Book Reviews and Thoughts :: The world of Books and Literature

“Consider it. Good books are for consideration after too,” Ted Brautigan says.

Stephen King writes one fascinating tale by linking five unlinked stories. The first story, “Low Men in Yellow Coats” is set in the 60s and lays the ground, as little as it can, for the next four stories. This story, borrows characters from King’s “Dark Tower” series. The rest of the stories borrow at least one character from the first one. The last story provides a closure to all other stories. This strategy alone makes the book worth considering.

“Low Men in Yellow Coats” is a story of an 11-year old boy, his confused mother, his two friends, and his elderly pally neighbor who sees men from the other world. This story is very well told and represents both children and aliens in an intriguing fashion.

The other stories - “Hearts in Atlantis,” “Blind Willie,” “Why We’re in Vietnam,” and “Heavenly Shades of Night are Falling” deal with the Vietnam war, its affects and aftermaths. Each story picks one not so important character from “Low Men in Yellow Coats” and tells the tale of people around that character in latter years. The book ends in 1999.

King does not aim to give you goosebumps this time around. The idea is very novel to me, thought I did not like the second story much. It ran far too long and got into details that did not interest me. I wanted to know more about Yellow-Jacketed Men. The book does not tell me about them. Apparently, I have to read Dark Tower Series now!! As an anthology, this works.