As with any great author, Stephen King’s stories illuminate important dramatic themes. King happens to do his work (mostly) in the horror genre, particularly fertile ground for cultivating themes around fear, courage, insanity, and unity. But horror books usually require some kind of monster; something unexplained. My favorite King stories (The Body, Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, 11/22/63) downplay the otherworldliness of the tale’s monster, assigning it to more subtle and believable forces like human greed, fear, hatred, and bullying. His stories that personify those evils into an alien or ghost or demon don’t ring quite as true to me. A great example of this is King’s novella “The Library Policeman,” found in the collection Four Past Midnight (1990).
The library police are nasty aliens who will be sent to recover overdue library books and their fines. In this story, a strange librarian and her library policeman haunt an adult man whose repressed childhood memory holds the key to defeating the aliens.
Wrapped up in this sometimes hokey tale are some deep struggles with very real, non-alien issues. These include alcoholism, abuse and stereotyping. It is easy to see that King can deal effectively with deep themes. In this story, the impact is deadened by the revelation of the monster’s realness. The best – and really the only – monsters are in our heads.
Link to Four Past Midnight on Powells.com
Posted by Drevil, 9/20/2014
I’m a big big Stephen King fan and I really appreciate that you’re reviewing his short stories and novellas. However, I think you really missed the point on this one. You say that the story is less because the alien takes the form of the repressed childhood memory. I think you’re wrong. I think it’s way better to have that symbolism. Maybe you don’t understand how demonic a past abuse can be?