Stephen King’s Castle Rock story “It Grows On You” (in Nightmares & Dreamscapes, 1993) engages with some of the themes previously explored in “Mrs. Todd’s Shortcut” and “Uncle Otto’s Truck” (both in Skeleton Crew, 1985). The Newalls, who own the house at the heart of the story, are from “away” and while they live in Castle Rock, they do their business elsewhere, with Joe Newall running his mill in neighboring Gates Falls and his wife Cora doing all their shopping out of town as well. Like Uncle Otto’s Cresswell, the Newall house is a familiar fixture, though one that remains largely unknowable. 

The Newall house is always growing, with a new wing or addition going up, whether the Newalls need the room or not (they don’t, particularly not after they’re dead and the house keeps on building). In addition its connection with other King Castle Rock-based stories, “It Grows on You” also shares some common ground with the Marsten House of ‘Salem’s Lot (1975) and King’s screenplay for the ABC miniseries Rose Red (2002), which features a house that similarly keeps growing and hides a wealth of dark secrets, many of which are intertwined with the lives and legacy of the family who built it. 

In “It Grows On You,” Gary Paulson joins some of the old timers at Brownie’s Store, asking “Who is building the new wing on that Christly Newall house?” (171). The Newalls themselves are long gone and the families who have periodically moved into it over the years have suffered misfortune and grief, before moving out again. But the seemingly abandoned house is growing once more, this time in the immediate aftermath of the death of Dana Roy, one of the Castle Rock old timers who had an inexplicable experience at the Newall place as a small child. Gary Paulson knows some of these secrets and keeps them to himself, just as he keeps his own secret about catching a glimpse of Cora Newall one night near the house, an experience which has haunted him through his long life. Gary dies not long after Dana and “The day after [Gary] is laid to rest in Homeland, a new cupola starts to go up on the new wing of the Newall house” (178). In both cases, the deaths of Castle Rock residents with a connection to the house—however fleeting or long ago—seem to feed the house, as it draws power from the very same people and place from which its builders and residents intentionally distanced themselves.

“It Grows On You” also paints a dismal picture of Castle Rock. Storefronts are shuttered and business has moved elsewhere. The old timers at Brownie’s are “old men who have, for the most part, seen their children go away to more profitable places” (171), leaving no one to carry the place forward into the future. And there’s no hope in sight: “the last couple of years things have been worse than ever—it seems the whole goddam town is dying” (171). 
Gary has some thoughts on why this might be and “He feels he would like to sermonize on the evil of time and perhaps even the evil of certain places, and explain why Castle Rock is now like a dark tooth which is finally ready to fall out” (176-7). This notion of the “bad place” is ubiquitous in the larger Gothic tradition and in King’s work, from Jerusalem’s Lot to the Overlook Hotel and beyond. In the Hulu series Castle Rock (2018-2019), Henry Deaver (played by Andre Holland) hits on this same idea, musing that “It wasn’t me. It was this place. That’s what we say.”

The phrase “it grows on you” has some thought-provoking meanings that are deeply tied to a sense of place and identity as well. It carries a sense of complacency, that once one gets used to a place, a person, or the way things are, it’s easier to go along, get along, and not ask too many questions, even if it means looking the other way when something terrible happens. While the Newall house is generally “considered to be an affront to the sensibilities and an offense to the eye … Sooner or later you had to look, and as time went by, it got to be sooner for most people … the Newall place grew on you” (166). It is a core, recognized landmark in the community, complete with its mysteries and secrets, and regardless of how the people of Castle Rock may feel about it, it looms over the town’s collective reality (once again echoing ‘Salem’s Lot‘s Marsten House).

There is something inherently powerful and dark in these places and in Castle Rock. At the end of “It Grows On You,” it seems like that cycle of darkness might be drawing to a close. But the darkness, of course, always returns.

[Page numbers for “It Grows On You” are from hardcover 1993 edition of Nightmares & Dreamscapes].