Just After Sunset
Stephen King

Who but Stephen King could turn a Port-O-San into a slimy birth canal, or a roadside honky tonk into a place for endless love? A book salesman with a grievance might pick up a mute hitchhiker, not knowing the silent man in the passenger seat listens altogether too well. Or an exercise routine on a stationary bicycle, begun to reduce bad cholesterol, might take its rider on a captivating - and then terrifying - journey. Set on a remote key in Florida, "The Gingerbread Girl" is a riveting tale featuring a young woman as a vulnerable - and resourceful - as Audrey Hepburn's character in Wait Until Dark. In "Ayana", a blind girl works a miracle with a kiss and the touch of her hand. For King, the line between the living and the dead is often blurry, and the seams that hold our reality intact might tear apart at any moment. In one of the longer stories here, "N", which recently broke new ground when it was adapted as a graphic digital entertainment, a psychiatric patient's irrational thinking might create an apocalyptic threat in the Maine countryside... or keep the world from falling victim to it.
Just After Sunset - call it dusk, call it twilight, it's a time when human intercourse takes on an unnatural cast, when nothing is quite as it appears, when the imagination begins to reach for shadows as they dissipate to darkness and living daylight can be scared right out of you. It's the perfect time for Stephen King.

Another of King's collection of short stories, Just After Sunset does not disappoint. In this novel are thirteen short stories, plus an introduction and end notes written by King. The stories are all different, yet still seem to work together in one collection.

My personal favorite is "N", which, in a nutshell, reminded me very much of H.P. Lovecraft. The best way I can describe this story is King doing his own version of Lovecraft as the line between our world and another, much worse one, keeps blurring. One person must do what they can to keep the residents of that world from coming into ours. That is, if that one person isn't crazy to begin with.

My personal least favorite was Ayana. It's not a bad story, in fact there's not a bad story in this collection, but it just didn't sit with me as well as the others did. There was King's signature supernatural stamp on it, but without the horror - and while many of his works are like this, those are usually my least favorite. But I have to say, for a least favorite I did like it. There really wasn't anything bad to this novel.

I'd highly recommend this to any King fan who has not yet read this and would also recommend it to anyone who would like to get a taste for the various types of stories that King can produce.

My rating: Four out of five snails.