A Good Marriage

In the winter of 1987 I read The Stand. That was the first book I ever read that was written by Stephen King. I was obsessed with that book. I couldn't put it down & when I'd finished reading it (for the first of probably five times) I could not wait to read more of his work! You'd think that his other efforts at that point in time would have paled in comparison, but of course they didn't. I've been a loyal "Constant Reader" ever since. I've read everything he's ever published, and there is not one single effort within his large and wonderful body of work that I wouldn't, and have not, read again. Case In point....

A Good Marriage. This is my second time reading these wonderful short stories. Stephen King is a masterful storyteller. He has referred to himself many times as the "Schlockmeister", but the truth is that he is both an author and a storyteller. I have many favorite authors, but truth be told, as talented as they all are, King is the King of storytelling, whether the story unfolds in one lengthy tome, like The Stand, or via a magnum opus like The Gunslinger Series, or in one short really great story he tells, like the two he tells in this book.

I've also read many things about Stephen King over the years. One thing in particular always comes to mind whenever I read one of his short story collections or his direct to the net novella releases. Stephen King once said that the art of the short story was being lost in the world of fiction writers, and he believed that the reason why that was happening was that to his way of thinking, and apparently many others as it turned out, it is much more difficult to craft a really good short story than it is to write a typical book. While I'm no writer by any means, I do know the difference between a well written short story and a poorly written one, and so I understood exactly what he meant by that intuitively, and realized that he was right...short stories must be a very difficult undertaking for even the most talented author.

To that end, King began to champion the dying breed of fiction called the Short Story. He not only wrote several collections of his own short stories--which I cherish--he championed many, both established and new or up and coming, writers' efforts by organizing their work into collections. When the Internet took off, he was one of the pioneers of ebooks, way before there were such things as Nooks, Kindles, or IPads or tablets with reading apps. I believe that it was largely through Stephen King's efforts that anthologies and collections of short stories, as well as ebooks started to really take off.

I love reading reviews, and that's not limited to books. Written reviews by you, my fellow consumers, are filled with information that back in the days of no internet I'd probably never have found out. After all, back then in the Stone Age, we either purchased something because a friend, family member or coworker had tried it and told us how great it was, or we bit the bullet and wrote that check (remember those? lol) for $300 for a new vacuum cleaner and hoped it was the best one for our needs. Books were largely purchased the same way.

Everything, including books, is still purchased the same way, but now we have 400 opinions and experiences to guide us, instead of maybe four if lucky! That's a great thing! There are even discussions going on between readers at Amazon, for instance, that seem to be much like a neighborhood book club, for folks who enjoy discussing specific genres, authors, and/or books. Another really great thing that the Internet has provided. However, when it comes to book reviews, I don't care how thorough or well written a review is if it's written like a book report. I do NOT want to know anything more than what I'd read on the inside of the jacket of a hardback, or the back of paperback. I just don't want the entire plot sketched out for me, and I run screaming from a review when I scan through it and see these two words: SPOILER ALERT. Argh!

That's why you won't be getting any specifics from me in any review I ever write. Truthfully though, I mean to review a LOT more books than I actually take the time to. I imagine that's because to a great extent my husband and I are both still very much traditionalists. We still purchase all of our favorite authors and most all nonfiction, biographies, memoirs, etcetera in hardback. We both brought a goodly amount of books with us into our marriage. Fast forward twenty five years and we now have a HUGE library and mixed media room, which is the largest room in our home. Not to put too fine a point on it, but we live in a large enough home that the library we have built would have staggered my imagination if someone had shown me a picture of it back then!

What I will share is this: if you love Stephen King's books, you'll see his short stories as a couple of horribly great treats to gobble up as fast as you can read!

Stephen King's take on the BTK killer has a much more satisfying conclusion than what has happened in real life. In real life, the BTK killer was finally found, he confessed, and he's spending the rest of his life in prison. In King's re-telling of the tale, his wife finds out and, let's just say, takes matters into her own hands. Apparently, this has been made into a film which hasn't done all that well. I'll wait for netflix for this one because I'd still like to see it.

But the book - or rather, novella - is a nice little meditation on what makes a good marriage? How is that one can spend decades with another human being . . . and truly not know them? Perhaps this is the way of all humans, that we reserve parts of ourselves to never be revealed to our closest friends or family. Perhaps honestly is not the best policy in a marriage after all?

These questions are not entirely explored to their full potential, but it is great fun in watching the wife, Darcy, as she pieces together what it is she has found (and completely by accident) and has to re-think everything she has ever thought about her husband and their marriage.

A good little read. In this book, though, there is another novella, 1922, which i have not read. Apparently some reviewers weren't happy that this has been republished with the second novella, when it is part of a larger collection at just a few more dollars. Be forewarned - and if you want to read the other stories or novellas, buy the larger collection, not this one. I am not a rabid King fan, so I was fine with paying for just this one story.

I’m giving this book a 4 because there was no closure for the first part. Also there were a lot of sections that were difficult to read because they were disgusting to picture. Of course, the stories are unique and original but I thought there would be a seque from one arc to another and there wasn’t. That was disappointing. As usual, the writing is vivid and memorable.

What would you do if the person you trusted most, turned out to be someone totally different from who you thought they were? What if they turned out to be a monster?

That’s just what Darcy Anderson wonders when she accidentally discovers something one night in the garage that shakes the foundation of her twenty-seven year marriage. Her husband is not the person she thought he was. Darcy has to deal with this discovery and figure out what to do. She loves her husband, Bob, but there’s this whole other side of him that she never knew about. She wonders to herself how she could have missed something this big. Suddenly she’s scared of the husband she was sure adored her just thirty minutes ago. A Good Marriage is not your typical King novel, there’s not much gore to it, and while it’s scary, it’s scary in more of an unsettling way than most of his works. After you read this story, you’ll be left questioning your own relationship. If Darcy could be fooled for twenty-seven years, couldn’t you be too? King has said he based Bob’s character on the “BTK killer” who killed ten people, but was seen as an unlikely suspect because he was President of his church council, a Cub scout leader, and was married with two children. He was a model citizen, but also a serial killer. His wife had no clue. This short story was originally published in the collection, “Full Dark, No Stars”. The movie adaptation was released on October 3rd of this year.

I read this on Kindle, and my version also contained a “bonus story” (1922) that was actually significantly longer than A Good Marriage. I liked them both, and since my copy had both stories, I will review both of them.

A Good Marriage was a great read. It was fairly short and could easily be read in one sitting. I empathized with Darcy. I felt horrified with her and then felt sorry for her as she tried to figure out what to do. This story will leave you thinking long after you’ve finished reading it. The writing is superb, as I would expect in a King work. I would recommend A Good Marriage not only to Stephen king fans, but also to others who would normally be turned off of King because of all the death and gore that is present in his longer books. On it’s own, I would Give a Good Marriage five stars.

1922 is another short story. This one is about a man who kills his wife over a dispute about moving from the rural farm to the city. I liked this story, it reminded me of “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Poe, only it had much more gore. I didn’t like it as much as A Good Marriage because I didn’t like any of the characters in 1922. I couldn’t really empathize with anyone. Still, it was suspenseful and had a pretty good pace to it. I did feel some relief upon finishing it though, because it was so dark and depressing and I just didn’t like anyone in the story, not even the secondary characters. On it’s own I would give it three and a half stars.

I’m giving the whole book a rating of four and a half stars, because it’s dragged down by 1922. I wish A Good Marriage had been the longer story. The book was pretty good though, overall.

You can read more of my reviews at http://bookwormbookreviews.com

Both of these stories were great, vintage Stephen King. I guess the first story asks the question: how well do we really know our spouses? The first story is about a couple who's been married for 28 years. One day the wife accidentally finds some ID cards of women in her garage and realizes that her husband is a serial killer. Her husband quickly finds out that she knows us secret and the rest of the book is about how they try to deal with the wife's discovery. The book was great in the beginning, but kind of fizzled in the ending.

The second book addresses how far we are willing to go when we want something and what are the consequences of really bad choices. The husband in this story is ticked off with his wife because she wants to sell some land she owns to a company that wants to turn the land into a slaughterhouse for pigs, the husband wants to use the land to expand his farm. The story then shows us how far the husband is willing to go to ensure his wife doesn't sell the land and how he tragically loses everything bc of the choices he makes. This story was really eerie. I put it down a couple of times bc the story features rats, which I am afraid of. Kings description of the rats is so detailed and grisly that it made my flesh crawl. Several times I vowed not to finish the book but I'm glad I pressed my way thru bc the story was great!! Reminds me of Stephen King's earlier work from the 1970s. I would give the 1st book 3.5 stars and the 2nd book 5 stars.

SPOILER ALERT!!! The premise of this novella was very provocative and enticing. It began with a great deal of suspense as a women comes to realize she is married to a serial killer. This drew me right in. But as I got further into the book, it took a very different turn from what I had anticipated. That turn did not contain the increasing suspense level I had hoped for, and took more of an unlikely route with the plot. It came to a very satisfying, although unrealistic ending that I felt was rather abrupt. When I got to the last page, I felt a bit unfulfilled and was wishing there was more. All that being said, it was an enjoyable story. It simply did not have the punch I had hoped for.

Well, after reading reviews I realized these were both novellas/short stories whatever that appeared in print before as three in one. This was REALLY misrepresented, IMO. The book that was supposed to be "the" book was only 35% of the book. It was well written and very good and went fast. That part was good. Then it ended abruptly and there was the "extra" book, 1922, which comprised the next 65% of the book (according to kindle info). That book was tedious and went on and on. I'm not even half way through and I've given up because I just don't care. About the characters, the plot (which is just dragging on and on), none of it. I originally thought it was some sort of insert into the first part that would eventually tie in, I did not notice that at the bottom it was its own story and the first one was truly over. Very disappointed, Mr. King!!!! Going back to Dean Koontz now....