Everything's Eventual: Book Report
...ill Be Carried Away is the third story, about a salesman with a strange hobby who is contemplating suicide. This one has also been published in The New Yorker, and therefore has a more literary feel to it. I liked it, but it isn’t a story that is likely to keep one awake at night, being afraid or even just thinking. The Death of Jack Hamilton is a story about the John Dillinger gang, which is totally outside my area of interest. Actually, I read this story in The New Yorker, and what sticks in my mind most about it is that King mentions a particular spot in Minnesota that happens to be unique to my hometown. If you are remotely interested in Depression-era gangland stories, this one is for you. In the Deathroom is the fifth story in the collection. It’s set in a South American torture chamber, but it doesn’t get nearly as graphic as it probably could. I like this story; it is hopeful in a twisted kind of way. The Little Sisters of Eluria is a short story that follows Roland of Gilead, the hero of King’s wildly popular Dark Tower series. While it doesn’t quite capture the tension of the series (probably because this story is apparently set before those books… therefore you know Roland is going to get out alive), it does have some narrative tension, and the "nuns" of Eluria are certainly memorable. The title story, Everything’s Eventual, is one of my favorites from this collection. It takes a while for just what is going on to become clear, and then the main character is faced with a serious ethical problem. (I’m being deliberately vague in this description because I really don’t want to ruin the story for anyone… in my opinion, though, this is one of the two best stories in the collection.) L.T.’s Theory of Pets is a humorous story about a man whose wife leaves him and then disappears. I found this one to be a fun read, although it becomes a bit more disturbing at the end. And yes, part of the plot is the conflict that the man and his wife had about their pets. The Road Virus Heads North is one of those stories that, to me, came off seeming like an early Stephen King exercise in trying to be scary. Maybe it’s that I’ve read most of his work, but it just didn’t raise my interest, and certainly not my heart rate. It’s a competent story about a painting that comes to life. Lunch at the Gotham Café I liked quite a lot; a divorcing couple agrees to meet at for lunch to talk about divorce arrangements, and things don’t go quite as planned. Again, this story isn’t likely to terrify dedicated Stephen King readers, but it should succeed in entertaining them, at least in terms of the characters. The eleventh story in the collection, That Feeling, You Can Only Say What It Is In French refers to the feeling of déjà vu, and the idea that maybe Hell is just repeating the same actions over and over again. This is a likeable story, but again it isn’t going to scare the horror fiction veteran. 1408 is a basic haunted hotel room… and everything but the characters seemed totally flat to me. While reading through it kept my attention, it certainly didn’t terrify me, horrify me, or even gross me out. If you are really interested in ...