 | Stephen King reads Stephen King, and he does a good job
rating: 5
Here are two short stories ("In the Deathroom" and "Lunch at the Gotham Café") written and read by Stephen King, and presented on audio CD.
"In the Deathroom"
This story takes place in a Central American dictatorship and pits Fletcher, a New York Times reporter, against the head of the local secret police, who intends to torture and then kill Fletcher. Fletcher's chances of survival are approximately zero, and the major question seems to concern the way in which he will die.
There is nothing supernatural involved in this story. All the horror comes from a man-made situation and features simple human evil. What kind of people can torture human beings and find enjoyment in it?
Incidentally, I'm fairly sure that the background for this story is Stephen King's outrage over the rape and murder of three American nuns in El Salvador in 1980. There is a certain anger in his writing that is understandable when taking that real-life occurrence into account.
"Lunch at the Gotham Café"
In this second story Steven Davis' wife Diane has left him abruptly with no warning and he finds himself in a messy divorce. He discovers how desperately he wants Diane back and then he discovers how much Diane hates his guts. On top of it all he gives up smoking, going cold turkey from between 20 and 40 cigarettes a day to zero, and is suffering from nicotine withdrawal both physically and psychologically, as well as insomnia. He's a complete mess.
A luncheon meeting is suggested by Diane's lawyer, and Steven Davis wants so badly to see Diane again that he goes to the meeting against the advice of his own lawyer. Lunch at the Gotham Café starts off badly with Steven and Diane tearing into each other emotionally. And then things go completely crazy, in a horrible and totally unexpected way.
Again, there is no supernatural involved, just plain old human insanity, including the kinds of insanity commonly known as love and hate. It could happen to you or me.
Both of these stories are very good. They both feature the standard Stephen King ingredients: very believable, fairly ordinary, people, suddenly confronted with a very horrible situation, a situation way beyond the horrors most of us will ever encounter. We empathize with these people and root for them, although we know that they may not survive the horror they've encountered.
Hearing Stephen King read these stories himself is an added bonus. You can hear that he really believes in what he has written, and he thus invites you to join him.
Highly recommended.
Both of these stories are included in the book "Everything's Eventual", along with 12 other short stories by Stephen King. If you dislike audio books or if you want to save money then that is obviously the better deal.
These two short stories plus one additional one (also read by Stephen King) are also available in audio on "Blood and Smoke". If you do like audio books then "Blood and Smoke" is actually a better deal. ("Blood and Smoke" is also available as an audio download.)
Rennie Petersen
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