Read an Excerpt From Stephen King's New Fantasy Novel, FAIRY TALE
If you’re as big of a fan as Stephen King as I am, I’m sure you already know about and totally stoked about his latest novel, Fairy Tale. It’s amazing how fast he pumps these novels out, and he revealed that his secret is just writing three pages a day.
This next of his sounds freakin’ cool The story centers on a 17-year-old boy named Charlie Reade who inherits the keys to a parallel world where good and evil are at war. He becomes the caretaker of the portal that leads to this parallel world where "good and evil are at war."
The tone and setting kinda feel like King’s The Tailsman. It seems like it’s in that same wheelhouse. Entertainment Weekly goes on to offer the following story information:
Charlie Reade looks like a regular high school kid, great at baseball and football, a decent student. But he carries a heavy load. His mom was killed in a hit-and-run accident when he was 10, and grief drove his dad to drink. Charlie learned how to take care of himself — and his dad. Then, when Charlie is 17, he meets a dog named Radar and his aging master, Howard Bowditch, a recluse in a big house at the top of a big hill, with a locked shed in the backyard. Sometimes strange sounds emerge from it.
Charlie starts doing jobs for Mr. Bowditch and loses his heart to Radar. Then, when Bowditch dies, he leaves Charlie a cassette tape telling a story no one would believe. What Bowditch knows, and has kept secret all his long life, is that inside the shed is a portal to another world.
This sounds like the kind of King story I’m going to love. I’m a big fan of the stories that King tells that deals with the fantasy realm. When talking about the book, King shared that the story was inspired by the pandemic and he wanted to write something that would make people happy. He said:
"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. I saw a magic sundial that could turn back time. Those images released the story I wanted to tell."
Simon and Schuster announced that Fairy Tale will be available to buy on September 6, 2022. To help get you hooked, they even shared an excerpt from the book, which you can read here.
