Sounds like Stephen King’s latest novel is more bigoted and dishonest than usual.
Before Stephen King became Stephen King, he was a breathtakingly talented storyteller. Name a novelist with an uninterrupted, decade-long run of page-turners like Carrie, Salem’s Lot, The Shining, The Stand, The Dead Zone, Firestarter, Cujo, Christine, and Pet Sematary. If King had retired in 1983, everyone would still know his name.
There were still some great novels to come—Misery and Eyes of the Dragon, for instance, but by this time, he was Stephen King, no longer an outsider but an insulated, pampered, filthy-rich elitist. And with that change came bloated books, an air of self-importance, and spell-breaking diatribes. His 1994 novel Insomnia cured me of its title. That’s when I gave up. Flash-forward 27 years to when I gave Billy Summers a read, which only confirmed my 1994 decision.
King’s biggest problem is how full of himself he’s become. The cool, nerdy guy who adored schlocky horror movies and the taboo pleasures of EC Comics has become a humorless scold, yelling at everyone from the front lawn of his Twitter account. If someone faithfully reincarnated EC Comics today, he’d be right there with a pitchfork screaming about the “male gaze” and whatever else offended his fellow woketards.
Basically, King became an uptight square, a stiff Margaret Dumont with an overbite.
Which brings me to Holly, his 900th novel.
First, the hate and bigotry by way of American Thinker:
The villains in Holly are predictable. The antagonists are a husband and wife who are racist, anti-vax, old, and white. The protagonists of the book are equally predictable. They are all women, minorities, homosexuals, or some combination of the three.
Lastly, King’s treatment of Christians is beyond scurrilous. He writes in Holly of a vegan black lesbian who is victimized by her Christian family on religious grounds for not eating meat. This “sin,” King claims, is so dishonorable that several members of the family’s Church gang-rape the black lesbian. When the black lesbian aborts the resultant baby, her family disowns her completely.
Here are some excerpts captured on the Twitterzzz:
From the latest Stephen King. Were people always this insufferably unsubtle? You’d think an experienced, bestselling novelist could cleverly allude to his politics rather than beating you over the head with them like a crowbar. pic.twitter.com/nCJKuKT39b
— Ben Sixsmith (@BDSixsmith) September 9, 2023
And here’s the COVID misinformation:
[A]ccording to King, COVID nursing home deaths were all because an orderly refused to get an mRNA “vaccine” because it was developed using cells from aborted fetuses. The Democrat governors who committed murder on an industrial scale by forcing COVID patients into nursing homes go without the least mention.
The worst nursing home deaths, and King knows this, were directly caused by anti-science Democrats, like former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who poured patients infected with COVID into nursing homes where those at the most risk of dying from COVID lived. And by then, because the virus hit Europe first, everyone knew the elderly were the most vulnerable. That’s why Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) quickly moved to protect nursing homes. Bet that’s not in the book.
Also, it was former President Donald Trump who moved heaven and earth to get the vaccine to the public.
So, as you can see, King has not only become a bigot and an uptight square who looks like everyone’s lesbian aunt, he’s become a propaganda tool for the establishment.
You know, I have a book coming out in a couple of weeks, my first (and only) novel, and all I cared about was writing a page-turner. All I wanted was to cast a spell and hold it. And because I’ve been at the ass-end of this garbage all my adult life, I know that the cheapest way to break that spell is to intrude on the story with a lecture or scold or some ham-handed political point. I also know that breaking that spell is the worst sin a storyteller can commit. It’s a selfish act, pure narcissism. Of course, my book represents my worldview. I wrote it. But it doesn’t preach my worldview. I’m aiming for timeless, not timely, which means I left plenty of room for the reader to make their own interpretation of events. That’s how it’s supposed to work—through allegory, theme, and character.
When King knew this, he was America’s storyteller.
Today, he’s an aging palace guard for the establishment.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.