HOLLY GIBNEY BACK AT WORK FOR STEPHEN KING

Stephen King is getting different with older age. Mellow for one, and the cases are less fantastic, less supra-natural, and more human, humane, simple, down to earth. Maybe he does not believe in Fairy Tales at all, or anymore. In this novel, he has all he needs to get phenomenal and beyond normal human limits, but he does not. He crisscrosses several plot lines, two criminal ones, and two very sentimental if not romantic. He intertwines and even entangles basic social and cultural problems into a network of complicated situations and issues, abortion, a deranged young man who had been the victim of his brutal father, and a second deranged young man who had been the" victim of his religious family that banned him from assuming his female half. To that, you add the slow rising of Black artists, here a gospel singer and a poetess, both women who are trying to succeed in a society where racism is still a standard part of free speech. Then you can think of the fact that people who want to succeed or want to be free to speak their minds are obliged to have bodyguards and private protectors. Who says the United States are the country of the freedom of speech when some who think and express some ideas like the right to abortion are hunted down by killers who will manage, one way or the other, to escape the real punishment they deserve, such as being forced to take a menial job that will make them subservient, like shoe shining in the underground in LA or NYC. Would it solve the crime business? Probably not, but living a very long time in total dependence in front of everyone around might make some deranged minds think twice. If they can think, for sure. The novel, the plots, and the style too are maybe simpler than usual for Stephen King, but they have the great advantage of being, in a way, fearless. Fearless or Unconscious? At times, you will doubt the one or the other, like Holly Gibney.