"Fairy Tale" Isn't Bad But Isn't King's Best

I’ve never read a Stephen King novel that’s been really bad, and “Fairy Tale” isn’t bad. However, he’s done this type of story better in other books. Other reviews I’ve read of “Fairy Tale” have suggested people read the 1984 novel “The Talisman” he co-authored with Peter Straub instead. I would say that’s about right. It’s a mistake people make when they talk about Stephen King to put him down as simply a horror writer, as he has written in many other genres. Yet, there is plenty of nightmare fuel in “Fairytale”, imagery that is scary enough to come out of a horror novel despite King’s insistence that this one is a straight fantasy novel. Two things work against that notion. One is the fact that the first 100+ pages take place in our world, which makes this novel seem more like a portal fantasy novel (see my last article for more information on that genre), and also King’s writing style sometimes can make the details of a fantasy world a little hard to follow. 

 This novel is about a 17 year old named Charlie Reade, a really good kid who recounts his mother’s death and dad’s descent into alcoholism. This is classic King. A long backstory that doesn’t go too deep into the supernatural as it sets up a character who’s human enough to root for when he does get to the supernatural part. A lot of King books actually take their time before getting into supernatural territory. Some people have cited books like his 1,000+ page novel “It” as an example of this. King always does a good job of balancing the supernatural horror with the everyday and that isn’t any different here. One of the problems I did have with this book is how King writes Charlie. Charlie is a good kid. A really good kid. Too good a kid. When King tries to give Charlie some background that shows he isn’t that good of a kid, like him mentioning guilt over pranks he and a friend of his played when they were younger, it rings a bit hollow. It’s just not enough to make me think Charlie has a dark edge.

Also, King hasn’t been a teenager for a really long time and it shows in his writing of Charlie who just doesn’t come off like a 21st century teen. Look, I myself would probably not be great at writing a current teenager as I haven’t been one myself for awhile at this point either, but King choosing to write this in the 1st person as Charlie probably wasn’t the best idea. I wonder if King wrote Charlie in the 3rd person, he would have been able to write a teenage character better. The plot really kicks into gear when Charlie meets his mysterious neighbor Mr. Bowditch when he falls off a ladder and Charlie saves him after being alerted by his dog running up to him. Mr. Bowditch is a good character, but a mysterious one. He has no wife, no kids and is older. He also has a mysterious shed in his backyard that he warns Charlie not to go to. As it’s strongly hinted, there’s something supernatural about this shed and Charlie wonders about that. Yet, Charlie does end up going to the shed. 

 After a series of events, Charlie goes into the shed and discovers it’s a portal to a mysterious supernatural world apart from our world. Now, the world King paints is grand, and reminded me a bit of other supernatural worlds like Middle Earth and Shannara. However, I found some of the events in this world a bit hard to follow at times, as King dives into a power struggle between two potential queens, a magic sundial which can make Charlie’s new dog younger and battle royales between prisoners of the kingdom. At times, it just felt like too much was going on in this fantasy world. I know this book was 500+ pages, but King felt like he was stuffing too much into the story at times. All in all, it’s not a bad King book but he’s done it better in other books he’s written.