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JUST AFTER SUNSET by Stephen King - FIRST EDITION BOOKSee all titles by Stephen King.
Stephen King — who has written more than fifty books, dozens of number one New York Times bestsellers, and many unforgettable movies — delivers an astonishing collection of short stories, his first since Everything's Eventual six years ago. As guest editor of the bestselling Best American Short Stories 2007, King spent over a year reading hundreds of stories. His renewed passion for the form is evident on every page of Just After Sunset. The stories in this collection have appeared in The New Yorker, Playboy, McSweeney's, The Paris Review, Esquire, and other publications. Who
but Stephen King would turn a Port-O-San into a slimy birth canal, or a
roadside honky-tonk into a place for endless love? A book salesman with
a grievance might pick up a mute hitchhiker, not knowing the silent man
in the passenger seat listens altogether too well. Or an exercise
routine on a stationary bicycle, begun to reduce bad cholesterol, might
take its rider on a captivating — and then terrifying — journey. Set on
a remote key in Florida, "The Gingerbread Girl" is a riveting tale
featuring a young woman as vulnerable — and resourceful — as Audrey
Hepburn's character in Wait Until Dark. In "Ayana," a blind
girl works a miracle with a kiss and the touch of her hand. For King,
the line between the living and the dead is often blurry, and the seams
that hold our reality intact might tear apart at any moment. In one of
the longer stories here, "N.," which recently broke new ground when it
was adapted as a graphic digital entertainment, a psychiatric patient's
irrational thinking might create an apocalyptic threat in the Maine
countryside...or keep the world from falling victim to it. Moving away from plots that feature creatures slithering beneath the bed, King homes in on the things that really scare
us: divorce, wayward children, terminal illness, random violence, and
being trapped in a Porta-Potty ("A Very Tight Place"). The most
gut-wrenching of the stories involve ghosts who cannot bear to part
with what we would call the real world. A husband and wife find eternal
happiness on the dance floor of a honky-tonk in Wyoming; a widow gets a
phone call from her husband, who has just been killed in a plane crash;
and ordinary objects from office cubicles have a way of returning from
the afterlife. In "Harvey's Dream," the titular husband relates a disturbing nightmare to his wife and says,
"And here comes the scary part. Do you want to hear the scary part?"
No, she thinks from her place by the sink. I don't want to hear the
scary part. But at the same time she does want to hear the scary part,
everyone wants to hear the scary part, we're all mad here.
Just After Sunset
— call it dusk, call it twilight, it's a time when human intercourse
takes on an unnatural cast, when nothing is quite as it appears, when
the imagination begins to reach for shadows as they dissipate to
darkness and living daylight can be scared right out of you. It's the
perfect time for Stephen King.
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VJ Books provides the finest in signed first editions and collectible books. In so doing, we consistently inspect and grade each book using professional standards. Prior to leaving our warehouse, each item is prepared to ensure safe delivery.
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