How Stephen King helped me overcome my fear of Horror - The Outsider (2018) Re-read: Book Review

I was never really a horror fan. Never considered myself one, at least. I thought it was almost cheap to hit someone's vulnerable spot, which was exactly what I thought the horror genre did. And man oh man, could I have been much more wrong?! The thing is, I was scared of even the thought of getting scared. This was the case until I picked my first Stephen King, The Outsider. And, there began my "King-athon" and that was my entry to King's interconnected universe. Yes, I'm not feeling bad to admit that I picked my first SK novel just 3 years back, in the ever-growing Renaissance of Stephen King. Even though I'm late to the fan club, I've read my fair share of King's works and it still goes on.

The year was 2018. I was at a mall with my parents, walking around to find the bookstore. As I entered the bookstore, the 'new arrivals' section was beautifully illuminated and decorated in the front part. My eyes met with a book having an orange cover, with a silhouette of man in the middle. It was The Outsider. I don't really know what happened, but once I saw the book, I felt this intimate connection with it and my sense of wanting to read it was dialed upto an eleven.

This was funny as I have been to the bookstore several times prior to this, and I've never felt this sensation anytime before. And what really got me interested was the synopsis- An unspeakable crime committed. A confounding investigation with conflicting evidence, where the suspect in question has ironclad alibi both in favour of and against him, marking him both at the murder scene and miles away from it. How could the man be at two different places at the same time? I have always been captivated by investigative thrillers, be it books or films. So, it was only instinctive for me to want to read this book. And that was my first step in overcoming my unexplainable fear of horror.

Going into the book, the plot began almost immediately, with our protagonist (not really. When you finish reading the book, you'd feel the same) Terry Maitland, getting ready for a little league game of a school team he had coached, along with his wife and two lovely young daughters. Reading the very first few paragraphs, it almost would seem like a family next door. This has always been one of Mr.King's greatest gifts- the ability to write characters that are relatable to and by the readers, only to make them confront extraordinary situations later. This makes the readers digest the progression of the story to a fictional/supernatural territory in his books much easier. The willing suspension for disbelief comes into play much later and, many a times, it doesn't even take much for the reader to suspend his/her disbelief because of all the background structure laid down previously for the story's characters.

As established earlier, Terry, being your average good guy next door, is accused of and arrested for the murder and sodomy of a young boy in the community and is brought to charges by one of the novel's main characters - Ralph Anderson. Well, he actually sends two other cops to arrest Terry because of how grave the crime was, and also Ralph had previously considered Terry a friend, as Terry was Ralph's son's little league coach.

This novel has all the tropes one would come to expect in a Stephen King novel- underlying horror, tight knit community where everyone either knows each other or are relatives to one another in some way, people subject to raw & gruesome scenarios and antagonists with animalistic intentions. Rereading this book, I was able to appreciate it to a much higher standard than the first time around, mostly because of the sheer number of King books I had had the opportunity to read, and partly due to the mini-series from HBO, executive produced by Jason Bateman (who had also played Terry himself) that had come out last year.

One interesting aspect that I was able to identify was how the story was unfolding in a "classic" King novel manner. What I mean by this is, the book has so much in common with yesteryear books from the legend himself, such as Pet Sematary (the death of a child), 'Salem's Lot (an unnatural entity doing what it does best- terrorizing people), The Dark Half (lookalikes with literally polar opposite personalities). Some people may write them off as clichés, but to my surprise, there are people that love this style of writing, myself being one among them. For the past decade, Mr.King has published more than a dozen novels. And I think these novels have been the absolute best from the Horror King. I'm not saying this to offend the old fans, but this is King in his prime. Take books like The Stand, It, and others in those lines- all these books have amazing storylines along with the burden of 1000 odd pages. Don't get me wrong, I do love the occasional read of a big book. But, even though I'm a hardcore King fan, sometimes it does get a tad bit tedious to get through them due to the extravagant volume to these novels. But then, the new era of King books blossomed with the perfect hybrid- perfectly sized and paced story with sharp writing, not a word more and not a word less. Books like Revival, Joyland, Doctor Sleep, and the Bill Hodges Trilogy are examples of such pieces of work.

Speaking of Bill Hodges, boy was it a pleasant surprise to see Holly Gibney make a comeback in this novel, after the tragic ending in the "End Of Watch". The back and forth between the rigid mind of Ralph Anderson with his stubborn sense of not being able to accept the unexplainable, and the calm Holly, making it her duty to to show proof of something which cannot actually be proven otherwise. Ultimately, Holly's wit wins over Ralph and he starts to accept the ultimate truth of "El Cuco". I loved how Stephen King was able to take a Latin-American myth and craft a moving emotional story about an innocent man falsely accused of a gut-churning murder, only to be killed without proving his innocence. While being a supernatural investigative thriller, "The Outsider" shines brightly at the characters' personal emotions. If anything, aspirinh writers can learn from Mr. King the art of writing characters and the vehemence of their reactions to the circumstances they are placed in.

On a final note, my life can be easily split into halves: pre-King & post-King. And it would be suffice to say that my life and creativity have been changed forever with such efficacy. And, my eyes have been altered to consume Horror with renewed fascination. Thank you, Mr. King. From your constant reader.