I remember reading at some point that when Stephen King wrote The Dead Zone, part of his challenge to himself was to try and make the act of political assassination sympathetic. That fact was on the edge of my train of thought as I read his latest, Billy Summers. Yet another tale when our “hero” is someone who does things that most would consider having villain-like qualities. Billy is an assassin for hire, although with a sort of Lestat-like twist, an assassin who will only kills people who deserve a good killing. Justice for hire then, achieved through the barrel of his sniper’s rifle. The book opens quickly as he takes what we soon learn will be his last job and as King has proven to do so many times in the past, things fall apart from there. I have to say that from the start of this, I was sure that I was reading a Dark Tower adjacent book. The circumstances of Billy being hired and his target make it pretty clear that the situation is more complicated than it appears and the question of who exactly is hiring him is kind of a murky one. In a way, it reminded me a little of Dinky Earnshaw in King’s novella, Everything’s Eventual and I wouldn’t have been surprised at all if we ended up discovering that Billy was hired by a certain Sombra Corporation, in close cooperation with North Central Positronics and LaMerk Industries. This never really materialized but it was a fun game of connect the dots as I made my way through the opening act of the story. And I think that was fortunate because, being completely honest, I wasn’t really sold on the opening chapters of this book. I wouldn’t say that the opening was a failure. Billy is intriguing and that did keep me engaged with the story, there’s just a feeling prevalent in the first half or so that we are mostly kind of going through the motions. That the real story is about to unfold but that part of the book won’t work unless we have this. So please just eat your broccoli. Things fall apart in the job that Billy has been hired for and in ways that should be pretty predictable for most of you. Billy himself has his suspicions and pretty well predicts and telegraphs where things are going. It is interesting seeing how he works as he is clearly a master at creating new personas and identities for himself. Watching him weave these various identities and characters within himself is definitely a brighter aspect of the first half of the book and breaks apart at least slightly the feeling of rinse and repeat. But the story really picks up when we are introduced to Alice, the other half of what becomes the duo in this book. Billy saves her as he manages to come across the scene of an attempted rape in progress. He takes Alice in while he himself is on the run and helps her back to health, both in a physical sense but also in helping her deal with her emotional trauma. Much of the rest of the book is driven by this relationship that develops and I thought things really took off nicely. Is it possible that maybe it’s a little too quick, clean and easy in terms of Billy helping Alice deal with her emotional trauma? I think that would be a fair criticism and ultimately different readers are going to take that aspect of the book differently. Some may see it as King glossing over what should be a heavy emotional process. For me, though, the point was seeing a bond form between these two characters in a short time frame and it was their closeness that made the book feel more special to me and elevated things more than the mechanics of the plot. Their relationship was more than just friendship but not falling down the trope-bricked road of making it romantic. Sort of one part Stockholm, one part Bonnie & Clyde, and one part paternal. Not completely platonic but not crossing over the divide into physical, either. King had many an opportunity to take this aspect of the book down many a well traveled road and I was glad he resisted those opportunities. I think that many would agree that characterization is where King excels and this was another example. A story that begins as an assassination/heist story becomes more of a revenge/justice angle and it was this, combined with the great relationship between Billy and Alice that rescued the book for me. I liked the fact that the relationship underlined Billy’s inherent morality, despite the things he does to make a living. So while I had my doubts early on, I’m glad that I stuck with it. King has built a career on intertwining his works with books stuffed with various references to each other. Some of this book takes place in Colorado and in case there is a King fan that doesn’t immediately perk up at that tidbit, I will say that there is quite a bit of fun references to a certain haunted hotel. Another aspect of the book left me thinking quite a bit about Misery where, in addition to the narrative of the story, we also get to see Paul Sheldon’s novel being created, his “gift” for Annie Wilkes. In this book, when Billy is hired for the assassination, his employers establish a cover story for him which is supposedly what brings him to town. He is to play the part of an aspiring novelist who has rented office space in order to finish a project. The idea is that following the killing, when the police begin to investigate, he will have had a reason to be in town. Not a stranger appearing out of the blue just before a high profile murder. Just one of the locals. Since Billy has a fair amount of downtime in the planning of his operation, he decides to go all in and actually starts writing his own story. Finding he enjoys writing, we get to read his own account of his life, from childhood, through his time in the war and onto his current profession. I didn’t click with this aspect of the book at first. It was interesting from an intellectual perspective, I just didn’t feel like the thrust of the book was gaining anything from it. In the grand scheme of the narrative, I just didn’t think it had a clean place in the puzzle. It was getting to the point where, being completely honest, I was starting to feel like Billy’s “novel” was little more than filler. Yes, it was delivering back story and the material in there was powerful but it also wasn’t anything I haven’t gotten from a dozen movies that I have seen centered around the experience of war. I will concede that I respect how the tone of Billy’s book shifts as the story progresses. When we first meet Billy, we discover that he has a sort of cover personality he puts on for people who hire him, in order to be seen as simple minded and then underestimated. So when he starts writing his book, he does so with this voice, misspelling and using incorrect words all over the place. As a result, the early segments from his book come off as actually fairly childish. But as things move forward and he begins to realize that he’s pretty much writing the book for himself, the tone adjusts to what I would assume is his natural voice. Showing this in the text was pretty clever, in my opinion and a deft example of King’s craft. And by the end, Billy’s book ended up being a pretty brilliant device used to further the narrative. This is the one point of the book I definitely don’t want to spoil so the best I can say is that the perspective of the book shifts and Billy’s book becomes a means for that transition to take place. So while that content felt kind of draggy to me early on, it proved to give the structure of the ending a fresh and different feel. Billy Summers for me was a book that sneaked in under cover of darkness and ended up being far superior than it seems on the surface. And even in the parts that I found more lackluster I was still compelled to keep on reading and I think that in and of itself is a statement on the quality of King’s craft and his writing. This isn’t a horror book by any stretch of the imagination. It seems like anymore over his recent releases we see the same old debates over how King has “abandoned” his horror roots in favor of crime fiction. As if it’s somehow a dig against him that he doesn’t want to keep writing the same book again and again. I feel like often in this society, we have taken on the tendency to oversimplify things and vanquish the context of anything. So if it isn’t horror, insert eye roll and bemoan his recent love of writing crime fiction. The truth is that Billy Summers is a human story about people from completely different worlds finding each other across a divide of tragedy and violence. It isn’t a flashy tale and it happens largely in the quick shadows that flash past you as you turn the pages. If you’re looking for the thrill of a good and scary tale, definitely give this one a pass. But if you’re on the lookout for King’s deft ability to craft sympathetic characters, I think this book would be more along your lines. There is one other issue I wanted to tackle and it feels like one I have dealt with in recent reviews but in this day and age it seems to be at the forefront of any new release of King’s. But I’m not so much of an egomaniac that I’m going to assume any of you have read my other reviews dealing with this. So what am I talking about? Cue ominous music for atmosphere.... Stephen King’s politics. The blue colored elephant in the room. And look, I’m not going to begrudge anyone for their political leanings. It’s not my place to say who’s right and wrong. Everyone is entitled to their opinions and perspective. Thing is, though, even someone as famous as Stephen King deserves that same sensibility from us. Are there a lot of references to Trump? Yes. I will concede that he probably leans too often on the easy pot shots against our former president. But let’s be fair, if by now you don’t know that Stephen King really doesn’t like Trump, you haven’t been paying attention. It may feel irrelevant or distracting from the plot of the book but the fact is we live in a society where people still are regularly expressing their dislike of the man. And Trump is no victim here. He has participated and engaged just as much as anyone else on this playing field. He has dished out just as much flak as he has received and he doesn’t need you to have his back. Trust me, this is the kind of thing he lives for. And King didn’t just suddenly become a “political” author. Go back to novels like Insomnia, Rose Madder, Delores Claiborne and Gerald’s Game and you will get the full treatment to his discussion of issues such as domestic abuse or sexual abuse of children. Go back further and you get Gardner’s epic rant against nuclear power in Tommyknockers. And as far as books like Dead Zone, Firestarter, Running Man or Roadwork and I think you can see a general disdain for political authority. My point with all of this is that Stephen King is no stranger to bringing his point of view to whatever it is he’s writing. And I realize that King’s Twitter feed and how he interacts with his fans has become a large hot-button topic. But the last time I checked, a big motivation of being an artist was to use your art to express your point of view. I’ve never been one to support the mentality regarding celebrities that is basically telling them, “Go sit in the corner and shut up until I want you to do that voice I like.” If you don’t happen to like what King has to say these days, I suspect his response would be of the “sorry not sorry” variety. You have the right to not read his books and he has the right to air his opinions. You may not have any interest in his politics but other constant readers are interested in it and ultimately none of us are any more important than the next. King’s art is what it is. We don’t get to send the book back like dissatisfied diners at a bistro. Read his books or don’t. Spare us all the theatrics around your choice. Your decision is yours. Leave it that way. I know, I know. Beep beep, Richie. So back to center. Billy Summers. What’s the verdict? I liked the book. Did I love it? Not necessarily. I certainly wouldn’t rank it among his greatest works, although that’s not really a fair bar to set. I don’t know if I would say this is worth paying opening day prices for the hardback. If you’re more lukewarm on King’s work, it might be worth holding off for a paperback edition or getting on a wait list at your library. It’s a book that didn’t really get its hooks in me until about the midway point but I still felt nicely propelled through the whole thing. The specifics of the plot are familiar and to some will likely feel like recycled material. Still, like a slow-simmered sauce that’s been carefully developed can elevate a plate of bland noodles, King’s talent in his prose is more than able to hold this book above the water line. This is a comfortable tale that was pleasant to read and efficient in its execution. Speaking for myself, I don’t need every book I read to rock my world down to its core. If you’re a fan, give it a twirl. I think you might enjoy it. If you would like to read of Chad's thoughts on the works of Stephen King, be sure to check out his website Tracing The Trails: A Constant Reader's Reflections on the Work of Stephen King Billy Summers |
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