King’s latest short story collection, You Like It Darker, came out last Tuesday, his first since 2015’s The Bazaar of Bad Dreams (2020’s If It Bleeds in a collection of four novellas, rather than short fiction, and while there are some novella-length works in You Like It Darker, there’s just something particularly wonderful about a new collection of short stories). 

I have enjoyed reading You Like It Darker over this past week and while there are plenty of ideas I’m still sorting through and connections that I’m looking forward to digging into a bit more deeply, and we’ll absolutely be circling back to some of these in the coming weeks. But int he meantime, here are a few (spoiler-free) preliminary thoughts: 

• In “Two Talented Bastids” and “The Dreamers,” the lines drawn between Castle Rock and Dark Score Lake further develop the literary geography of King’s Western Maine, including specific reference to Mike Noonan’s house in Bag of Bones (1998)
• “Willie the Weirdo” is an excellent companion piece to King’s earlier story, “Gramma” (in 1985’s Skeleton Crew), positing fascinating questions about power, history, and horror through the eyes of (two very different) children 
• King continues to echo and respond to masters of the Gothic and horror traditions, with his riff on Flannery O’Connor in “On Slide Inn Road” and the Arthur Machen vibes in “The Dreamers,” reminding readers that there is always new life in the old stories, whose themes have lost none of their power 
• “Laurie” and “Rattlesnakes” expand King’s body of work set in Florida, with the influence of Duma Key (2008) particularly strong in “Rattlesnakes.” Both “Laurie” and “Rattlesnakes” also delve into the dangerous wildlife (but not quite “creature feature”) narrative, providing a passing opportunity to think about habitat destruction, human impacts on wildlife, and the circumstances that bring the two into contact with one another 
• It’s great to catch up with Cujo’s (1981) Vic Trenton again in “Rattlesnakes,” to see how his life has moved forward and who he has become. This story has a complicated and satisfying mix of 3 Hs: heartbreak, horror, and hope
• While there are specifically identified settings in “The Fifth Step” and “Finn,” there are also strong themes of horrific chance and bad luck, highlighting the truly terrifying things that can happen anywhere, to anyone, for no reason at all, which is a tough scare to shake

The cover of You Like It Darker just may be my favorite King cover: a rugged island that, on closer inspection, reveals itself as an enormous alligator, whose body extends and curls around the book jacket, including the tip of his tail in the inner back flap. The moody hues of sky and water, mirroring one another. Those beautifully jagged “K”s and the clean lines of author and title, contrasted with the more unruly font of “Stories” below the main title. 

What’s not to like?