I find it hard to believe that this is my first post about a Stephen King book, which would suggest I’ve gone nearly two years without reading anything by him. I know I’ve missed most of his newest stuff, but I usually reread something of his on a fairly regular basis. In any case, it was a welcome return to my first favourite author, and the writer who more than anyone else inspired me to write my own stories.
Billy Summers, the novel’s eponymous lead, is an Iraq war veteran and assassin hired for one final job. It’s a common premise, borderline cliche, and King makes no effort to hide it. But of course things aren’t that simple, and the beats the story follows are both unexpected and familiar. Unexpected because they diverge from the common tropes that would have made Billy Summers a more conventional and lesser book, and familiar because they very much play to two of King’s favourite themes: the bonds of community, and the power of the written word.
The first theme plays out as Summers ensconces himself in the neighbourhood where he establishes himself prior to that big final job, and again later, after the job is over, through a chance encounter with a young woman named Alice Maxwell. Alice is really the crux of the story, as she pulls the novel from its familiar rails and into far less trodden—and far more interesting—terrain. It’s a joy to read King as he establishes these relationships, as he is probably the best writer I know and making you feel like this is a reall community, and to care not just about the characters themselves, but about the relationships between them.
The second theme emerges as Billy’s cover story, which is that he is a writer cloistering himself away to finish the book. The details are fairly maddening to anyone trying to make it in the business these days, and suggest that King, though obviously intimately familiar with publishing, has perhaps a rosier than true picture of what being an emerging writer these days is like—Billy’s persona, an unknown and unpublished author, lands an agent after writing a couple of chapters of a novel, and the agent is then able not only to hook a major publisher for a potential seven-figure deal, but when he isn’t finishing the manuscript fast enough, gets a $50,000 advance without delivering anything (excuse me while I scream into a pillow). I get that this is a story concocted by characters who are not writers themselves, but it’s supposed to be plausible.
In any case, the heart of the theme comes when Billy starts writing, which provides catharsis for him while simultaneously informing us of his backstory. it’s a neat device, and King handles it well, switching effortlessly between voices. there is even a bit at the end that plays with the theme of writing as wish fulfillment, and King wisely concedes the limits of writing in shaping the world, even as he espouses its power (I was happy that Billy didn’t somehow become a best seller, whcih would have been cloying and ridiculous).
King’s prose is solid. He is not the world’s foremost stylist, but he has the self-assurance of an old pro and handles his words deftly, providing bits of linguistic filigree where the enhance without making everything too ornamental. As a writer, he’s story and character first (not sure which I’d grant primacy over which; perhaps it varies between books), prose second. And his dialogue rings true as ever. Reading him felt like visiting with an old friend. I suspect I’ll be picking up a lot more of his stuff, new and old, in the near future.