Hearts in Atlantis

Being a Stephen King fan (even though I've only read about 4 or 5 of SK's books) and a fan of things from the Sixties (The Beatles, Hendrix, and all those people are my favourite performers) I found this book to be one of his best. The storytelling is superb, as well as the characters and the way the spirit of the sixties is kept. Of the five stories the one I liked the most was Low Men In Yellow Coats because it is the one that is the most Stephen King-like. It makes you remember about when you were a kid, how your mind used to be focused on just a few things before it all became complicated. This one will sure be interesting to watch in the movie of the book. The second story, Hearts in Atlantis was one that I loved as well. It somehow gave me a glance at how my parent's college life must have been. The story itself is worthy of a movie all by itself (hint any movie producers reading?! please!) The third story (Blind Willie) was kind of interesting, even though it is the weakest one. While the main character is related interconnected to the rest of the characters in the book, this story seemed as if it was copy/pasted from somewhere in King's computer. The story is good and it reveals some kind of redeeming in the character's life, but it's not that big of a story. The fourth story is "Why We're In Vietnam", an excellent look at the lives of the veterans of that terrible war. This story is the preamble of the book's full circle story, as it is continued by "Heavenly Shades of Night Are Falling", the story's "epilogue", which will bring goosebumps to your skin with the story being told. This books is a must read for all of King's fans, and for those who haven't read him, this is a great book to start with (then move on to Bag Of Bones :-). As an afterthought, I read that this book's movie focuses more on the first and fourth story, but I don't possible know how you could tell this story without at least some deep look into the second story, just a tiny little glimpse at the third story and it MUST end with the fifth story. I think the movie would not be complete with out that last story. Anyway, get this book, you will love it.

I have loved every Stephen King novel that I have read - but this is by far the best. Not just a fantastic story - or group of five stories that are cleverly linked together through the years - but probably the most powerful sociopolitical comment on war, the abuse of authority, and American society's downward spiral into acceptance of bad things, simply because it takes less effort to choose to do nothing.

I have never been really big on (a) Vietnam stories - an overused theme, usually written up in a trite way - or (b) novels with a blatantly anti-war message - again, in most cases cliched and clumsily written. This book is the exception that proves the rule. King's very human narrative makes the reader feel the horror of the battlefield that affects every part of life for those who have experienced it. Even the first book - Low Men in Yellow Coats - is a prelude to the rest of the novel, when it speaks of power and its misuse in relationships of all types: Bobby and his mother; Carol and the school bullies; the town of Harwich and its hopeless, failing residents; Bobby's mother and her perverted employer; right down to Ted and the Low Men, who really represent the type of "low" thought and behavior that all of us can find all too easy to accept or fall into, rather than taking a stand for good.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough. Though the book is set in the era of the Vietnam war and the years immediately before and after it, the message is relevant to all times throughout history and into the future.

Contrary to my title, and yes, after finishing the last page, I suddenly began to cry, I loved this book 100%. After part one (which I also loved) the remainder of the book was like a trip back in time for me. A trip back to the 60's, a reminder of all the kids I grew up with, the number of boys from that group, who went to Vietnam and never came back. It also caused me to think of those I knew who did return, and were never the same. Today thinking back, I can't recall any one of those boys who are still alive. My teenage boyfriend was one of a few others who died of alcoholism by 40,50. Others died from drug overdoses: some within ten yrs of returning, others later. I think my tears were for them all. And for my generation, that I call "The last innocent Generation". Anyway, this is a must read for anyone, but particularly for those who were heading for adulthood in the 1960's, that still remember that brief period in history.

Wow, this was my first purchase with this Amazon account back in high school! Yes, of course you should buy this book. These are some of the most powerful and heartfelt stories you will ever come across. You should read them just for the sake of understanding other people a little better.

So, an interesting fact about this book is that the movie with Anthony Hopkins, which was pretty decent, is based on the first story in this collection of stories. The first story is titled "Low Men in Yellow Coats" which makes absolutely no sense until you read the Dark Tower series, because this book was basically written during a much needed hiatus after he lost his mind in the wild west with that Susan Delgado nonsense that he eventually made the main story. You can imagine they could not have possibly called the movie that because it would have been confusing to most people, and simply not as catchy and dreamy as "Hearts in Atlantis".

Anyway, the first story is about a young boy that the older man kind of mentors while the boy watches out for him as well as he seems to suffering some kind of mental issue where he goes into trances and talks what sounds like gibberish, which again is better understood when you know about the grander story this one takes place in. For instance, he keeps saying "They draw west now..." Certain informed readers know exactly who he's talking about.

At the same time, some unseen threat is closing in on the boy that the older man is protecting him from. Everything that's happening is overtly in the context of the most evil actors in The Dark Tower metauniverse. It is meant to satisfy devourers of the longer series as well as be a set of good short stories on their own, and they more than satisfy.

The second adventure is simply wonderful and is indeed the titular story that actually has to do with the card game of Hearts. As you read it, you can tell that it was probably based on true-ish events that the author experienced in college. All the stories are meant to be period pieces that immerse you in that time so you learn how much things cost and what people were listing to, watching, and talking about in that time, namely the 60s, which this book wants to convince you really happened.

The later stories recount adventures of other characters in the first story. There is a very intriguing one that is a PS on one of the first story's antagonists who seemed to be in a very powerful position in his youth and maintains a similar kind of cliquish power later in life, but at what cost?

Beautiful prose lies within.

I must admit I began with Carrie, not unlike anyone my age, and realized that movies basically do nothing much for King's style of writing or the images he leaves you open to place in your mind. To say that the audiobook version of this long, five-part story didn't blow me away would me a total understatement.

People have always told me I'm crazy to like Stephen King because "he's so SCAAAAARY!" I've always known what a fabulous technique he has for dealing with human nature given unusual circustances or in general, and his sense of humor is always off the charts in his most dire of literary works. This, however, with my obvious love of all things 60s, has captivated me, and drawn me in like few other books I have enjoyed in the last 10 years.

What a gorgeous and heartfelt ode to such an important decade in our nation's history. King brings it home, surrounding the characters of Bobby Garfield and Carol Gerber, in a way that endears you to each and every character. He takes you to the next best thing of a time machine and trasports you back into a place and era that makes your heart bleed and your soul fill with a profound sense of spiritual longing. They didn't accomplish what they wanted to, but the youth of the 60s' romanticisms sweep you up in a way that only King can provide with his wisdom of human folly. The loss of innocence is what this book is essentially about, and the humor and soulfulness that embellish it make it that much more of a treasure.

I love this book, have rented the audio version 5 times, and would recommend it to anyone who loves the 60s or wants to know that Stephen King is not just the master of horror, but also the master of the heart. He is a walking encyclopedia, and he also understands people better than the "oh-he-scares-me" crowd can relate to, simply because they're scared to read his books. I always recommend this one. Sometimes crude, always entertaining and full of more life than most people experience, Hearts in Atlantis is a winner from cover to cover. Don't let it pass you by. I'm having a love affair with it.

I may sound critical about Mr. Kings book Hearts in Atlantis but I am no critic . The story begins with three youngsters, two boys and one girl growing up in small town America. Their ages were eleven years old. The kids were involved in softball , summer camps, and typical adventures to and from the ballfield where children tend to find themselves in trouble with slightly older and meaner kids. The horror twist begins with a older gentleman who moves in the same apartment house complex as one of the eleven year old kids. The older senior gentleman is running from his past assignments from a sinister group who uses coded ways to find their Lost friends. This part I found fascinating as expected from Mr. Kings experiences in writing. The story continues as senior is caught and thus begins the interconnected sequential narratives that Mr. King describes inside of the dust jacket of the book. The remaining stories or narratives deal with the three eleven year old kids as they mature into adulthood, go their separate ways and deal with their present situations. The story starts to become muddied with too much reflecting on subject material coming past, present, and dreamlike states that may leave the constant reader with a headache trying to comprehend the underlying meaning and what is going on here ? Their are many references to the war in Vietnam as well as a contrasting involvement with the protestors of the time period against the war. The characters , the original three come to their destiny as only two are left to meet in a rightful and sad sweet ending. Overall, a good story , but lacked cohesion that I have always looked for in any ones artistic works.

I've listened to this audio book twice and I'll listen to it again. King's story telling mastery shines in this one tieing the world of the "low men in yellow dusters" (agents of the Dark Tower's Crimson King) who search for and finally catch Ted (an escaped breaker - psychics who are captured by the Crimson King and forced to aid this monster in trying to destroy the tower - the object of Roland's quest in the Dark Tower series); with the world of Bobby, a young boy just entering his teen years who lives in the same rental building where Ted takes up residency while trying to hide from the low men. Bobby strikes up a friendship with the much older and mysterious Ted who hires Bobby to read the daily newspaper to him and to watch the neighborhood for signs that the low men may be close by. When Bobby starts seeing the signs he is supposed to watch for, he doesn't tell Ted because he knows that Ted will flee the low men if they are near. Bobby's two closest young friends are Carol and Sully John who also are drawn into Ted's wierd and mysterious circle of influence. Before he is captured by the low men Ted uses his abilities to help heal the injured Carol when Bobby carries her home after she is beaten by the neighborhood bully boys with a baseball bat. In the later short stories tied into this book so smoothly by the King, Bobby and Carol are reunited during their college years after being separated following Ted's capture when Bobby's mother abruptly leaves the neighborhood for a new town and a new job after she was horribly attacked and sexually assulted by her boss and 2 of his croonies at a real estate convention where the ambitious and not so gullible mother has manuvered herself leaving Bobby in Ted's care while she is gone. Bobby's life in the college dorms is a nostalgic trip for those of us who entered college during the Viet Nam era, and his passing reunification with Carol has a striking resemblance to the ships-passing-in-the-night relationship between Forest Gump and the love of his life. The beginning and ending of this book involves Bobby's return to the old neighborhood to attend Carol's funeral. For those who are Dark Tower junkies like me, the timing of this book fills in some vital facts about what is wrong with the Tower which King has not yet revealed in the Tower series books. You can also pick up more insights regarding the cause of the problems with the tower in Insomnia, and Black House. In all this is another great story by the master story-teller of our time with magically vivid characters and richly described worlds for them to live in. NOBODY but King could take 5 short stories and tie them together so smoothly while revealing as yet untold details for an entirely different series of Books which he has been creating over the last 30+ years. Amazing.

Halfway through Hearts in Atlantis, I was thinking this was a four-star book. The first and longest story in Stephen King's collection is an intruiging tale of a young boy in 1960 Maine and his relationship with a mysterious lodger. It has interesting ties to the Dark Tower, but stronger ties to books like From A Buick 8. We meet Bobby Garfield -- a young man on the brink of both adolescence and the 60's -- and we watch him try to work through the unexpected perils of watching for the Low Men in Yellow Coats -- a danger he think is a figment of the imagination before discovering that they are all too real. It held my attention consistently and I was hoping the rest of the book would continue to do so. Alas, it did not. If there's anything worse than Baby Boomer self-indulgence, it's sulf-indulgent stories that lement that generation's self-indulgence. The rest of the boook has tenuous and frankly unmoving ties to the trio of young characters in Low Men, telling about how several people move through the 60's to the 90's. The title story about an out-of-control hearts game, is slow, dull and the climax feels forced. The next two are the usual garbage positing that Vietnam was the first time people realized that war is hell. The last is an unsatisfactory climax that tries to tie everything back together. Contrary to popular belief, King can write good fiction that has no supernatural element. I refer you his collection Four Seasons, for example, which contains three excellent non-supernatural stories. But these stories are nowhere near that quality. The frustrating thing is that there was a good story here somewhere. Had King stuck with Bobby, Carol and Sully-John, the second half of the collection might have been interesting. But as it is, it was a painful read, something I'm unused to from King. Buy for the first story and then put this on the shelf.

I only got this to read between Dark Tower 4 and 4.5/5 as there's a few other books with pretty big ties to the Dark Tower series that are worth reading after book 4 (Salem's Lot, Insomnia, a few others). There's also some worth reading before you even start but none of them are necessary. In fact, if you've never read the Dark Tower series before, I'd suggest just reading it alone first, and then if, like me, you want to re-read it later and get your hands on anything and everything related to it (in more than just passing references, for example The Stand/Insomnia/Salem's Lot are hugely relevant whereas The Shining is more like easter eggs [still a good book though]). The first and longest of the stories (it's about 1/2 the book) is about the Low Men and gives you some cool background about them and a major character from the later DT books. It's great. Typical Stephen King awesomeness.

Then the rest is, well, just boring. I guess I'm the wrong audience/generation for the rest of the book. The remaining short stories are all about the Vietnam era, which, if you're from that generation I can see how it may be appealing. But I just found it really uninteresting. I felt like all of a sudden, I put down a Stephen King novel and picked up some random author writing a fictional but somewhat accurate history of both the lead up to and the aftermath of the Vietnam war. There's zero supernatural or surrealness or really that much intrigue. I don't know what to really say about it, other than it felt like someone needed to do some cathartic writing. Ya, I get it, there's themes of addiction, penance, regret, etc., but you can find that in all of his work and in much more fascinating ways. I finished, begrudgingly, the second and titular title, Hearts in Atlantis, but I was let down. Was it touching? Yes. But not in a way that was that interesting or great. I was way more touched by "Flow my Tears, the Policeman Said" by PKD than this (and way more entertained). I slogged my way until almost the end, about halfway through "Blind Willie" and then just said "Why am I reading this if I'm not enjoying it?" and quickly just skimmed the remaining hundred or so pages, really glad I didn't waste any more time with it. I guess it just felt more like I all of sudden picked up a history book with some fictional elements added in to make it mildly more interesting. Even the fiction though was boring.

I guess the book is more of a personal journey for the author, and perhaps for anyone who either served in Vietnam, protested against it, or wasn't drafted but lived through that period. Anyway, long story short, if you're picking this up because you read that you should read this if you want more Dark Tower related content, then I'd say it's definitely worth it, but do yourself a favor and just stop reading after the first story. At least it's about half the book so it's the longest of them and is worth the price (digital at least).