I’ve started quite a few books lately that did not hold my attention, but coming back to a King novel is always like coming home. So personally, before the suitcase is even unlatched and the metaphors unpacked, Stephen King is handing me a winner. I know well how it feels to see some old thing in a store window that I just have to have, and I know what it’s like to always expect a price that is higher than what’s listed on the tag, even if what’s listed isn’t all that great of a deal. All he wants you to do to compensate for it is a little favor: play a mean-spirited prank on a neighbor.Īs a thrifter and antique shopper, I related so much to this concept. Leland Gaunt seems to always have “just the thing,” and his prices are astonishingly cheap. But I can’t say the same for most of the citizens of Castle Rock. Thus far, I have avoided any Faustian pacts designed to prey upon my notions of what I think will make me happy. Of course my opinion doesn’t matter! And that’s exactly why I shouldn’t be afraid to share it.
They’re all too busy worrying about themselves, too.
It’s taken me a surprisingly long time to realize that literally no one else is thinking about me. And it’s because, like many other people, I’ve been monomaniacally focused myself. I know, I’ve been a little slow on the uptake. I have that American way of believing my worth depends directly upon my productivity, what I can accomplish, not upon my happiness, health, and sense of belonging. I have never felt less articulate, capable, or intelligent. Can you believe I was descending quickly into a pit of self-despair and hopelessness?ĬOVID-19 has highlighted my personal shortcomings in a way I never thought possible. I was convinced that my opinion didn’t matter in the face of this pandemic. You may have noticed I stopped writing reviews for a while. It’s difficult to keep our latter traits in mind while enduring a crisis so simultaneously frightening and mind-numblingly dull as this. All of it has been a stark reminder that, while the world itself is quite different now, people are still the same: full of greed, selfishness, and, wait…love, humility, and altruism, too. Needful Things has been a wonderful companion to the supermarket aisles bare of whatever random products people thought they couldn’t live without during a shutdown, the companies firing employees without batting an eyelash, and the brazen citizens who are still out tugging on locked storefront doors, puzzled as to why they can’t get in to buy something they don’t really, well, need. What a book to read during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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