infantile, but that alone is no scandal. We have all been children, and we hold the hidden signs of that ordeal—even a serious interest in art begins in childish make-believe. King seems to have no other subject than the ways by which childhood conceives of itself, and his resolute loyalty to that subject seems finally a little sad. It is also rewarding: at thirty-nine he is said to have sold fifty million copies of his twenty books.[*] Yet his work avoids a cynical or exploitative note. I would judge that he believes in what he does, that he writes not just to make money but to exorcise demons, his and ours.
Review, 3473 words
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