Has Stephen King Lost His Touch?
From a Buick 8 by Stephen King
I haven't decided whether I'm a pickier reader now than back when Stephen King first blew me away with his first novel, Carrie, or whether King has become so famous that he knows he can dump off a lousy book on the reading public without damaging his reputation much. You'd think that a good writer would get better over time and would produce stronger rather than weaker books. In fact, King did pen some gems after his runaway first book — books like The Shining, Pet Sematary, and Cujo. He also got caught up in his Gunslinger which I find terribly annoying (in part due to the work being put out in series form) and turned his hand at non-fiction with the academic themed Dance Macabre (dull as an economic textbook).
From a Buick 8 rides on King's coattails and highlights his shortcomings as a writer (which can easily be overlooked if his story is strong). Had this book been written under another name, it would likely have never been printed and surely would have gone belly up in the bookstores. It really is THAT BAD.
A stranger pulls into town (cliché) and walks off leaving behind a very strange car. Hum. Something sounds familiar here. Perhaps King got his reject notes out for Dark Tower and Christine and packaged them as new book.
Certainly, From a Buick 8 reads like a collection of short story drafts as the tale unfolds with various members of Troop D (police) spin the story for Ned, Curt's son. Curt had been the self-appointed "keeper of the car" before his untimely death. The town drunk mashed the officer flat as he barreled by the transfer truck where Curt was writing up a ticket or something. In fact, "Daddy sang bass and Momma sang tenor as the coins were ripped out of Curt Wilcox's pants and his p*nis was torn off like a weed and his balls were reduced to strawberry jello and his comb and wallet landed on the yellow line..." You get the picture. Really now, that's too much information and reflective of the overblown writing in this book.
Shortly after the car is locked away in the storage shed behind Troop D, an officer goes missing — vanishes into thin air just like the stranger that drove the car into town. Since the car does strange things like healing paint scratches, it's assumed that the vehicle is somehow related to the disappearance. As the guys watch over this mysterious Buick, they begin to notice that the temperature in the shed drops...right before really odd things start to happen.
The entire book is a recounting of the good old days when the car was more powerful and when it sucked things out of thin air (like a hamster) and spit out other things from another world that somewhat resembled bats and fish. The car did not act out very often, so the old timers go over these years in dull detail with various members picking up the story here, there, and all over the place.
Some people are born storytellers. Others are not. King's characters are not storytellers. It would be quite impossible to tell one from the other by opening the book and reading randomly. The exception might be the guy who talks like Lawrence Welk and who tells his minimal parts of the story in dialect. Actually, it's more other characters referencing this fellow and constantly making mention of his strange speaking patterns. Apparently someone is afraid that the reader won't notice or understand non-standard English dialogue. These same guys are also afraid that readers won't remember that the car smells like cabbage and peppermint when it's about to start ghosting up. You'd have a tidy sum if you got a nickel for every time you're reminded of cabbage.
Though the characters never really take shape, the overall tone is testosterone laced with know-it-all ness. These guys, as a collective, group are so arrogant and condescending that it's simply painful to stop by, turn pages and listen to the stories. The guys rag on all non-police folks and especially on females.
The sister of the man who disappeared is portrayed as a witch, and the guys enjoy the fact that no one takes her seriously even though she is on target in thinking that something is odd about her brother's disappearance. When one officer pulls over a battered girlfriend who doesn't want to press charges, he wants to hit her in the face (just so she'll know he's really there). They kind of like the one female (the dispatcher) who sort of looks the other way and doesn't make waves. There are all kinds of put-downs aimed toward John Q (which is another cliché and grossly overused word in the book), and it seems that women are so worthless as to not even rate being simply basic dumb John Qs.
I tried to overlook the awful simile near the beginning of this book where King talks about the dog being freaked out when near the car and then later (not near the car) being "cool as a strawberry milkshake." Good heavens. My kids came up with better similes in grade school.
That is just one of many basic writing flaws.
King seems quite taken with tired sayings like "Curiosity killed the cat" and with profanities including all the basic ones sprinkled here and there and everywhere.
He pushes the story through with huge chunks of dialogue which would be fine if the characters had unique ways of telling things. They don't. "Don't you guys move," he said from the doorway. "Don't you move a red inch." Now, that's a typical line from the text which also includes a lot of things like: "No," "Exactly," and "Right" quotes.
I don't buy a King book expecting the writing to be especially lyrical, and I do know that he can be a somewhat sophomoric on his word choices. I keep expecting him to smooth some of that out and improve, but this book is clearly regressive. Add this slack writing with a non-story that is uninteresting from the first to last page, and you have a book that reads like a new writer trying to break in and missing the mark.
The next time Stephen King puts out a book, I'm going to think long and hard (plus read some reviews) before plunking down the cash to carry it home. It seems like he's run out of ideas and is just pumping out pages to make a buck. I can't imagine someone unfamiliar with King picking up From a Buick 8 and being impressed. Even diehard fans will have a difficult time defending this bomb.
