Confession: This is the first Stephen King book I’ve ever read. I tend towards light horror, so I avoided Stephen King’s work, assuming it would be too scary for me. But I started to see his latest novel, Fairytale, everywhere. Even people who didn’t typically read horror were raving about it.
Then I read an interview where King said that, at the height of the pandemic, he wanted to write a book that would make him happy. I immediately downloaded the audiobook, knowing that as a master storyteller, King’s version of a comfort read would be something I didn’t want to miss.
"As if my imagination had been waiting for the question to be asked, I saw a vast deserted city—deserted but alive. I saw the empty streets, the haunted buildings, a gargoyle head lying overturned in the street. I saw smashed statues (of what I didn’t know, but I eventually found out). I saw a huge, sprawling palace with glass towers so high their tips pierced the clouds. Those images released the story I wanted to tell."
About the Book
Fairytale by Stephen King
Genre: Fantasy
Book Review
A boy’s devotion to his dog leads him on adventure through a haunted city in this fantasy masterpiece.
This book starts with the heartwarming story of Charlie finding Mr. Bowditch, an elderly man, fallen in his garden due to the barking of his also elderly dog Radar. Charlie immediately adopts Mr. Bowditch and Radar, part of a bargain he made with God when his dad finally stops drinking for good, even though Mr. Bowditch’s grouchy exterior would be enough to drive anyone away. Charlie’s good humor and willingness to dive into whatever needs to be done, no matter how hard, eventually wins over Mr. Bowditch. The book would have been unforgettable even if it had stayed in this world, with Charlie moving in to help Mr. Bowditch through a complicated recovery and falling in love with Radar, an elderly German Shepherd.
But King begins to drop breadcrumbs that all might not be as it seems, starting with some gold pellets in the safe and a mysterious creature in the shed. When Mr. Bowditch dies, Charlie learns that he has inherited the doorway to another world. Even though Empis is under a dark curse, Charlie decides to brave a journey through it for a chance to save Radar on a sundial that can turn back time. To get to it, he has to travel through a haunted city. Not going to lie, I would have braved any number of haunted cities to save my late dog, Jack, so this was a story that won my heart.
King brings both worlds fully to life: the small town in Illinois where Charlie plays baseball and takes care of Mr. Bowditch, and Empis, filled with people Charlie had only read about in fairytales: the goose girl, Rumpelstiltskin and more. King beautifully describes Empis, land of Monarch butterflies and soaring palaces, now ruled over by Flightkiller, who destroys every Monarch he can. Most of the people are under a curse, and Charlie debates what he can do to help them, as Mr. Bowditch had said: “A brave man helps. Cowards bring presents.” Everywhere Charlie goes in Empis, he comes across more presents Mr. Bowditch had given to the residents.
Charlie is a delightfully flawed heroine: while his choices aren’t always the morally right ones, they are completely understandable. He’s a reluctant hero who ends up joining the fight for the soul of Empis, building up a band of friends along the way.
Spoiler alert: The dog lives.
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