Book review: with The Bazaar of Bad Dreams, Stephen King reflects on death in small doses
This collection, with its recurring themes of old age and the final countdown, lets us know the author is at peace with his own mortality
by Stephen King
Scribner
In the introduction to this latest doorstop collection of short stories, Stephen King acknowledges he’s primarily a novelist but will always be fond of more compact tales. “There’s something to be said for a shorter, more intense experience. It can be invigorating, sometimes even shocking, like a waltz with a stranger you will never see again, or a kiss in the dark, or a beautiful curio for sale laid out on a cheap blanket at a street bazaar.”
Because these curios belong to King, many of them have teeth. In the merciless Mile 81, something awful happens to the people who wander into an abandoned highway rest stop. In Bad Little Kid, a chubby, orange-haired little boy with a beanie cap torments a man with a level of cruelty most bullies can only aspire to attain. In That Bus is Another World, a man stranded in a traffic jam sees something ghastly happen inside the bus idling next to his taxi. In UR, which was originally written exclusively for Amazon in 2009, a college professor discovers his pink Kindle can download books from another dimension.