King’s first collection of short stories and it contains some classics - Graveyard Shift, Children of the Corn, Quitter’s Inc. 

 

Stephen King’s short stories are always an interesting flex. The man whose novels tend to the longer range of average and which jump around in timeline and ordering constrained within just a few pages. But he still manages to do so much with them. To the extent that on this re-read I found my memory of some of these stories were that they were longer than they are. Simply because they had made such an impression on me and the characters were so clear in my head. 

 

There’s a good range of classic horror fodder in here. Possessed industrial equipment, two revisits to ‘Salem’s Lot (one a historical precursor to the novel, one a mini sequel), creepy children, and more. 

 

But, it’s The Woman in the Room, the final story in the collection that’s the most haunting. Not a touch of the supernatural about it. Just a tightly told tale of a son visiting a woman riddled with cancer. The horror is the disease itself and the indignity of medical treatment that can extend life at the expense of any joy or benefit to that life.