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Stephen King (archive picture from a TV appointment): The killer writes
Photo: Lou Rocco / Walt Disney Television via Getty Images
In addition to scary clowns, haunted houses and the undead of all stripes, writers are also among the constants in Stephen King's repertoire. In "Sie" a successful author is held hostage by a female fan, in "Stark - The Dark Half" the pseudonym of a writer develops a bloody life of its own, and Jack became immortal through the controversial film adaptation of Stanley Kubrick with leading actor Jack Nicholson In »Shining« Torrance has probably the most momentous writer's block in literary and film history.
Billy Summers, the antihero of King's new novel of the same name, also tries his hand at writing.
At first, writing only serves as a means to an end, because Billy's real profession is contract killing.
Billy is a killer - but one of the good guys, a fictional character that can only be found in books and in the cinema.
One who only shoots people who, in his opinion, deserve it because of their misconduct, one who nevertheless has a badly guilty conscience after the fact, one who had to go through terrible things in his childhood and later as a young soldier in Iraq his dubious career choice at least excused in the logic of the novel.
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Stephen King
Billy Summers: novel
Published by Heyne Verlag
Number of pages: 720
Translated by: Bernhard Kleinschmidt
Published by Heyne Verlag
Number of pages: 720
Translated by: Bernhard Kleinschmidt
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Billy's current assignment is pronounced - and suspiciously - well paid at two million dollars, and it will be his last: to shoot another creep, a woman thug and murderer.
He is currently in prison in Los Angeles, but whether nobody knows for sure in a few weeks or months, he will be tried in Red Bluff, a small town in the southern states.
Except that he was supposed to die on the steps to the courtroom, by a bullet fired hundreds of meters away.
This time the creative act does not drive you mad
For the sniper Summers, the distance is not a problem - unlike the waiting time before it. That's why he pretends to be a writer working on his first novel and coming into the office every day with an unobstructed view of the courthouse. The resulting novel in the novel tells the story of Summers and enables King to turn “Billy Summers” into a declaration of love for the power of literature: “The story he writes has taken possession of his life because it is for the time being that The only life he has is, but that's okay. ”Unlike previous King characters, the creative act doesn't drive Summers crazy, but lets him find himself. Joan Didion's famous sentence "We tell each other stories in order to live" rarely felt truer than here.
The beginning of "Billy Summers" is classic Stephen King, but without ghosts, vampires or monsters.
Or rather, the real monsters, it turns out later, are people.
But before Billy meets one of these human beasts for a showdown, the traumatized ex-soldier and killer first gets to know what people are capable of: solidarity, kindness, friendliness.
Billy lives in Red Bluff for several months, waits for the moment he's paid for - and becomes part of the community.
Playing with the neighbors' kids, mowing the lawn, going on a one-night stand.
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Stephen King evokes an America of the decent, the upright and - the novel was written from June 2019 - can also be read as an alternative to the America of Donald Trump, against corruption, prejudice, and hatred.
You can call it old-fashioned or naive, but above all it is: hopeful.
It is almost ironic that hardly any other author speaks so consistently and persistently about the belief in the good in people as Stephen King, the author of some of the most profound horror novels of our time.
Lustful bending of the genre conventions
But at some point the suburban idyll is over: the day comes when Summers has to carry out his assignment. And from "Billy Summers" finally becomes a crime thriller. Because Summers' client never intended to pay him, which he suspected: »Billy (...) thinks of all the films about robbers who are planning a last big coup. If noir is a genre, “The Last Coup” is a sub-genre. In films like this, the last coup always fails. "
Of course, following the genre convention - which King otherwise bends with relish until it almost breaks - the killer first becomes the hunted himself, only to go on a campaign of revenge in the end.
But before that happens, something completely different happens, something completely unexpected that torpedoes and changes his plans.
We don't want to reveal more at this point, only that the novel develops into a road trip that will take Billy to Colorado, to a mountain hut with a view of a burned down hotel.
Stephen King fans know immediately which one is meant.
With the exception of these few reminiscences of "Shining", King dispenses with the supernatural in his novel.
It's his best in seven years, since "Mr Mercedes".
That was a thriller too.