Stephen King -- who has written more than fifty books,
dozens of number one New York Times bestsellers, and
many unforgettable movies -- delivers an astonishing
collection of short stories, his first since Everything's
Eventual six years ago. As guest editor of the
bestselling Best American Short Stories 2007, King
spent over a year reading hundreds of stories. His renewed
passion for the form is evident on every page of Just
After Sunset. The stories in this collection have
appeared in The New Yorker, Playboy,
McSweeney's, The Paris Review, Esquire,
and other publications.
Who but Stephen King would turn a
Port-O-San into a slimy birth canal, or a roadside
honky-tonk into a place for endless love? A book salesman
with a grievance might pick up a mute hitchhiker, not
knowing the silent man in the passenger seat listens
altogether too well. Or an exercise routine on a stationary
bicycle, begun to reduce bad cholesterol, might take its
rider on a captivating -- and then terrifying -- journey.
Set on a remote key in Florida, "The Gingerbread Girl" is a
riveting tale featuring a young woman as vulnerable -- and
resourceful -- as Audrey Hepburn's character in Wait
Until Dark. In "Ayana," a blind girl works a miracle
with a kiss and the touch of her hand. For King, the line
between the living and the dead is often blurry, and the
seams that hold our reality intact might tear apart at any
moment. In one of the longer stories here, "N.," which
recently broke new ground when it was adapted as a graphic
digital entertainment, a psychiatric patient's irrational
thinking might create an apocalyptic threat in the Maine
countryside...or keep the world from falling victim to
it.
Just After Sunset -- call it dusk, call it
twilight, it's a time when human intercourse takes on an
unnatural cast, when nothing is quite as it appears, when
the imagination begins to reach for shadows as they
dissipate to darkness and living daylight can be scared
right out of you. It's the perfect time for Stephen King.
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