A Book A Week

"I don't mean to scare you, but sometimes a scare is the only lesson that works."

For nearly half a century, author Stephen King has delighted readers with his particular brand of horror. I've been enjoying his books for as long as I could stomach them. Some of his more nefarious creations (I'm looking at you, Pennywise) scared me when I read them and have frightened me ever since. His novel Later has been waiting on my shelf for nearly a year. Be it my usual procrastination or perhaps a hesitance to submit myself to the kind of terror only Stephen King can provide, I've waited until I had the perfect moment to read it. Cold weather and the seasonal sickness that comes with it meant I finally had ample time to read it over the weekend. 

Young Jaime Conklin has a secret, something only he and his single mother know about. His mother has enough struggles to worry about without Jaime's secret. She longs for him to just be normal. But Jaime is anything but ordinary. You see, Jaime can see dead people. When he first revealed this gift to his mother, she was skeptical, but Jamie knows things that he wouldn't otherwise know. Only by communicating with the dead is he able to glean such information. For better or worse, the boy has had to learn to live with this curious ability.

Jaime is pretty used to seeing dead people now. At least, he's as used to it as one could be considering the abnormality of it all. He still gets jarred a bit when he sees the battered remains of someone who met their demise in a particularly gruesome method, but he's come to accept his ability for what it is. Jaime has learned to harness his gift to do good for others. He helps a widower recover jewelry from his late wife, he helps a late author reveal the final installment in his anticipated series, and now he's about to help the NYPD try to stop a murderer from continuing his spree from beyond the grave. For all of his good intentions, however, nothing can prepare Jaime for the darkness that he's about to unleash. 

Every new novel we get from Stephen King seems like a gift to the world. Later is no exception. It is a testament to his mastery as an author that King continues to produce fiction that thrills and delights as well or even better than he did decades ago. The power of King's writing has always rested in his penchant for crafting deeply developed characters amongst the wild scenarios that he places them in. The coming-of-age elements that permeate this novel only help to ground the young main character into the more supernatural events that unfold. In that way, Later plays like a cross between The Sixth Sense and The Wonder Years. At a fairly brief couple hundred pages, the novel expertly balances between both building the character and thrilling the reader. It comes together into a novel that is as unputdownable as it is emotionally satisfying. King continues to fire on all cylinders, gifting us with the privilege to experience storytelling as only he can convey. 

For more information visit the author's website, Amazon, and Goodreads. 

(2022, 51)