Synopses & Reviews
From the #1
New York Times bestselling author Stephen King, four "disturbing, fascinating" (
The Washington Post) novellas--including the story "1922," a Netflix original film--that explore the dark side of human nature.
"The pages practically turn themselves" (USA TODAY) in Full Dark, No Stars, an unforgettable collection centered around the theme of retribution.
In "1922," a violence awakens inside a man when his wife proposes selling off the family homestead, setting in motion a grisly train of murder and madness.
In "Big Driver," a mystery writer is brutally assaulted by a stranger along a Massachusetts back road and plots a revenge that will bring her face-to-face with another stranger: the one inside herself.
In "Fair Extension," making a deal with the devil not only saves a man from terminal illness but also provides rich recompense for a lifetime of resentment.
In "A Good Marriage," the trust forged by more than twenty years of matrimony is irrevocably shattered when a woman makes a chance discovery leading to the horrifying implications of just who her husband really is.
Like Different Seasons and Four Past Midnight, which generated such enduring hit films as The Shawshank Redemption and Stand by Me, King's Full Dark, No Stars is a "page-turner" (The New York Times) "as gripping as his epic novels" (St. Louis Post-Dispatch), and "an extraordinary collection, thrillingly merciless, and a career high point" (The Telegraph, UK).
Review
“For a writer whose books need a big stage, Stephen King also can turn out shorter stories just as gripping as his epic novels. All four stories in Full Dark, No Stars are about the dark turns taken in relationships between men and women. Uneven in length, they also are ambiguous in morality, which is one of the delights of this book…In all four of his stories, King leaves readers to think about how they might react under similar circumstances. And while we might do as the characters did, the suspense is in the uncertainty.” Amanda St. Amand, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Review
“Here’s how King describes his latest offering: ‘The stories in this book are harsh.’ Believe him. The unifying theory is that we’re all capable of horrific acts – like the farmer in ‘1922’ who murders his wife to protect his property’s value – and that we deny this grim reality at our own peril. Whether or not you agree, Full Dark is gripping storytelling.” People
Review
“A quartet of previously unpublished tales that more than satisfy their prolific author’s stated criteria for good fiction. Propulsive? Check. Assaultive? Don’t ask. The stories in Full Dark, No Stars are for the most part only slightly supernatural and deal, instead, with the unlovelier aspects of merely human behavior...What’s amazing, and maybe a little unsettling, about King is the consistency of his purpose and his manner over a long stretch of time. He’s essentially the same grab-you-by-the-lapels literary showman he was…King still writes with the verve and glee and heedless ease of a very young man…When you’re reading Full Dark, No Stars, carried along by his rollicking, vivid prose, you think (if you’re thinking at all: ‘God help him, this man is having fun.’ This naked pleasure is King’s secret ingredient: it makes his work weirdly irresistible, even addictive.” Terrence Rafferty, The New York Times Book Review
About the Author
Stephen King is the author of more than fifty books, all of them worldwide bestsellers. His recent work includes The Outsider, Sleeping Beauties (cowritten with his son Owen King), the short story collection The Bazaar of Bad Dreams, the Bill Hodges trilogy End of Watch, Finders Keepers, and Mr. Mercedes (an Edgar Award winner for Best Novel and now an AT&T Audience Network original television series), Doctor Sleep, and Under the Dome. His novel 11/22/63 — a Hulu original television series event — was named a top ten book of 2011 by The New York Times Book Review and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Mystery/Thriller. His epic works The Dark Tower and It are the basis for major motion pictures. He is the recipient of the 2018 PEN America Literary Service Award, the 2014 National Medal of Arts, and the 2003 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. He lives in Bangor, Maine, with his wife, novelist Tabitha King.