Pretty bleak

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raggedyman79

Well-Known Member
Sep 6, 2013
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Baton Rouge, Louisiana, United States
Without getting too spoilery, I feel like Justine's ultimate fate is pretty horrifying. I didn't think SK still had that kind of darkness in him, after expressing regret over the child deaths in IT, PET SEMATARY, and CUJO. It just seemed unnecessarily brutal for a guy who hasn't gone there in a long time. Thoughts?
 
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skimom2

Just moseyin' through...
Oct 9, 2013
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Or Revival. I wasn't so much shocked or horrified by that book as I was made really, really sad. It was probably the most bleak book or story I've read by Mr. King, so much so that I kept losing the thread of the story because I was worrying about him and his family.

In The Tall Grass felt like old school King to me--like it could have been written in the period of the stories in Night Shift.
 

Ivy13

Well-Known Member
Nov 8, 2015
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Or Revival. I wasn't so much shocked or horrified by that book as I was made really, really sad. It was probably the most bleak book or story I've read by Mr. King, so much so that I kept losing the thread of the story because I was worrying about him and his family.

In The Tall Grass felt like old school King to me--like it could have been written in the period of the stories in Night Shift.
It felt old school to me too ... plus as mentioned, he had help from Joe (who in my opinion has definitely inherited his gift for deeply dark and twisted)
 

RandallHuff

Member
Feb 23, 2016
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Yeah, I didn't think this was bleak. I agree with the poster saying it has the old-school King vibe. It's one of my favorite short King stories in a long time. It's fun noticing certain parts that are clearly lines from either King or Hill.
 
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Gerald

Well-Known Member
Sep 8, 2011
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I didn't know he regretted that in Cujo and It, I only know he put Pet Sematary away for a couple of years because he thought it was too dark.

Maybe now his children are grown up he has less qualms about it. When he wrote those earlier books they were still younger.

Writers seem to sometimes regret letting children die. James Herbert regretted having a baby being eaten in The Rats. But I think if you're writing horror and are gonna have horrifying things happen to people, you should make no distinction between children or adults or you're watering it down, no-one should be safe in a horror-story really.
 

NightShifter

Well-Known Member
Nov 8, 2013
63
344
Mansfield, Massachusetts
I loved this gruesome little tale. I agree that it felt like a missing story from "Night Shift." The story is so strong because so much is unexplained. We understand the terrifying consequences of entering the grass by the end of the story, and "that's all folks."
 

Wayoftheredpanda

Flaming Wonder Telepath
May 15, 2018
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I just feel it would've been a lot better if certain ideas were expanded upon, and also they weren't even in the grass for that long before they resorted to cannabalism.
 
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