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Bobby's mom takes in a lodger, Ted Brautigan, who turns the boy on to great books like Lord of the Flies. Unfortunately, Ted is being hunted by yellow-jacketed men--monsters from King's Dark Tower novels who take over the shady part of town. They close in on Ted and Bobby, just as a gang of older kids menace Bobby and his girlfriend, Carol. This pointedly echoes the theme of Lord of the Flies (the one book King says he wishes he'd written): war is the human condition. Ted's mind-reading powers rub off a bit on Bobby, granting nightmare glimpses of his mom's assault by her rich, vile, jaunty boss. King packs plenty into 250 pages, using the same trick Bobby discerns in the film Village of the Damned: "The people seemed like real people, which made the make-believe parts scarier."
Vietnam is the otherworldly horror that haunts the remaining four stories. In the title tale, set in 1966, University of Maine college kids play the card game Hearts so obsessively they risk flunking out and getting drafted. The kids discover sex, rock, and politics, become war heroes and victims, and spend the '80s and '90s shell-shocked by change. The characters and stories are crisscrossed with connections that sometimes click and sometimes clunk. The most intense Hearts player, Ronnie Malenfant ("evil infant"), perpetrates a My Lai-like atrocity; a nice Harwich girl becomes a radical bomber. King's metaphor for lost '60s innocence is inspired by Donovan's "sweet and stupid" song about the sunken continent, and his stories hail the vanished Atlantis of his youth with deep sweetness and melancholy intelligence. --Tim Appelo
No matter the format, Stephen King's work is spellbinding because the author himself is spellbound. The first hugely popular writer of the TV generation, King published his first novel, Carrie, in 1974, the year before the last U.S. troops withdrew from Vietnam. Images from that war -- and protests against it -- had flooded America's living rooms for nearly ten years. In HEARTS IN ATLANTIS, King mesmerizes readers with fiction deeply rooted in the Sixties, and explores -- through four defining decades -- the haunting legacy of the Vietnam War.
As the characters in HEARTS IN ATLANTIS are tested in every way, King probes and unlocks the secrets of his generation for us all. Full of danger, full of suspense, and most of all full of heart, Stephen King's new book will take some readers to a place they have never been...and others to a place they have never been able to leave completely.
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Book Description Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. 'Although it's difficult to believe, the sixties are not fictional; they actually happened' (Author's Afterword)Stephen King, whose first novel, Carrie, was published in 1974, the year before the last US troops withdrew from Vietnam, is the first hugely popular writer of the TV generation. Images from that war - and the protests against it - had flooded America's living rooms for a decade.Hearts in Atlantis is composed offive linked stories set in the years from 1960 to 1999. Each story is deeply rooted in the sixties, and each is haunted by the Vietnam War.Full of danger, full of suspense, most of all full of heart, Hearts in Atlantis will take some readers to a place they have never been. and others to a place they have never been able to completely leave. The classic collection of five deeply resonant and disturbing interconnected stories from No. 1 bestselling author Stephen King, now with a new cover look. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability. Seller Inventory # 9781444707885
Book Description paperback. Condition: New. Language: ENG. Seller Inventory # 9781444707885
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Book Description Paperback / softback. Condition: New. New copy - Usually dispatched within 4 working days. Hodder are boosting Stephen King's backlist with new covers, new author brand lettering and a marketing campaign which directs readers to the right King title for them. Seller Inventory # B9781444707885
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