Insomnia – Tony's Horror Corner

King surprised everyone May 17, with the online release of a brand new short story, “Laurie.” (that is a link to the pdf). You can find the story through a link in King’s tweet announcing the story’s release, or through his website.

I’m posting a brand new short story, if you want to read it–think of it as an appetizer to the main course, THE OUTSIDER, coming next week. The story is free. Read, print, share, whatever. Go to my website or click the link. Enjoy! https://t.co/tfHIWTPoNw

— Stephen King (@StephenKing) May 17, 2018

“Laurie” tells the tale of Lloyd Sunderland, an elderly man living alone in Florida following the death of his wife. Lloyd’s sister stops by one day and gives him a puppy, Laurie.

For fear of spoilers, I’ll stop there, but “Laurie” is a very nice, heartwarming tale with an interesting King-esque thrill dropped in later.

I give it a 4 out of 5. It had some reminiscent themes from “Insomnia.”

In other news, the movie rights to King’s novella, “The Gingerbread Girl” were purchased by Brainstorm Media.

“The Gingerbread Girl” was first published in Esquire magazine but can now be found in King’s 2008 short story collection “Just After Sunset.”

The novella tells the tale of a woman who forces herself into a grueling running routine to avoid dealing with loss. One day she runs into the mysterious Pickering (dun dun dun).

Craig Baxley will be directing the film and he is co-writing the script with King himself. Baxley directed “Storm of the Century,” a screenplay King wrote and released in 1999.

Mitchell Galin has signed on to produce the film. King fans may recognize his name seeing as how he has produced the adaptations of Kings “Pet Sematary,” “The Stand,” “Thinner,” “The Langoliers,” “The Night Flier” and “Golden Years.” You could say King likes his work and vice-versa.

No release date has been announced yet, but casting is currently underway.

A couple weeks ago I told you the second part Andy Muschietti’s adaptation of “IT” had found a few actors, well this week they added two more to the adult Losers Club.

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On May 16, James Ransone announced via his twitter page that he will be playing adult Eddie Kaspbrak and constant readers everywhere are sucking on their inhalers in excitement.

Ransone is known for his work in “Sinister,” “Sinister 2” and “The Wire” along with a few smaller films and shows.

Only a day after Ransone made his announcement, Andy Bean was announced as adult Stanley Uris.

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The announcement came via Wyatt Oleff’s Instagram page. Oleff played young Stan in the uber successful first part of Muschietti’s adaptation.

Bean’s previous work include “The Divergent Series: Allegiant,” and TV shows “Power” and “Here and Now.”

Bean and Ransone aren’t very well-known actors, and they’ll have to fight for screen-time with James McAvoy, Bill Hader, and Jessica Chastain, but I’m sure the two new additions will do very well in their roles and I have complete faith in Andy Muschietti’s direction.

Lastly, let’s not forget the release of “The Outsider” is fast approaching… constant readers can practically taste the 22^nd.

In other writing release news, a collection of short stories edited by Stephen King and writer Bev Vincent, “Flight of Fright” is set for a September 4 release.

“Flight or Fright” contains stories all about the horrors of plane travel. It includes stories from King himself, as well as his son Joe Hill, and 15 other authors.

A month after “Flight or Fright” hits shelves, King’s newest novella, “Elevation,” will be released October 30.

It is seriously a great time to be a constant reader and Stephen King fan.

READ THIS NOVEL

There, review done. Just kidding. Seriously though, read it. Preferably after you’ve read “IT” and “The Dark Tower” series.

“Insomnia” takes place in the fictional Maine town of Derry, where “IT” is set. “Insomnia” has a lot of references to the 1986 novel and it’s also pretty much a “Dark Tower” novel without having “The Dark Tower” in the title.

“In some ways – a lot of ways, actually – Derry wasn’t like other places.”

This novel quickly, slid itself into my top 5 King books (I will make a post about my King rankings soon). The “IT” and “Dark Tower” references alone made this an above average King book, but those weren’t even the half of it. After finishing, and wiping the tears off my face, I stared at my ceiling for a good ten minutes just digesting it.

Needless to say, I didn’t pick up my next read, “Cell,” until after a few days, and I still can’t stop thinking about “Insomnia.” The last time I had to do that with a King novel was after the “The Dark Tower” series finale.

“Insomnia” left me speechless. The book had EVERYTHING. King was like a witch throwing ingredients into a cauldron. He threw in a dash of horror, a little fantasy, a bit of drama, some politics, a touch of violence, a lot of emotion, a triple dose of excitement, and a whole lot of suspense. As usual, the characters and descriptions were superb.

This 787-page giant hit shelves in 1993. 787 pages seems like a lot, and there are a few instances where King seems to drone on or dialogue just crawls, but in all honesty, every word is necessary. Throughout the entire novel I never found myself anywhere close to boredom.

Quick synopsis: Ralph Roberts, the 70-year-old protagonist of the novel, begins to suffer from insomnia following the death of his wife. Ralph begins to see auras surrounding his neighbors. Little does he know these auras have a deeper meaning and they’re not just pretty colors

!!!!!!!!SPOILERS AHEAD!!!!!!!!!

Alright, here’s where the real review comes in *insert sly smile emoji here.*
Like I said before, I can imagine King just pulling snippets from every genre and every book he has written and sprinkling pieces into “Insomnia.” Okay, maybe not every book, but a few of them.

King made me cry within the first 100 pages describing the death of, Ralph’s, wife, even though we as readers had little to no interaction with her. Seriously how does he do it? Pretty sure I cried three times throughout this novel, so we’re not done with the water works yet.

Later Ralph has a confrontation with a neighbor who is spouting nonsense about colors, little bald doctors and the Crimson King… YEAH, THE CRIMSON FREAKING KING!

Ralph starts suffering from insomnia and begins seeing auras (colors) around people. He soon discovers these colors correspond to moods or intentions. Each aura has what Ralph describes as a balloon string, attached to the head.

The descriptions King puts into Ralph’s visions are so vivid. I absolutely loved reading these. Some people who weren’t fans of the novel describe them as acid trips. Now, I’ve never done acid so I wouldn’t know, but I found these visions to be very cool and honestly beautiful.

Ralph sees three little bald guys (doctors) and had a lengthy 45+ page discussion with two of them. He names the doctors after the three Fates in Greek Mythology. Clotho and Lachesis, who serve The Purpose, and Atropos, who serves The Random.

The Purpose is where everyone has a designated time of death and Clotho and Lachesis will show up, cut your balloon string and send you to your death peacefully. Atropos on the other hand, slices the string and you die in some sort of random act of violence, tragedy or accident: The Random.

“We are all bound together by the Purpose. That’s ka-tet, which means one made of many.”

The Crimson King has been working on Ralph’s neighbor for years and influenced him to go against the Purpose and Random and fly a plane, with a bomb inside, into the Derry Civic Center where a pro-women’s rights activist is speaking to a crowd of 2000+.

King sprinkles in large amounts of pro/anti-abortion and pro/anti-women’s rights political arguments throughout “Insomnia.” The politics are often cited as an area of complaint for some, but to me, they made the novel feel grounded and real.

Anyway, the Crimson King doesn’t care about pro or anti-women’s rights. He cares about a 4-year-old boy who got dragged to the convention center with his mother. This boy is Patrick Danville. Patrick is destined to save the life of a man trying to get into the Dark Tower.

For “Dark Tower” fans, this is the same Patrick Danville from the 7th “Dark Tower”, and the man he is destined to save? Yeah, that’s Roland. Crazy right? I mean I was absolutely mind-blown.

Little Patrick sits inside the civic center drawing a picture while the activist is speaking. His picture is of Roland outside the Dark Tower with the Crimson King at the top. I can’t even express how excited I was reading that passage. OH MY GOD.

“His name is Roland, Mama. I dream about him, sometimes. Him’s a King, too.” – Patrick Danville.

Before the Civic Center we get a mini adventure into the depths of Derry through a little cave at the base of a tree: Atropos’ lair. Here we see a maze of all the trophies he collects from those he kills, one of which is little Gage Creed’s shoe… yeah I got a bit misty reading that passage.

Anyway, Ralph redirects the plane saving Patrick and defeating the Crimson King… for now. Ralph marries his neighbor and they live happily for a few more years… until Ralph gets hit by a car while saving a little girl. COME ON, KING, WHY?!?!?! Yeah, I bawled. I mean cried my freakin’ eyes out.

Sorry this review got a little lengthy but “Insomnia” is THAT good. All I want to do is talk about it, and I hope when you read it, you’ll feel the same way. King is incredible and once again delivers a beauty.