JUST AFTER SUNSET

General INFORMATION

TITLE: Merely After SUNSET

Writer: STEPHEN Male monarch

PAGES: 353

PUBLISHER: HODDER & STOUGHTON

Twelvemonth: 2008

GENRE: Curt FICTION

Embrace Type: HARD Back

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_After_Sunset

www.stephenking.com

BLURB FROM THE Cover

Now: but afterwards sunset, as darkness grips the imagination, that's when reality grows thin. When yous can experience the everyday become the unexpected in this captivating drove of twist-in-the-tail stories of suspense, terror and dark comedy from the No i bestselling author.

A bullheaded girl visits a dying man and saves his life with a kiss. A crime author is faced with a real criminal offence – and has to draw upon his alter ego for courage. And a immature couple seek the brilliant lights of a nearby town and end up playing the jukebox for eternity.

This tantalising, thrilling book explores the human experience equally ordinary objects assume boggling powers and familiar journeys have a different plow. From the surreal to the horribly real, Male monarch plays a riveting riff which volition proceed y'all spellbound from first folio to terminal.

EXTRACT

You don't see what's right in front of your eyes, she'd said, only sometimes he did. He supposed he wasn't entirely undeserving of her contemptuousness, but he wasn't entirely blind either. And as the dregs of sunset faded to biting orange over the Wind River Range, David looked around the station and saw that Willa was gone. He told himself he wasn't sure, just that was just his head – his sinking stomach was sure enough (WILLA)

REVIEW

WILLA: The title character tries to make the group of people she'south stranded in the middle of nowhere with, including her fiancé, realise they actually died in a railroad train crash and are haunting the station. She wants to encourage them to head to the lights of a nearby urban center earlier the station is pulled downwards and they are trapped in darkness.

Willa was beginning published in the December 2006 edition of Playboy.

I idea Willa was a weak story. I love the idea backside the story. The idea of the souls of the dead lingering on earth fascinates me. I don't retrieve King executes it very well in Willa. I really wanted to like this story but it didn't live upwardly to my expectations.

THE GINGERBREAD Daughter: A woman copes with the death of her young girl by taking upwards running. This becomes an obsessive compulsion that jeopardises her marriage. She leaves her hubby and stays in her father's summertime home in Florida. She comes face to face with a serial killer she needs to outwit.

The Gingerbread Girl was first published in the July 2007 outcome of Esquire.

I loved The Gingerbread Girl. It's one of the best stories King has ever written. But Afterwards Sunset is worth reading merely for this great story. I loved the fact the main grapheme outwits the killer and drowns him in the sea. Cool beans.

HARVEY'S DREAM: Harvey and his wife after having breakfast one morning time. He tells her nearly a terrible dream he had. Someone called their firm and told him their girl had been killed in a terrible blow. The dream frightened him badly. The phone rings and Harvey knows his dream has come true.

Harvey'due south Dream was first published in the June 30, 2003 upshot of The New Yorker.

I thought Harvey's Dream was a very weak story, weaker than Willa. It came across equally something an amateur would do who had never learned whatever meliorate. I idea the phone ringing later Harvey recounted his dream was crass. I wasn't impressed.

Residuum STOP: A crime writer stops at a rest stop in the middle of nowhere. He hears a man and woman in the cubicle side by side door. They are arguing. He'southward beating the shit out of her while she begs him to terminate. He takes on the persona of his tough, ball-breaking pseudonym to kicking the shit out of the human being and save the adult female from her bad choices.

Rest Stop was first published in the December 2003 result of Esquire.

I really enjoyed Rest Stop. I thought information technology was a great little story. Who hasn't witnessed or overheard some creep shell the shit out his woman and wanted to intervene? I liked the fact the character had to pretend to be someone else to do information technology because he would accept been too scared every bit himself.

STATIONARY Wheel: An overweight man discovers he needs to make some desperate changes when he has a cheque-up at his doctors. He buys an exercise cycle and obsessively uses it in the basement of his house every day. He has a picture of trivial workmen he imagines are responsible for keeping his torso in shape. The workmen come up to life and urge him to slow downward because he's taking their jobs away and i of the crew has already committed suicide.

Stationary Bike was showtime published in Borderlands v in 2003.

I bought a CD of Rex reading Stationary Bike years ago and loved it. The written version is fifty-fifty meliorate. I love this story also. It's funny. I love the fantasy elements with the main character seeming to travel inside the painting on his wall and the workmen coming to life. I call up Stationary Wheel is dandy and very unique.

THE THINGS THEY LEFT BEHIND: A man who survived 9/11 because a promotion told him to call in sick at work is haunted by his piece of work colleagues who were all killed. Personal objects that belonged to each of them start to turn upwardly in his house. He tries to get rid of them and they reappear. He somewhen starts to give the objects to surviving relatives.

The Things They Left Behind was first published in Transgressions in 2005.

I thought The Things They Left Behind was a great story. The narrator is haunted because of his guilty heart. He feels he should take tried to persuade his co-worker'south to stay away from the part because he felt something terrible would happen. The Things They Left Behind is about survivor's guilt.

GRADUATION AFTERNOON: A young woman is at the house of her boyfriend to celebrate graduating from high school. The festivities are interrupted when a mushroom cloud explodes in the heaven nearby, possibly some kind of nuclear attack.

Graduation Afternoon was commencement published in the March 2007 issue of Postscripts.

I hated Graduation Afternoon. I thought it was the weakest tale in Merely After Sunset. It wasn't very well written and came beyond a pointless. Male monarch is capable of much meliorate.

N: A psychiatrist starts to treat a patient he refers to as N who suffers from obsessive compulsive disorder. North stumbled across a strange field called Ackerman's Field some months agone that has a ring of viii stones. Due north believes the stones are holding some enormous monster at bay. One of the stones fades and can only exist brought dorsum to reality by being viewed through a camera lens and touched until it becomes existent again. This kicks off N's obsessive compulsive behaviour. This gets worse when he receives a key in the post that suggests he has go the new keeper of the field. Northward kills himself. His psychiatrist develops his obsession when he visits the field and starts to do the same things until he kills himself. The psychiatrist'due south sister is next.

North was published for the first time in Only After Sunset.

I thought N was brilliant. King offers us a Lovecraftian inspired piece. The monster in Ackerman's Field is right out of Lovecraft's Clotho Mythos. Due north was a brilliant story, just vivid.

THE CAT FROM HELL: A rich old man hires a hitman to take out the demon cat he believes has been stalking his family. The family unit ain a famous pharmaceutical company who experimented on cats many years ago. He believes the true cat has been sent from hell to avenge this. The true cat has killed three members of his family. The hitman thinks the old human being is a crank and takes the cat off to dispose of. The cat gets loose and causes him to crash the car and kills him by forcing its way inside his mouth and suffocating him. The cat claws its manner dorsum out of his trunk and goes later the old man.

The True cat From Hell is an early on story and was first published in the June 1977 issue of Cavalier.

I really enjoyed this story. It was a bit gory only lots of fun. I saw a version of this filmed as role of an anthology movie years agone.

THE NEW YORK TIMES AT SPECIAL Deal RATES: A adult female grieving the expiry of her hubby receives a phone call in the middle of the night. The caller claims to be her husband. He'due south calling her simply before the accident that takes his life. She is distraught and thinks this is a prank. She remarries and haunted past the memory of her first husband.

The New York Times at Special Bargain Rates was first published in the October/November 2008 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Scientific discipline Fiction.

I thought The New York Times at Special Bargain Rates was a bit of a clunker. Like Willa I idea the idea behind the story was great. Male monarch didn't execute it very well. I wasn't impressed.

MUTE: A man picks up a deaf/mute hitchhiker. He confesses his wife'south infidelity to this stranger and the fact she embezzled over $100,000 from her piece of work to pay for her thing and this as left them both in the shit. His wife and lover are browbeaten to death after he drops the hitchhiker off. He goes habitation and finds a medal the hitchhiker stole hanging on the wall next to his hymeneals movie with a note that states thank you for the ride. He believes the hitchhiker killed his wife and her lover.

Mute was published for the start fourth dimension in the December 2007 issue of Playboy.

I idea Mute was a dandy story. Mute is very well written and original. It's written in the style of the homo 'confession' to a priest and this works actually well.

AYANA: A immature blind blackness girl visits a dying man and gives him a kiss. He makes a remarkable recovery. The man's family, who saw the young girl wonder if she has some kind of healing powers or if this is a coincidence.

Ayana was published for the first time in the autumn 2007 upshot of The Paris Review.

I thought Ayana was a very weak story. Similar Willa and The New York Times at Special Deal Rates, I loved the thought behind it just King just didn't make this work for me. I was very disappointed.

A VERY TIGHT PLACE: A man seeks revenge of the homo he believed ruined his life. He traps him inside a port-a-potty and turns it upside downwards. He believes the man who dies a slow and painful expiry. The man escapes and seeks revenge.

A Very Tight Place was first published in the May 2008 edition of McSweeney'south.

I really enjoyed A Very Tight Identify. King made me feel very claustrophobic equally I read the story. The man is covered in shit when he escapes his prison. This was gross but well written. Another great footling story.

Last THOUGHTS

Just Later on Dusk is a mixed bag of a collection. I thought some stories were bang-up, others were just okay and some were very weak. I enjoyed the collection for some of the meliorate stories merely felt disappointed overall. King tin do and then much better. Ane of his before collections, Night Shift is much, much better.

RATING

3 STAR RATING