Four Past Midnight
| Author | Stephen King |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Rob Wood-Stansbury |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Horror |
| Publisher | Viking Penguin; Open Market Ed edition |
Publication date | September 1990 |
| Publication place | USA |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover, Paperback) |
| Pages | 804 (Hardcover) |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-670-83538-2 Parameter error in {{ISBNT}}: invalid character |
Four Past Midnight is a collection of four novellas by Stephen King, published in 1990. The four stories are The Langoliers; Secret Window, Secret Garden; The Library Policeman; and The Sun Dog.
Contents
The Langoliers
- See the main article at The Langoliers
The Langoliers has an antiquated feel that is reminiscent of old horror films and black-and-white movies, yet it is set in the present.
The story takes place mostly on an airplane. Passengers that have been sleeping wake up and notice that they are more or less alone aboard. Everyone aboard that had been awake have disappeared, pilots and all. It's only the persons that have vanished: they left their clocks, wallets, dental fillings and pace makers behind. Even more shocking, the group of remaining people discover that everyone on Earth has disappeared as well.
The Langoliers was adapted into a two part TV mini-series in 1995.
Secret Window, Secret Garden
Secret Window, Secret Garden is similar to King's earlier novel The Dark Half. Both are about authors, in this case Mort Rainey, who is a thinly-veiled analogue of King himself. Mort is visited by a person with a manuscript which proves to be an almost exact copy of a story that Mort himself wrote and published some years earlier. The man claims that Mort stole it from him and demands that Mort write a story in his name as compensation or prove that he is innocent, or bad things will happen. As it turns out, the man is Mort's alter ego who manifests himself and makes Mort's life a living hell until Mort realizes it is himself performing the destructive tasks while he is asleep.
It is worth noting that King has been accused of plagiarism himself. A woman has claimed that he broke into her home and stole her manuscript for Misery. In another incident a deranged man broke into King's home, and when discovered by King's wife, claimed that King has stolen several of his novels and that he had a bomb in the shoebox he was holding. The bomb later turned out to be a dud.
This story has been adapted into a movie Secret Window (2004), starring Johnny Depp.
The Library Policeman
The Library Policeman was written after King's son didn't want to go to the library as he was afraid of the library police. King felt this was a nice idea and used it. What if there were serious men in long coats that came to your house and fetched the books if you didn't return them in time. And most importantly: what happens if you lose the book you borrowed? Evenutally, the main character is forced to confront a suppressed child-hood memory and realizes the horrors occurring in his world have been unleashed by a shape-shifting figure who lives off of others fears. In some ways, this is a theme that reminds King readers of Randall Flagg, whom manifests himself in times of conflict.
The story diverges from this premise to explore a classic King theme: the secrets of small-town life, exemplified by the creature that controls the Library Policeman.
The Sun Dog
The Sun Dog is about a boy that gets just what he wants for his fifteenth birthday—a Polaroid camera. Soon he notices that there is something strange with the camera, though. It takes similar pictures all the time, and not of what it's pointed at. The Sun Dog is set in King's fictional city of Castle Rock, Maine, and is a prelude of sorts to King's 1991 novel Needful Things.
See also
Template:Stephen King short stories
