Hearts in Atlantis by Stephen King

(Book Review)

I was in the bookstore a few weeks ago, and looking over the cover of this book, and it looked just interesting enough for me to shell out a few Yen and give it a try.

(A bit of digging around on the Internet reveals that this book was actually made into a movie in 2002, but I never heard of it before. Perhaps because I was in Japan at the time).

The book jacket advertised it as Stephen King's take on counter-culture, the Vietnam War, and the 1960s. (King being a member of the Baby boomer generation himself).

Being a bit of a 60s nut, and having moderately enjoyed the last two Stephen King books I read ("The Gunslinger" and "The Stand") I thought this book might be right up my alley.

It turns out the story isn't exactly as advertised, but it was still a great read nonetheless.

Actually before I started up this book review project, I also read one more Stephen King book: "On Writing". In that book, among other things, Stephen King emphasized that the best books are not plotted out before hand. You just start writing the story and see where it goes. (Chester Gould, the creator of Dick Tracy, used to say the same thing: "The best stories are the ones you make up as you go along, because if I don't know what's going to happen next, how can the reader?")

There may be something to this, but all the same in my (albeit limited) experience with Stephen King, when I get to the end of one of his books I always think to myself: "you know, I could tell he made that up as he went along." There's always too many themes and plot lines that don't seem to go anywhere.

The same can be said about this book. It is not so much a single story as a collection of 5 stories with some overlapping characters. King makes an effort to emphasize some of the same themes throughout, but I highly suspect that these started out as 5 unrelated stories that he rewrote into one book.

That being said: It's a real page-turner. I don't remember the last time I was as hooked on a book as I was on this one: staying up late into the night to find out what was going to happen next, sneaking in little breaks at work to read a couple pages, et cetera.

The first half of this book takes place during the summer of 1960 when Eisenhower is still President. A mysterious stranger moves into the block, and he appears to come from another world. It probably more accurately belongs as one of King's "Dark Tower" series than a 1960s time piece. (I didn't get very far into the "Dark Tower" series, but I am familiar enough with the general concept to recognize the cross over).

This part doesn't fit exactly right with the rest of the book, but it is well written and suspenseful.

The next part is about a college experience in 1966. An entire boy's dormitory is in danger of flunking out of school because of an obsession with Hearts card game. At the same time the beginnings of consciousness about the Vietnam War are stirring.

At first I had a hard time believing a stupid card game could be addictive enough to cause everyone in the dorm to be in danger of flunking out. (I played Hearts a couple times in college, and never felt it was anything I wanted to give up my GPA or my social life for). And then I remembered all the people I knew from college who almost flunked because of on-line video games. So I guess in the days before video games, Hearts is as good a reason to flunk out of school as any.

Whether King accurately captures the atmosphere of the 60s is not for me (born in 1978) to say. However he does a good job of recreating the tension of a boy's dormitory. At times it reminded me of "A Separate Peace" or the beginning of "Catcher in the Rye". King never quite rises to this level, but at his best parts he gets close.

The last 3 chapters are in the 80s and 90s, and deal with the legacy of the Vietnam War.

The themes, like the plot lines in this book, are a bit too jumbled and numerous to come out too distinctly and be neatly summarized. King manages to touch on a variety of subjects, but doesn't linger on any of them: human nature and "Lord of the Flies", the potential of the Baby boomer generation and their failure to live up to it, the irony of the peace movement turning towards violence, the My Lai massacre and the horrors of Vietnam, the lives of the veterans after the war, et cetera.

It's almost a pity King wrote this book in 1999, because I'm sure the conflict in Iraq now, and the similarities to Vietnam, would allow him a whole other direction to go in. As it is however this book should just be taken as a pre-Iraq War take on the legacy of Vietnam.

The book also showcases King at his usual macabre self. Even when not writing horror, King never seems to get away from his fascination with gore and death. Some of the Vietnam War scenes, with pilots getting their skin burned off, could easily have come out of a horror book instead. And yet at the same time, this book comes off as strongly anti-war.

Link of the Day
Bush administration opposes increased pay and benefits for soldiers

Hearts in Atlantis by Stephen King: Book Review (Scripted)