Author: Stephen King
Published in 2010
Page count: 416 pages
Personal rating: 2 stars
In short
This is a collection of four novella's, one more lenghtier than the other, all dealing with retribution.
1922 tells the tale about a farmer who kills his wife with the help of his son and what becomes of him when his wife doesn't quiet down as easily as he had expected.
Big driver is about a woman raped and left for dead and goes in search of the culprit herself.
Fair extension recaptures the infamous deal with the devil.
Good marriage is a horror story for those who think they know their significant other and find out they don't. A woman's world is turned upside down when she discovers the secret her husband has held all those years.
My two cents
I have rated this collection of stories rather low when you compare them with other stephen king novels I've read.
First of all I'm not a big fan of his short fiction. He's a master of spinning the thread of suspense and surprise when he writes a novel 300 page or more. Few can follow in his footsteps. His short fiction doesn't live up to that, so in giving this only two stars, so stating I'm finding it okay but not terribly good, is partly a statement to this novels of his that our superbly and outstanding.
But second, I found this novella's to be repetitive. All feature a hidden persona inside the main characters mind and when I didn't mind that coming up in 1922 because it being the first of the collection, it did annoy me when it showed it's face in the other stories.
Big Driver felt like a story told too many times already. I just saw a movie (I spit on your grave) which tells more or less the same story. Also Last House on the Left brushes the same subject and is mentioned in the story.
Fair Extension made me feel uncomfortable. It lacks a moral and I had no idea I needed one when reading that kind of story. Streeter just seemed really really bad, no matter what his best friend had done to him all those years ago. Envy can be a treacherous ally.
Good Marriage was the story I liked the best. It's something we are all afraid of, not knowing the person we love the most.
