Billy Summers - Stephen King

Fiction/Thriller

Rating: 9/10

King has always flung aside the principles of “proper” writing with a kind of resplendent genius. Mashing up genres, bending the rules of structure to his almighty will, changing points of view on a dime and at times offering up the reader a head spinning number of narrative voices to follow. I won’t tell you which of these savvy skills is unleashed in his latest, suffice to say it’s more than one.

Billy is just a seemingly average brooding war hero turned vigilante assassin. One who populates his hit list with only bad men. Posing as an author while he awaits the go on a high profile hit, we learn through his own retrospective writings that he in fact considers himself one of those bad men. Once the deed is done, after lots of criminal machinations and backstory have been laid out in meticulous detail, Billy finds himself the unlikely savior of a young woman who has suffered an assault. The sudden presence of a possible road to redemption is unexpected and leaves him contemplating if his own story is almost at its end.

One of my favourite moments in the book is when the writer within speaks of the power of writing to change the world. Shaping even the most grievous pain into something that is bearable.

Given the inclination we humans have to put labels on everything, King will likely always be referred to as a horror novelist.  But know this, he is always at his most eloquent in those moments when the supernatural bits are packed away and the only monster remaining is of the human variety. And while fiction may not be the truth, it is often the only path that can be taken to get to it.

Book Pairing(s): 11/22/63 by Stephen King, No Man’s Land by David Baldacci, Exit Strategy by Kelley Armstrong