Fiction, I feel, is a lifesaver in this day and age. So many crazy and horrible things are happening out there that it’s nice to get away into something that may very well be equally crazy and horrible, but it’s fake, so no one is getting hurt.
Normally, horror is my go-to. The profane soothes my soul. This time, I opted for something a little bit different.
Elevation, by Stephen King, is a baby novel that is just about as feel-good and bittersweet as you can get. It’s about a man, Scott Carey, who is losing weight at a rapid pace for no definable reason. He doesn’t look like he’s losing weight. He looks the same as he always has. But if he steps on the scale, he weighs 180. If he steps on the scale naked, he weighs 180. If he steps on the scale with fifty pound weights, you guessed it, a whopping 180. It doesn’t matter how much or how little he has on him, he always weighs the same. And the weight is only climbing down.
Along the way, he confides in his old family doctor the phenomena, moreso to have someone to confide in than to get answers as to why. Truth is, he doesn’t want to know why, and he knows if word gets out, he’ll just be another marvel of medical science that will guarantee his last moments will be spent hooked up to wires inside some facility and studied like a lab rat.
He also slowly builds a relationship with his neighbors, Deidre and Missy, the only married lesbian couple in town. Basically, Castle Rock is super conservative (something I know and have experienced all too well), and the rest of the town looks down on them. They don’t trust his intentions at first after he brings pictures of their dogs shitting in his yard to their doorstep, but eventually everyone comes around, if things are a little strained at the word go.
The more weight he loses, the less attached to gravity he becomes. In fact, he’s worried he’s about to lose touch altogether and just start floating.
This book was a curious mix of Thinner, also by Stephen King, and Pop Art, written by his son, Joe Hill. I think it was good, but not his best work. I got more emotional over Pop Art, I think. I was more at the edge of my seat over Thinner (but I don’t think he was going for a thriller story, so I don’t judge too harsh on that). The only part that made me feel anything was when Scott had to give away his cat. Other than that, it was just a nice little story, and a nice little break from the real world terrors that are happening out there.
One part that got me that I still think about doesn’t even have to do much with the content of the book itself and more to do with someone else’s review on a Stephen King group on Facebook. They said essentially they didn’t like it because they thought it was too political. And I just don’t see that? There is a drop of Trump at the beginning to set the scene and the main character’s stance, and that’s it. Unless they meant Deidre and Missy being married? I hope that’s not what they meant, because I think that says more about them than about the book, but there’s that. I dunno, man. People be cray.
Rating wise? I’ll give it like a 5/10. It wasn’t terrible. But it wasn’t great, either. I feel like the shorter the story, the bigger the punch in the heart, and this one left me wanting.
And because I like to scream questions out to the void that often go unanswered: Do you like your stories longer or shorter? I think for me, it varies, but I’d rather read a good story that spans hundreds upon hundreds of pages. I like getting lost and staying lost, because goodbyes suck.
Manda Kay Writes 