Different Seasons: Four Novellas - Softcover

King, Stephen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1501143484 ISBN 13: 9781501143489

Publisher: Scribner Book Company, 2016

Synopsis

Includes the stories "The Body" and "Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption"--set in the fictional town of Castle Rock, Maine

A "hypnotic" (The New York Times Book Review) collection of four novellas--including the inspirations behind the films Stand By Me and The Shawshank Redemption--from Stephen King, bound together by the changing of seasons, each taking on the theme of a journey with strikingly different tones and characters.

This gripping collection begins with "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption," in which an unjustly imprisoned convict seeks a strange and startling revenge--the basis for the Best Picture Academy Award-nominee The Shawshank Redemption.

Next is "Apt Pupil," the inspiration for the film of the same name about top high school student Todd Bowden and his obsession with the dark and deadly past of an older man in town.

In "The Body," four rambunctious young boys plunge through the façade of a small town and come face-to-face with life, death, and intimations of their own mortality. This novella became the movie Stand By Me.

Finally, a disgraced woman is determined to triumph over death in "The Breathing Method."

"The wondrous readability of his work, as well as the instant sense of communication with his characters, are what make Stephen King the consummate storyteller that he is," hailed the Houston Chronicle about Different Seasons.

About this title

Review:

Different Seasons is a collection of four novellas, markedly different in tone and subject, each on the theme of a journey. The first is a rich, satisfying, non-horrific tale about an innocent man who carefully nurtures hope and devises a wily scheme to escape from prison. The second concerns a boy who discards his innocence by enticing an old man to travel with him into a reawakening of long-buried evil. In the third story, a writer looks back on the trek he took with three friends on the brink of adolescence to find another boy's corpse. The trip becomes a character-rich rite of passage from youth to maturity.

These first three novellas have been made into well-received movies: Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption into Frank Darabont's 1994 The Shawshank Redemption, Apt Pupil into Bryan Singer's 1998 film Apt Pupil, and The Body into Rob Reiner's Stand by Me (1986).

The final novella, Breathing Lessons is a horror yarn told by a doctor, about a patient whose indomitable spirit keeps her baby alive under extraordinary circumstances. It's the tightest, most polished tale in the collection. --Fiona Webster

Review:

"Hypnotic."--The New York Times Book Review

"To find the secret of his success, you have to compare King to Twain and Poe, with a generous dash of Philip Roth and Will Rogers thrown in for popular measure. King's stories tap the roots of myth buried in all our minds."--Los Angeles Times

"Buy Different Seasons. I promise you'll enjoy it... King creates people who are so alive, you can almost sense them."--Minneapolis Star-Tribune

"The wondrous readability of his work, as well as the instant sense of communication with his characters, are what make King the consummate storyteller that he is."--Houston Chronicle

"Riveting, irresistible... a zestful delight to read."--Los Angeles Herald Examiner

"Fast-paced page turners...an unqualified success."--People

"Clever and triumphant... Stephen King remains a master."--The New York Times

"Cause for rejoicing."--Washington Post Book World

"Ok, let's face it, the man is good...wondrous reading."--Denver Post

"No demons chortle from the closet, no vampires droll beneath the moon. Instead King's ragged claws reach from ambush into the wholesome light of daily life--what could be more frightening than that?"--Cosmopolitan

About this edition

• Publisher: Scribner Book Company
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 1501143484
• ISBN 13: 9781501143489
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 608