I’m a huge Stephen King fan—I know, shocker—so I’ve resisted doing the obvious thing and jumping in on a review of one of his books early on after starting this blog. However, we’re closing in on Halloween, and I feel like now is the time. So today, we’re talking about “
The Outsider” by Stephen King.
***The Non-Spoiler part of this review***
What I love about this book:Stephen King has mastered a variety of small American townie voices that always seem to populate his novels. It’s genuinely impressive, and one of his literary talents I don’t think gets enough praise, and sure—he’s thought of as the master of the macabre and horror, but his skill with character voice is nearly peerless.
King, in my experience, is a master at setting up a story. He develops that plot through the middle with fascinating and diverse characters, ramping up the tension—then introduces elements at the end like a giant cosmic space turtle or we’re going to defeat the evil clown with tongue biting, metaphorically, or maybe not. What I’m trying to get at is endings are not really known as his thing. It’s a cliché to point that out—so why go on about this in this section? Because “The Outsider” has an actual end, one that I found satisfying, too.
This book isn’t just a partnership between Detective Ralph Anderson and Holly Gibney—a character he established in other books of his—but none-the-less I enjoyed their inverse X-files partnership a whole lot. I was always a big fan of that show, and this novel really scratches that itch, unlike many actual X-files novels that feel vaguely parody-like to me.
What I don’t love about this book:
Speaking of X-files, at a certain point, just like in that show, I became wearied by Detective Anderson’s agent Scully-Esque constant insistence on there being a “rational” explanation even after some serious supernatural shit has gone down. I know this is a seemingly weird position for me to take because often I’ve written about how I am such a person who is always seeking a rational answer to things, and decrying magical thinking or reasoning is bullshit. I, however, have never claimed that I would make a good fictional character. I would be that smug jerk who dies right at the beginning of the horror story saying something like, “c’mon guys, demon vampire ghosts aren’t real!”
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***The Spoiler part of this review***
***Ye be warned to turn back now***
The quick and dirty synopsis:
The book begins bouncing between scenes of various witnesses being interviewed by the police and Detective Ralph Anderson and his team on their way to arrest a popular little league coach Terry Maitland. Maitland is a family man and a local school teacher in addition to being a little league coach and is beloved and respected around the community. Now he is suspected of raping and murdering a little boy.
