Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10
There is nothing wrong with an author plying their trade and their name across more than one genre, in fact, it should be urged of them frequently less they become comfortable in their approach, and stale in their delivery.
Variety is not a spice of life, it is the very condiment to which inspires and keeps the writer echoing the likeness of death, and if you can’t change the scenery that you physically see because you are forever tapping away behind a desk, your fingers becoming numb, your mind racing with words, then the least you can do is alter the perspective of the narrative, vary the image, take part in your very own revolution from a foot away from the screen.
There are no tomorrows, only Later and after the fact, and for arguably the most prestigious, certainly the most prolific, horror writer of the latter half of the 20th Century and the first two decades of the 21st, Stephen King shows no sign of slowing down, and one to whom in later life has embraced, in a way, the idea of change as he forces himself away from the day to day consistent ethic of revealing monsters that snarl under the bed at all hours, and offering his insight into the area of the hard-boiled crime.
However, the touch, the need for monsters is always a recurring conversation, and whilst that is not necessarily an issue when you consider the opportunities that arise by such blurring of the lines between genres, it perhaps makes the impact aimed for, more of a cushioned, and therefore less dramatic, blow on the senses.
There are moments within the new offering by the master of horror, Later, where you can see Stephen King aching to get out and stretch his literary legs, but finding himself perhaps constricted by the box, the genre and approach, he has placed himself in. Like Joyland and The Colorado Kid, the restraint the author must adopt is perhaps both a curse and a blessing.
The blessing is that one of the major criticisms of the author’s output is that on occasion he doesn’t seem to want to stop telling the story, that the perceived end is never really the end; the curse is its polar opposite, the tale feels unnaturally terminated, cut off and edited down to such a point that it feels clunky, forced, the natural mind of the author regulated and the authority over ideas, motive and imagery is reduced to the point where it could have been any other writer at the wheel.
Later is perhaps not for the Stephen King purist, but in terms of a tale, it is still an enjoyable, albeit truncated, read. There is mystery in the story, there is the feeling of revulsion in discovery, but there is also the understanding that not every story has to be an It, a Christine, or The Shining for it to capture the moment between reader and author. Understated perhaps, but still, the King in different clothes is still one who looms in the darkness waiting to invade your dreams.
Ian D. Hall