Stephen King's Fairy Tale: an animal horror tale

Created: 09/13/2022, 15:28

By: Michael Schleicher

Stephen King tells a horror story in his new novel "Fairy Tale".

© Maja Hitij/dpa

Stephen King's new novel "Fairy Tale" is now also available in German.

The US author, who celebrates his 75th birthday on September 21, 2022, tells a horror story about animals.

Our criticism:

A child's conscience can be so cruel that it becomes a deadly threat years later.

Stephen King tells about it in his novel "Fairy Tale"

, which will be published in German on Wednesday, September 14, 2022, and offers what its title promises: a fairy tale.

But there is nothing magical here, this book is not a Heititei, not reading material.

The US writer, who celebrates his 75th birthday on September 21, 2022, develops an exciting, dark tale on more than 800 pages.

Stephen King's Fairy Tale is a wonderful fairy tale

It is narrated by Charlie Reade, who grows up in circumstances that are anything but fairytale-like.

When he was seven, his mother was killed by a plumber's truck in an accident.

From then on, his father drowns grief, despair, guilt and frustration in gin.

He floods body and mind with alcohol - for his boy that is the horror.

School, sports, wiping up vomit, existential fears, providing food - in short: get your own life and that of your father on the chain.

That's not something a teenager should bother with.

During this time, Charlie asks for support in prayer – “then I will also do something for you.

Just show me what you want and I'll do it," is his promise.

"And I never forgot the contract I made with God." In fact, his father is getting off the bottle.

Charlie Reade is at the center of Fairy Tale

But since the child's conscience follows an absolute absolute, it leads Charlie in 2013, when he is 17, into the garden of Mr. Bowditch's "Psycho House", who calls for help.

Charlie goes to him, although he knows that the fearsome German shepherd is on radar guard and that the old man is described as a "loner" in a very friendly way.

Bowditch is a real disgust.

But if Charlie gave in to his fear and ignored the cries, "God would take back the miracle and my father would start drinking again."

That's his worst concern, and so the lad actually saves old Bowditch's life.

Stephen King quotes numerous fairy tales and legends in "Fairy Tale".

With a good sense for the bizarre, King now describes how the two dissimilar types become friends – and also how radar is becoming increasingly important for Charlie.

The author cleverly lets a question mark hover over the figure of the unworldly curmudgeon – Bowditch's secret is revealed to Charlie only after his death.

His shed hides the entrance to the "other world", as Charlie calls it: the kingdom of Empis, a magical land ruled by evil forces.

But Charlie really wants to go there because he wants to save Radar.

The animal is at the end of its life - and King's hero faces an enormous test.

On September 21, 2022, King celebrates his 75th birthday

If you don't like fairy tales, you'll have trouble with "Fairy Tale".

The author of classics such as "It", "The Shining", "Carrie" or "The Stand" plays masterfully with motifs from the literature of sagas, fables and fairy tales.

There is (at least) one Rumpelstiltskin;

a princess bewitched into a mute goose girl;

a horse that appears to be able to speak - and the hope of a prince who will redeem Empis.

King tells an exciting story and knows at every moment what is dramaturgically necessary.

That reads very well.

And yet "Fairy Tale" does not reach the speed, tension and depth of "Billy Summers".

Completely devoid of supernatural horror, this King novel from last year tells of all facets of being human – and at the same time is a hymn to the power of literature.

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However, the author does not skimp on references in his new work either.

This actually makes “Fairy Tale” a festival for reading detectives.

It's no coincidence that Charlie Reade's name contains the English word for "read".

There is of course the fairy tale world, but not only that of the Brothers Grimm: King always makes it clear that he is concerned with the original texts.

But there is also the wide field of Anglo-Saxon science fiction, horror and crime literature (Mr. Bowditch is a book enthusiast, among other things) that lays the foundation for the plot here.

Above all, "Fairy Tale" is a tribute to H. P. Lovecraft (1890-1937), probably the most important representative of fantastic horror literature in the 20th century.

King uses precisely the description of the architecture in Empis,

Stephen King knows about the success of "Stranger Things"

But not only that. The 74-year-old also knows about the success of Netflix series like "Stranger Things" - and processes his own life in the story: The accident in which his protagonist's mother is killed is fatally reminiscent of the accident in 1999 when King himself was hit by a car while out for a walk.

A local newspaper even declared him dead at the time. Of course, it cannot be revealed how this new horror story ends.

What is clear, however, is that Stephen King, who has long been one of those writers who also speaks out (socio-)politically, does not only locate the spooky in the magical empis: "Our world is sitting on a potentially apocalyptic stockpile of nuclear weapons, and if that I don't know if it's not black magic."