Genre Fiction
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Fairy Tale
A #1 New York Times Bestseller and New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice!
Legendary storyteller Stephen King goes into the deepest well of his imagination in this spellbinding novel about a seventeen-year-old boy who inherits the keys to a parallel world where good and evil are at war, and the stakes could not be higher-for that world or ours.
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 seven, and grief drove his dad to drink. Charlie learned how to take care of himself-and his dad. When Charlie is seventeen, he meets a dog named Radar and her 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.
King's storytelling in Fairy Tale soars. This is a magnificent and terrifying tale in which good is pitted against overwhelming evil, and a heroic boy-and his dog-must lead the battle.
Early in the Pandemic, King asked himself: "What could you write that would make you happy?"
"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."
Legendary storyteller Stephen King goes into the deepest well of his imagination in this spellbinding novel about a seventeen-year-old boy who inherits the keys to a parallel world where good and evil are at war, and the stakes could not be higher-for that world or ours.
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 seven, and grief drove his dad to drink. Charlie learned how to take care of himself-and his dad. When Charlie is seventeen, he meets a dog named Radar and her 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.
King's storytelling in Fairy Tale soars. This is a magnificent and terrifying tale in which good is pitted against overwhelming evil, and a heroic boy-and his dog-must lead the battle.
Early in the Pandemic, King asked himself: "What could you write that would make you happy?"
"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."
Editorial Reviews
Chapter One: The Goddam Bridge. The Miracle. The Howling. CHAPTER ONE The Goddam Bridge. The Miracle. The Howling.
1
I'm sure I can tell this story. I'm also sure no one will believe it. That's fine with me. Telling it will be enough. My problem-and I'm sure many writers have it, not just newbies like me-is deciding where to start.
My first thought was with the shed, because that's where my adventures really began, but then I realized I would have to tell about Mr. Bowditch first, and how we became close. Only that never would have happened except for the miracle that happened to my father. A very ordinary miracle you could say, one that's happened to many thousands of men and women since 1935, but it seemed like a miracle to a kid.
Only that isn't the right place, either, because I don't think my father would have needed a miracle if it hadn't been for that goddamned bridge. So that's where I need to start, with the goddamned Sycamore Street Bridge. And now, thinking of those things, I see a clear thread leading up through the years to Mr. Bowditch and the padlocked shed behind his ramshackle old Victorian.
But a thread is easy to break. So not a thread but a chain. A strong one. And I was the kid with the shackle clamped around his wrist.
2
The Little Rumple River runs through the north end of Sentry's Rest (known to the locals as Sentry), and until the year 1996, the year I was born, it was spanned by a wooden bridge. That was the year the state inspectors from the Department of Highway Transportation looked it over and deemed it unsafe. People in our part of Sentry had known that since '82, my father said. The bridge was posted for ten thousand pounds, but townies with a fully loaded pickup truck mostly steered clear of it, opting for the turnpike extension, which was an annoying and time-consuming detour. My dad said you could feel the planks shiver and shake and rumble under you even in a car. It was dangerous, the state inspectors were right about that, but here's the irony: if the old wooden bridge had never been replaced by one made of steel, my mother might still be alive.
The Little Rumple really is little, and putting up the new bridge didn't take long. The wooden span was demolished and the new one was opened to traffic in April of 1997.
"The mayor cut a ribbon, Father Coughlin blessed the goddam thing, and that was that," my father said one night. He was pretty drunk at the time. "Wasn't much of a blessing for us, Charlie, was it?"
It was named the Frank Ellsworth Bridge, after a hometown hero who died in Vietnam, but the locals just called it the Sycamore Street Bridge. Sycamore Street was paved nice and smooth on both sides, but the bridge deck-one hundred and forty...
1
I'm sure I can tell this story. I'm also sure no one will believe it. That's fine with me. Telling it will be enough. My problem-and I'm sure many writers have it, not just newbies like me-is deciding where to start.
My first thought was with the shed, because that's where my adventures really began, but then I realized I would have to tell about Mr. Bowditch first, and how we became close. Only that never would have happened except for the miracle that happened to my father. A very ordinary miracle you could say, one that's happened to many thousands of men and women since 1935, but it seemed like a miracle to a kid.
Only that isn't the right place, either, because I don't think my father would have needed a miracle if it hadn't been for that goddamned bridge. So that's where I need to start, with the goddamned Sycamore Street Bridge. And now, thinking of those things, I see a clear thread leading up through the years to Mr. Bowditch and the padlocked shed behind his ramshackle old Victorian.
But a thread is easy to break. So not a thread but a chain. A strong one. And I was the kid with the shackle clamped around his wrist.
2
The Little Rumple River runs through the north end of Sentry's Rest (known to the locals as Sentry), and until the year 1996, the year I was born, it was spanned by a wooden bridge. That was the year the state inspectors from the Department of Highway Transportation looked it over and deemed it unsafe. People in our part of Sentry had known that since '82, my father said. The bridge was posted for ten thousand pounds, but townies with a fully loaded pickup truck mostly steered clear of it, opting for the turnpike extension, which was an annoying and time-consuming detour. My dad said you could feel the planks shiver and shake and rumble under you even in a car. It was dangerous, the state inspectors were right about that, but here's the irony: if the old wooden bridge had never been replaced by one made of steel, my mother might still be alive.
The Little Rumple really is little, and putting up the new bridge didn't take long. The wooden span was demolished and the new one was opened to traffic in April of 1997.
"The mayor cut a ribbon, Father Coughlin blessed the goddam thing, and that was that," my father said one night. He was pretty drunk at the time. "Wasn't much of a blessing for us, Charlie, was it?"
It was named the Frank Ellsworth Bridge, after a hometown hero who died in Vietnam, but the locals just called it the Sycamore Street Bridge. Sycamore Street was paved nice and smooth on both sides, but the bridge deck-one hundred and forty...
Readers Top Reviews
Graham G GrantLis
The protagonist of Fairy Tale, Charlie Reade, is a high school jock. Charlie is also the son of a recovering alcoholic insurance salesman, living in Illinois. For much of his childhood, he looked after his dad - after Charlie's mum was killed in a car accident. Charlie's life changes when he meets an elderly, reclusive neighbour, Mr Bowditch, who's just had a serious accident - falling off a ladder at his home, locally nicknamed the 'Psycho House'. Charlie becomes Mr Bowditch's carer, giving up sport to the disappointment of his coach to focus on looking after him, and Mr B's ageing dog, Radar. This accounts for the first third of the novel, roughly - then the full-on fantasy begins. It's a riotous amalgam of influences from CS Lewis to Ray Bradbury, and even manages to cannabalise some of King's own earlier work, leaving Easter eggs for assiduous readers. If you're a fan of King's Dark Tower series, it's a reasonable bet that you'll like Fairy Tale - it is highly readable - and Charlie is a good guide, and a sympathetic character. That's just as well, as the novel is nearly 600 pages long and written in the first person - the repetition can get a bit wearing ('I did this, I did that etc'). There's not much writerly flourish here - apart from the odd descriptive passage. The ending called to mind IT, though this had the effect of reminding me that IT is a superior novel, albeit a hard one to beat. The difference is that Fairy Tale is firmly in the fantasy mould, albeit with many nods to horror, some of it King's own. At times it does all seem preposterous - well, of course it does, it's fantasy. But somehow it hangs together. There were sections where the pace sagged and in general there were too many characters - at one point, King apologises for all the names he's throwing at the reader. In the epilogue, he thanks his researcher, who 'knows more about [the fantasy land King created]', and indeed more about Charlie, than King does. Which is intriguing, as King made it all up... what was she researching? Well, it is a sprawling world, and there is a lot to remember. As a King fan, I lapped it up, even while acknowledging some of its flaws - really, what's not to enjoy...? In the epilogue, King also mentions he had a Google Alert on his own name... now that must really drive him mad...
Tom AdamsGraham G
SK is in his 75th year, and I wonder how many more books he has left in him — hopefully many more, based on this latest offering. I don’t know if it’s because I’ve been reading a lot of challenging books recently but it was just a joy to sink into this novel. The author is quoted as saying he looked to write a novel that would make him happy. Well, this one certainly helped me escape every time I dipped into it. There’s just something about his style that draws you in. He could write a story about the joys of accountancy and still make it interesting. The tale itself revisits certain character types and themes seen in many of SK’s previous books: a young boy who is somehow special but has flaws; an old man who needs some kind of care (qv SK’s recent novelette, Mr Harrigan’s Phone) and a portal to another world. Yet somehow, SK seems to provide fresh perspectives on these tropes. I would say the novel is in two parts — the earthly part and the fantastical part. Part 1 sees the hero, Charlie, having to deal with his mother’s death and the father’s subsequent descent into alcoholism. The boy having to cope with this, and make a ‘deal with God,’ provides the motivation for him helping the grumpy Mr Bowditch who lives at an old house further up the street. The old Man falls and breaks his leg, so Charlie comes to the rescue of both him, and his aging dog, Radar. As Charlie helps the old man recover, they begin to trust each other, and Bowditch lets him in on the secret of the shed in his back garden. This, it turns out, is the aforementioned portal. Due to a number of circumstances, which I won’t spoil here, Charlie ventures into the world beyond the deep portal in Bowditch’s shed and encounters the Fairy Tale world of Empis. This requires a shift in belief-acceptance for the reader, but King leads us in gently through his masterful use of the ‘diary’ first person narrative of Charlie. From here on in it’s into full-on fantasy mode where SK weaves together many Grimm-based elements, together with a Lovecraftian horror in the form of ‘Gogmagog’. There are multiple villains, friends and allies to meet, and this second part makes up the bulk of the book. Some criticise King from a plotting point of view, but for someone who has no idea how a book will ends when he starts it, this accomplishment is all the more amazing, to my mind. Unlike earlier books, the gore-horror elements are downplayed in favour of the characters and suspense coming to the fore. If you’re already a King fan, you won’t be disappointed by ‘Fairy Tale.’ If this is your introduction, it gives a perfect example of where this storyteller is at as he approaches the twilight of his career.
BewBobTom AdamsGr
Stephen King’s new novel, Fairy Tale, feels like a homage to a lot of stories and, indeed, storytellers – perhaps not surprising from the title. Many of the references throughout the story of Charlie Reade and his travel to the world of Empis are overt – Disney, Grimm Fairy tales, Ray Bradbury and HP Lovecraft, but there are as many snippets and ideas taken in other directions from King’s own work. Charlie befriends curmudgeonly old Mr Bowditch and his dog Radar; I don’t think it’s too much of a plot spoiler to say that the shed on Bowditch’s land leads to somewhere…different. And if there are similarities between that and Jake Epping’s relationship with, and legacy from, his friend Al Templeton in 11/22/63, then rest assured the doorway here leads somewhere very different. While King might have been writing more ‘grounded’ fiction recently (Billy Summers, the Bill Hodges trilogy, etc) he’s also been mixing it up with more ‘fantastical’ works like Revelation, The Institute and Elevation, and in Fairy Tale he combines the two states: it is, in effect, 150 pages before ‘the weird stuff’ starts happening. For some that may feel like a too slow build – for King fans it feels like a return to the many well drawn out portrayals of teenagers King has written about so often. The closest comparisons, given the ‘different worlds’ basic premise are, of course, going to be the author’s Dark Tower series and The Talisman (fittingly, if sadly, I read Fairy Tale on the day it was announced King’s co-author of the latter, Peter Straub, passed away). Considering the vein from the Dark Tower that runs through so much of King’s work, there’s relatively little mention here. There’s a quote from a certain Browning poem early on, and a single line late in the book which will be familiar to readers of the series, but otherwise, not so much. The Talisman feels a closer parallel to the story: the protagonist may be older, and the journey may be less fragmented between worlds, but it had that same feeling for me. All of the above may be a bit too fan-focused. At the end of the day, is it a good story? And the answer, for me, was that yes, it’s a rich, satisfying story. In some ways, it’s the story of stories. King is long enough in the tooth to recognise and embrace the influences from oldest folklore to more recent cultural phenomenon of the mythic quest and the hero’s journey. (No coincidence he points out the princess in the tale ‘Leah’ could be Princess Leia. It’s a long book for your average author, but very much in the midway range for King – clocking in at around 570 pages, and one to read. By that, I mean, don’t wait for the tv/ film adaptation that is bound to come; the level of self or cultural reference, much of it recognised and pointed out by the narrator/ protagonist, has the potential to work less well than it does on the printed page. In...
Jon U.BewBobTom A
I feel the same way receiving a brand new Stephen King novel on the day of it's release as I did receiving the first day release of The Beatles' "I Want To Hold Your Hand" (also pre-ordered) when I was a teenager! So looking forward to entering another world of King's imagination even though I'm now 75 years old! HERE WE GO!!!!!!! I was about to dive into "Fairy Tale" when the magical 'fairy' queen passed away! I am so terribly sad that such a beautiful, dutiful and dedicated queen, mother and "rock" of our nation is no longer with us. I pray that our new king finds the strength to rule in a way that even approaches the heights that his late mother achieved. I am sure that he will! I will begin my journey into Stephen King's world very soon. In the meantime, as the King said, "THANK YOU"! A final thought now that I'm only a very few pages away from finishing reading, and because I'm saving the denouement for a few days. I would like to say that this is, in my opinion, one of the very best of SK's novels. I have found it charming, surprising, inventive and (because he takes the reader along with him on a personal journey) almost a privilege to walk in this world with the hero. Even though some moments should have been too tense and horrific to witness, it's as if SK has his arm around your shoulders, reassuring the reader that everything will eventually be fine! What a marvelous creation!!!!
Brooke HardingJon
The dog lives. She is the best girl and she lives, so don't worry. This is a slow start. A slow enough start that I was like "Ugh." But the slow was interesting enough, because so much of it revolved around Radar, who is the best girl, and the people who love her, that I didn't mind the slow. And then there was a point, about halfway, where I stopped to consider the beginning and how slow it was and how much lead up and space it took and I had to concede that most of it was necessary. Was all of it? Maybe not. But the parts that weren't, I think I've ignored. Also, as a fun time, this book isn't set in Maine. It's set somewhere in Illinois near Chicago. Which was a pleasant surprise. And also, Cujo got a shoutout. Which made my head hurt in the logistics of the meta. This is as classic a case of The Hero's Journey as I think has come out since Star Wars. I mean, it's pretty beat for beat. I mean, you have a literally descent into a literal underworld (twice), a call to action (twice), a refusal to the call, an old mentor, a supernatural being giving aid, return to the overworld where nothing can ever be the same for the hero, the whole shebang. Those elements that are basically required reading for a Hero's Journey, you've got. So if you're looking for a book to study that type of plot, here you go. Look no further. Also, the interesting part is that there's a Hero's Journey within the Hero's Journey. Once the descent into the underworld occurred, I was fully on board. Tension stayed high because Radar. Again, she lives. Which I knew because this is Stephen King and I was not going to read a book about a dog from him if the dog didn't live so I 100% looked up from other reviews if the dog lived and she does so I was happy to read it. Knowing that didn't change the amount of gut wrenching panic I was feeling for her. And then at about halfway through, there were too many pages left for the amount of story. And then everything went to crap again, as I expected, and the tension this time was on Charlie. Which is good. And Radar lives. The tension was high all the way through. There were some teeny bits that probably could have been cut out, but I like the page count. It made it really easy for me to know exactly how much of the book I had left at any given point.
Short Excerpt Teaser
Chapter One: The Goddam Bridge. The Miracle. The Howling. CHAPTER ONE The Goddam Bridge. The Miracle. The Howling.
1
I'm sure I can tell this story. I'm also sure no one will believe it. That's fine with me. Telling it will be enough. My problem-and I'm sure many writers have it, not just newbies like me-is deciding where to start.
My first thought was with the shed, because that's where my adventures really began, but then I realized I would have to tell about Mr. Bowditch first, and how we became close. Only that never would have happened except for the miracle that happened to my father. A very ordinary miracle you could say, one that's happened to many thousands of men and women since 1935, but it seemed like a miracle to a kid.
Only that isn't the right place, either, because I don't think my father would have needed a miracle if it hadn't been for that goddamned bridge. So that's where I need to start, with the goddamned Sycamore Street Bridge. And now, thinking of those things, I see a clear thread leading up through the years to Mr. Bowditch and the padlocked shed behind his ramshackle old Victorian.
But a thread is easy to break. So not a thread but a chain. A strong one. And I was the kid with the shackle clamped around his wrist.
2
The Little Rumple River runs through the north end of Sentry's Rest (known to the locals as Sentry), and until the year 1996, the year I was born, it was spanned by a wooden bridge. That was the year the state inspectors from the Department of Highway Transportation looked it over and deemed it unsafe. People in our part of Sentry had known that since '82, my father said. The bridge was posted for ten thousand pounds, but townies with a fully loaded pickup truck mostly steered clear of it, opting for the turnpike extension, which was an annoying and time-consuming detour. My dad said you could feel the planks shiver and shake and rumble under you even in a car. It was dangerous, the state inspectors were right about that, but here's the irony: if the old wooden bridge had never been replaced by one made of steel, my mother might still be alive.
The Little Rumple really is little, and putting up the new bridge didn't take long. The wooden span was demolished and the new one was opened to traffic in April of 1997.
"The mayor cut a ribbon, Father Coughlin blessed the goddam thing, and that was that," my father said one night. He was pretty drunk at the time. "Wasn't much of a blessing for us, Charlie, was it?"
It was named the Frank Ellsworth Bridge, after a hometown hero who died in Vietnam, but the locals just called it the Sycamore Street Bridge. Sycamore Street was paved nice and smooth on both sides, but the bridge deck-one hundred and forty-two feet long-was steel grating that made a humming sound when cars went over it and a rumble when trucks used it-which they could do, because the bridge was now rated at sixty thousand pounds. Not big enough for a loaded semi, but long-haulers never used Sycamore Street, anyway.
There was talk every year in the town council about paving the deck and adding at least one sidewalk, but every year it seemed like there were other places where the money was needed more urgently. I don't think a sidewalk would have saved my mother, but paving might have. There's no way to know, is there?
That goddam bridge.
3
We lived halfway up the long length of Sycamore Street Hill, about a quarter of a mile from the bridge. There was a little gas-and-convenience store on the other side called Zip Mart. It sold all the usual stuff, from motor oil to Wonder Bread to Little Debbie cakes, but it also sold fried chicken made by the proprietor, Mr. Eliades (known to the neighborhood as Mr. Zippy). That chicken was exactly what the sign in the window said: THE BEST IN THE LAND. I can still remember how tasty it was, but I never ate a single piece after my mom died. I would have gagged it up if I tried.
One Saturday in November of 2003-the town council still discussing paving the bridge and still deciding it could wait another year-my mother told us she was going to walk down to the Zippy and get us fried chicken for dinner. My father and I were watching a college football game.
"You should take the car," Dad said. "It's going to rain."
"I need the exercise," Mom said, "but I'll wear my Little Red Riding Hood raincoat."
And that's what she was wearing the last time I saw her. The hood wasn't up because it wasn't raining yet, so her hair was spilling over her shoulders. I was seven years old, and thought my mother had the world's most beautiful red hair. She saw me looking at her through the window and waved. I wave...
1
I'm sure I can tell this story. I'm also sure no one will believe it. That's fine with me. Telling it will be enough. My problem-and I'm sure many writers have it, not just newbies like me-is deciding where to start.
My first thought was with the shed, because that's where my adventures really began, but then I realized I would have to tell about Mr. Bowditch first, and how we became close. Only that never would have happened except for the miracle that happened to my father. A very ordinary miracle you could say, one that's happened to many thousands of men and women since 1935, but it seemed like a miracle to a kid.
Only that isn't the right place, either, because I don't think my father would have needed a miracle if it hadn't been for that goddamned bridge. So that's where I need to start, with the goddamned Sycamore Street Bridge. And now, thinking of those things, I see a clear thread leading up through the years to Mr. Bowditch and the padlocked shed behind his ramshackle old Victorian.
But a thread is easy to break. So not a thread but a chain. A strong one. And I was the kid with the shackle clamped around his wrist.
2
The Little Rumple River runs through the north end of Sentry's Rest (known to the locals as Sentry), and until the year 1996, the year I was born, it was spanned by a wooden bridge. That was the year the state inspectors from the Department of Highway Transportation looked it over and deemed it unsafe. People in our part of Sentry had known that since '82, my father said. The bridge was posted for ten thousand pounds, but townies with a fully loaded pickup truck mostly steered clear of it, opting for the turnpike extension, which was an annoying and time-consuming detour. My dad said you could feel the planks shiver and shake and rumble under you even in a car. It was dangerous, the state inspectors were right about that, but here's the irony: if the old wooden bridge had never been replaced by one made of steel, my mother might still be alive.
The Little Rumple really is little, and putting up the new bridge didn't take long. The wooden span was demolished and the new one was opened to traffic in April of 1997.
"The mayor cut a ribbon, Father Coughlin blessed the goddam thing, and that was that," my father said one night. He was pretty drunk at the time. "Wasn't much of a blessing for us, Charlie, was it?"
It was named the Frank Ellsworth Bridge, after a hometown hero who died in Vietnam, but the locals just called it the Sycamore Street Bridge. Sycamore Street was paved nice and smooth on both sides, but the bridge deck-one hundred and forty-two feet long-was steel grating that made a humming sound when cars went over it and a rumble when trucks used it-which they could do, because the bridge was now rated at sixty thousand pounds. Not big enough for a loaded semi, but long-haulers never used Sycamore Street, anyway.
There was talk every year in the town council about paving the deck and adding at least one sidewalk, but every year it seemed like there were other places where the money was needed more urgently. I don't think a sidewalk would have saved my mother, but paving might have. There's no way to know, is there?
That goddam bridge.
3
We lived halfway up the long length of Sycamore Street Hill, about a quarter of a mile from the bridge. There was a little gas-and-convenience store on the other side called Zip Mart. It sold all the usual stuff, from motor oil to Wonder Bread to Little Debbie cakes, but it also sold fried chicken made by the proprietor, Mr. Eliades (known to the neighborhood as Mr. Zippy). That chicken was exactly what the sign in the window said: THE BEST IN THE LAND. I can still remember how tasty it was, but I never ate a single piece after my mom died. I would have gagged it up if I tried.
One Saturday in November of 2003-the town council still discussing paving the bridge and still deciding it could wait another year-my mother told us she was going to walk down to the Zippy and get us fried chicken for dinner. My father and I were watching a college football game.
"You should take the car," Dad said. "It's going to rain."
"I need the exercise," Mom said, "but I'll wear my Little Red Riding Hood raincoat."
And that's what she was wearing the last time I saw her. The hood wasn't up because it wasn't raining yet, so her hair was spilling over her shoulders. I was seven years old, and thought my mother had the world's most beautiful red hair. She saw me looking at her through the window and waved. I wave...
