A Novel Critique

The novel opens with an aging Castle Rock resident, speaking to you in a rococo, New England style and reminding you that "you've been here before..." Through his easygoing narrative, the reader is brought up to date on all the goings-on of this strangle little town. We are reminded of the rabid dog we first learned about in Cujo, the psychic Johnny Smith in The Dead Zone, and of Thad Beaumont of The Dark Half. And then, with no jarring, we are brought into the present, where an even darker evil awaits.

The bulk of Needful Things revolves around this darkness threatening Castle Rock, an evil in the person of one Leland Gaunt. Gaunt is opening up a curio shop in town, a place called Needful Things, which purportedly has whatever the buyer wants most. Gaunt is happy to provide for his customers, knowing that they will equate want with need, and when they think they need, Gaunt has them in his pocket.

The novel's moral center is the town sherriff, Alan Pangborn. Along with his arthritic girlfreind, Polly Chalmers, Alan begins to realize that Gaunt is not necessarily the charming older fellow everyone else seems to think he is. Alan comes to realize he is a monster, one who uses the delicate social threads which run through small towns to destroy those towns at their very core. He uses young Brian Rusk's need for a rare baseball card in order to get him to throw mud at Wilma Jersyk's sheets. Wilma blames her neighbor, Nettie Cobb. Something awful happens to Nettie, too, but Wilma is not at fault. Gaunt delights in playing these people against each other, in finding the small evils within them and exploting them. The way these exploits play out makes for a fascinating novel.

The way the book is written doesn't seem odd until you are in the middle: it doesn't seem like a novel at all, but a film. The words flow so easily that you forget you are performing an action. King's novels have attempted this type of wordflow before, but only near the end of It has King achieved it previously.

Needful Things is an engrossing dark comedy on the fringes: a metaphorical exploration of greed in America. But at its heart, this is also a horror novel, Gothic in a modern sense, utilizing the basic conventions of Dark against Light and Past versus Present. By the end of this novel, we secure in the knowledge that the side we rooted for has triumphed -- but at what price?

Personal Observations

Needful Things is a landmark in my personal Stephen King history. It arrived in stores when I was fifteen years old, and I'd been saving up my paper route money for weeks to afford this brand-new hardcover. The day it came out, my Mom drove me town to Quincy Center to my favorite independent bookstore, Infinity Books. That was the day I bought my first hardcover. I'd been given hardcovers as gifts before (by people who somehow thought it would be a great idea to write Happy Birthday in the inside cover.) But this was the first one I bought and paid for by myself. For that reason alone, this book is special to me.

As for the content: well, Needful Things has a long history with me. After buying the book, I devoured it, as fast as humanly possible. And I didn't like it. For about two weeks, I was thrown into a semi-deep depression. I was so scared that King had "lost it," or that I had stopped liking him. For someone whose entire teenage existence revolved around the works of Stephen King, this was a giant blow to my psyche.

The following summer, Gerald's Game was released, and for some reason, I thought of it as King "back in form." Incredibly relieved, I then found myself in the midst of a personal King Renaissance: Dolores Claiborne, Insomnia and Rose Madder followed, and I loved them all. After Rose Madder, I decided to give Needful Things another shot. But not in book form this time; I had recently discovered the joys of audio books. I marched down to the Quincy Public Library, and for the next couple weeks, I lived inside the world that King (the reader) spooled out for me. And, man, did I love it.

Over the years, my initial impressions of Needful Things and Gerald's Game have swapped: I regard the former as twisted genius and the latter as a good book with flaws. I don't really know what caused my initial dislike, but I'm glad I got over it. Needful Things is among King's best.