There’s not much to look forward to when you live in Castle Rock, but with his 2018 novella Elevation, King provides readers with at least a glimmer of hope. Rather than peering into the hidden secrets and dark hearts of Castle Rock to highlight the futility of it all, in Elevation, King tackles this darkness and counters it with light, love, and friendship. 

Castle Rock still has plenty of problems, both human and supernatural. One of the central conflicts of the novella is the townspeople’s homophobia and prejudice against two married women, Deirdre McComb and Missy Donaldson, who have moved to the Rock and opened a restaurant, while the other focuses on Scott Carey’s inexplicable, reality-defying weight loss, as the pounds on the scale melt away while Scott’s physical body stays the same. Each of these problems presents its own challenges, but their intersection is transformative for both the characters and the town. 

Deirdre and Missy thought Castle Rock would be an ideal place for their restaurant, Holy Frijole. As Missy explains to Scott, “We came here because the place was almost business-ready, the price was right, and we wanted to get out of the city—Boston, I mean. We knew it was a risk, but it seemed like an acceptable one. And the town is so beautiful” (32). Small town life has a lot going for it, but Deirdre and Missy also encounter small town prejudice, which seems likely to spell the end for their restaurant, especially once tourist season ends and they’ll have to rely on the kindness and patronage of their fellow Castle Rockers to get through the long, cold winter. 

When Scott first tries to befriend Deirdre and Missy—with a refreshing and self-aware recognition that he ought to have done so sooner—he is rebuffed, as Deirdre becomes annoyed and then angry. But Scott isn’t willing to give up: the way the women are being treated in Castle Rock is terrible and while he can’t make it right, he is determined to make friends. The turning point comes when Scott and Deirdre (along with hundreds of others) are running in the annual Castle Rock 12K Turkey Trot race. Deirdre is an experienced marathon runner and Scott is a bit of a dark horse that no one’s betting on, because while the weight is sliding off of him, he still looks like a slightly podgy middle-aged man. The race comes down to the two of them and when Deirdre falls, Scott stops and helps her up, temporarily transferring some of his lightness to her. This kindness and the race’s photo finish draws positive attention to both Castle Rock and Holy Frijole, and also turns the tide of how the townspeople treat Deirdre and Missy. 

Deirdre and Missy—along with Scott’s doctor friend Bob and his wife Myra—rally around Scott as his weight continues to slip away, doing their best to help him make sense of what’s happening and plan for what comes next. They might be a pretty unlikely group, particularly in the case of the previously homophobic Myra, but they quickly become a chosen family, gathering together to care for Scott and when the time comes, to see him off as he rises into the air and leaves Castle Rock behind (or rather, below). 
Elevation highlights the dual nature of Castle Rock and of small towns more generally. Castle Rock is insular and not particularly welcoming to outsiders, even more so when those outsiders don’t fit traditional or conservative expectations. However, there is also tremendous community and support to be found in Castle Rock, whether in the individual friendships Scott finds that get him through or in the rallying of the town as a whole following the Turkey Trot. There’s good and bad in Castle Rock and Scott has the chance to see them both, right up close and from 30,000 feet up. 

[Page numbers from Elevation are from the hardcover 2018 Scribner edition]