It seems that I have fallen into the habit of reading one Stephen King book per year. This year, I picked up The Outsider, a story about a baseball coach, Terry Maitland, who is arrested for the murder of a young boy named Frank Peterson. Terry, an immaculate and well-respected individual, has a solid alibi with hard evidence that he could not have been responsible for the death of Peterson. However, there is also hard forensic evidence that Maitland did commit the murder, and quickly an overarching question haunts the reader for the duration of the novel: how can a man be in two different places at once? An investigation takes place to answer the question, and the answer reveals a glimpse into a world that is beyond our sense of reality.
Though King is famous for his macabre tales, the horror in the book does not come from the goosebumps that one may get from hearing a tap-tap-tap at their window in the middle of the night. The horror comes from the grisly murder(s) that are described in the book. This being the case, those with higher sensitivities to the grotesque and audacious may be better off not reading this book. King, as always, is a genuine and descriptive writer. He doesn't skimp on the profanity of the characters or the gory details of dead bodies. King combines realistic insights into the depraved human mind with his semi-stream-of-consciousness style, and leads the reader—as he leads the characters—to the murderer of Frank Peterson. The Outsider is a page-turner, one you will not want to put down until you know who—or what—the outsider actually is.
My biggest complaint about the novel was that its climax was a little bit of a letdown, and the subsequent resolution of the novel took longer than I thought was warranted. However, it is still one of the best books I’ve read this year, and I award it four out of five stars.
Have you read The Outsider? What were your thoughts? Send me an email and let me know at dbcorderwriter@gmail.com.