"Billy Summers" de Stephen King sera publié au Livre de Poche début février 2024.

_Shot in the dark_ Last resting place of Billy Summers > _He’s thinking of all the movies he’s seen about robbers who are planning one last job. If noir is a genre, then ‘one last job’ is a sub-genre. In those movies, the last job always goes bad._ > > Stephen King, **Billy Summers** King will forever be known as a horror writer, and though I doubt this bothers King in the slightest, this book is a real throwback to the kind of stories he wrote in **Night Shift** and in the earliest part of his career in men’s magazines. Those early stories might have fun twists on them, like **Battleground** with its toy soldiers, but this begins with a mercenary taking on literally one last job. So far, so cliché. We even see a return of King’s fatphobia that had seemed to face into the distance. Yet as the story continues, it reveals a deeper level of operation. Despite those early genre trappings, the book quickly takes off in a variety of other directions. The early, terse prose style reminiscent of noir and thriller texts begins to loosen up as the titular Billy becomes increasingly human. It’s not long into his months long stay in Red Bluff that Billy begins to make connections with people around him. It’s part of his cover, he tells himself, and that he will in time have to break all their hearts. But as time passes, the cold facade melts, and the friendly mask begins to fit him well. It’s the picture of the flamingo that he receives as a token of a child’s love that proves to him that there is innocence worth fighting for. In the early part of the book, I did not suspect which way the story was going and made notes based on my assumptions of what would happen. For example, Billy’s brief fling with Phyllis, aka Phil, lent itself to an early queer interpretation of Billy. That he never has any real romantic feelings for Alice except a deep love for her as a person rather than an object of romance only feeds into that. But it fell by the wayside. I also considered a class reading, where Billy is a tool of the powerful, whether that be government or the rich criminals or the media, but in being among the people begins to develop a class consciousness in doing right for the sake of doing right rather than money. I don’t deny that these readings are still viable readings. But as the novel continued, I realised those were more adorements that distracted the story really at play here. There is one other reading, I don’t think fully intended by King but worth exploring. King notes that due to COVID, he was forced to set the book’s events in 2019. Yet he does make reference to COVID and lockdown within the book, calling attention to the presence of the present in the book concurrent with its writing and release. Ken Hoff, local property owner and man who believes he can talk his way out of anything until he lands himself in too much debt and with powerful criminals at his heels struck me as an easy character to link with Trump. That the big villain is the owner of a massive media conglomerate not too dissimilar from people like Rupert Murdoch or Jeffrey Epstein only adds to this being a book about how the media picks up and uses people like Hoff for their purposes, and once finished cast them aside. That the middle section plays like COVID (with Hoff dying in a running car with a bullet in the brain paralleling Trump’s brush with death) feels like a deliberate metaphor rather than a serendipitous bit of plotting matching the real world. But instead, the book is character study into Billy Summers himself. Back around 2003 when the Invasion of Iraq happened, King was still recovering from his accident and busy getting the **Dark Tower** books finished. It’s not that he wasn’t aware of what was happening in the world, but his creative needs lay elsewhere. Thankfully, with a bit of distance (and **Cell** ‘s embarrassing take on the War on Terror forgotten), King is able to look back over that time and the effect it had on people with a more critical eye. Billy gives him the opportunity to do that. There is the bitter cynicism implicit in Billy’s character, especially in comparison to the idyllic life described that sound more of King’s childhood than the reality of growing up in the 90s (I know, I was there). But to pick over the accuracy of this is similar to adorning the book with metaphorical readings. King isn’t interested in accuracy necessarily, but more a feeling, looking back over the last twenty years with the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq that began in earnest in 2020 and ended in 2021. We went into that country with intention of killing the Bad Men, much like Billy does, only to discover there were plenty of Bad Men back home and in that doing what we did we became the Bad Men too. Playing with those genre conventions, the changing tone of the prose and the characterisation of Red Bluff allows King to show the kind of life we could get, if we tried. Of course the neighbourhood backyard barbecues sound like a fantasy – to Billy, who is writing all about them, they were. A fantasy of a life he could never have because that sort of thing just wasn’t available to him. He grew up poor and neglected, joined the army and got shot at for his trouble. It’s all impossible for him, and Billy recognises that, reminding himself that one day that vision of innocence will be broken. Enter: Alice. Alice begins the book in one of the nastiest ways imaginable, dumped on the roadside having been gang raped and left for dead. We later learn she was still a virgin. She was the picture of innocence until she got out into the world and it showed itself for what it is. Billy rescues her. Under pretty bad conditions, not entirely dissimilar from lockdown as the book is keen to remind us (as if King can’t help but point out what a coincidence it all is), Billy helps build Alice back up from the events that could have broken anyone. Innocent, once lost, cannot be regained. But Billy does his best, and sees that there is indeed something worth fighting for. Not the relationships he built up on lies, but the truth. She is the first to read his book, and is probably the only person who really got close to him in the end. That honesty means they can begin to see each other for their truth. Billy sees a capable woman. Alice sees a man trying to do good. In building her up again and giving her the space, Billy realises he cannot be redeemed fully. His presence corrupts to the rebuilding potential of Alice, and so in the end it’s only right that he should die. He has a debt to pay, and the book is about his last job after all. But Billy gets to become a man he wanted to be. An important thread of the book is Billy’s semi-autobiography that he writes. While it could be dismissed as being a way to get character depth quickly, justifying the otherwise outlandish backstory of Billy Summers, it instead humanises him and gives him the opportunity to be something other than who he was. Writing about his past almost fictionalises it, puts the past away and gives him space to be the man he realises he always should have been: a writer. Stories have the power to heal, and in confronting the past Billy is able to reflect on the man he is, the man he wants to be and the gulf that exists between them. In writing about it, he is able to put it to one side and become the Good Man he always should have been. The reality is that he dies. But the legend, the story told to us at first isn’t that. The legend is that he goes off to find his destiny and become the Good Man. We know the truth of the ending, but in some ways it reminds me of the ending of **The Life of Pi** by Yann Martel, where the insurance investigators are asked which version of the story they choose to believe. Martel is able to achieve a level of ambiguity that I don’t think King likes (subtlety is not something King does), but the same principle is in play. There’s a story you want to believe versus the reality of the situation. But unlike **Life of Pi** ‘s ending, which is about faith, **Billy Summers** is aspirational. Billy may not have become better, though his end was cut short, his life inspires others to be better. Alice ends the novel changed, grown, with a couple new skills under her belt and a better understanding of the world around her. It’s not a safe or kind world. But it could be. So long as try to fight for it. **Observations and Connections** In an interview with NPR, King discusses that this novel was shifted to be set in 2019 to avoid the ramifications of the pandemic. I don’t blame him for not rewriting the novel mind you, but it’s interesting to note! Later in the novel, Billy and Alice make their way to Sidewinder. Not a hugely memorable location, but first appeared in **The Shining** as well as **Misery** and **Doctor Sleep**. There is a subtle reference to the Overlook and its nature accordingly. In fact, when Billy gets to the little cabin there’s a rough painting of the hedge animals. He turns the painting around, though they may still be somewhat active. Speaking of that cabin, I wonder if it was Annie Wilkes’ Laughing Place. There are a number of **19** s in the book. One notable one is the total to Nick’s safe room. Literally in the final few pages, Alice and Billy end up in Hemingford Home, which was down the road from **The Children of the Corn** (and a couple other **Night Shift** stories), as well as the hometown of Mother Abigail and Ben Hanscom’s haunt in **It**. **UP NEXT:** One last go round for Gwendy in **Gwendy’s Final Task** ### Share this: * Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook * Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X * More * * Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window) Reddit * Click to share on Mastodon (Opens in new window) Mastodon * Like Loading... ### _Related_

_Shot in the dark_ Last resting place of Billy Summers > _He’s thinking of all the movies he’s seen about robbers who are planning one last job. If noir is a genre, then ‘one last job’ is a sub-genre. In those movies, the last job always goes bad._ > > Stephen King, **Billy Summers** King will forever be known as a horror writer, and though I doubt this bothers King in the slightest, this book is a real throwback to the kind of stories he wrote in **Night Shift** and in the earliest part of his career in men’s magazines. Those early stories might have fun twists on them, like **Battleground** with its toy soldiers, but this begins with a mercenary taking on literally one last job. So far, so cliché. We even see a return of King’s fatphobia that had seemed to face into the distance. Yet as the story continues, it reveals a deeper level of operation. Despite those early genre trappings, the book quickly takes off in a variety of other directions. The early, terse prose style reminiscent of noir and thriller texts begins to loosen up as the titular Billy becomes increasingly human. It’s not long into his months long stay in Red Bluff that Billy begins to make connections with people around him. It’s part of his cover, he tells himself, and that he will in time have to break all their hearts. But as time passes, the cold facade melts, and the friendly mask begins to fit him well. It’s the picture of the flamingo that he receives as a token of a child’s love that proves to him that there is innocence worth fighting for. In the early part of the book, I did not suspect which way the story was going and made notes based on my assumptions of what would happen. For example, Billy’s brief fling with Phyllis, aka Phil, lent itself to an early queer interpretation of Billy. That he never has any real romantic feelings for Alice except a deep love for her as a person rather than an object of romance only feeds into that. But it fell by the wayside. I also considered a class reading, where Billy is a tool of the powerful, whether that be government or the rich criminals or the media, but in being among the people begins to develop a class consciousness in doing right for the sake of doing right rather than money. I don’t deny that these readings are still viable readings. But as the novel continued, I realised those were more adorements that distracted the story really at play here. There is one other reading, I don’t think fully intended by King but worth exploring. King notes that due to COVID, he was forced to set the book’s events in 2019. Yet he does make reference to COVID and lockdown within the book, calling attention to the presence of the present in the book concurrent with its writing and release. Ken Hoff, local property owner and man who believes he can talk his way out of anything until he lands himself in too much debt and with powerful criminals at his heels struck me as an easy character to link with Trump. That the big villain is the owner of a massive media conglomerate not too dissimilar from people like Rupert Murdoch or Jeffrey Epstein only adds to this being a book about how the media picks up and uses people like Hoff for their purposes, and once finished cast them aside. That the middle section plays like COVID (with Hoff dying in a running car with a bullet in the brain paralleling Trump’s brush with death) feels like a deliberate metaphor rather than a serendipitous bit of plotting matching the real world. But instead, the book is character study into Billy Summers himself. Back around 2003 when the Invasion of Iraq happened, King was still recovering from his accident and busy getting the **Dark Tower** books finished. It’s not that he wasn’t aware of what was happening in the world, but his creative needs lay elsewhere. Thankfully, with a bit of distance (and **Cell** ‘s embarrassing take on the War on Terror forgotten), King is able to look back over that time and the effect it had on people with a more critical eye. Billy gives him the opportunity to do that. There is the bitter cynicism implicit in Billy’s character, especially in comparison to the idyllic life described that sound more of King’s childhood than the reality of growing up in the 90s (I know, I was there). But to pick over the accuracy of this is similar to adorning the book with metaphorical readings. King isn’t interested in accuracy necessarily, but more a feeling, looking back over the last twenty years with the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq that began in earnest in 2020 and ended in 2021. We went into that country with intention of killing the Bad Men, much like Billy does, only to discover there were plenty of Bad Men back home and in that doing what we did we became the Bad Men too. Playing with those genre conventions, the changing tone of the prose and the characterisation of Red Bluff allows King to show the kind of life we could get, if we tried. Of course the neighbourhood backyard barbecues sound like a fantasy – to Billy, who is writing all about them, they were. A fantasy of a life he could never have because that sort of thing just wasn’t available to him. He grew up poor and neglected, joined the army and got shot at for his trouble. It’s all impossible for him, and Billy recognises that, reminding himself that one day that vision of innocence will be broken. Enter: Alice. Alice begins the book in one of the nastiest ways imaginable, dumped on the roadside having been gang raped and left for dead. We later learn she was still a virgin. She was the picture of innocence until she got out into the world and it showed itself for what it is. Billy rescues her. Under pretty bad conditions, not entirely dissimilar from lockdown as the book is keen to remind us (as if King can’t help but point out what a coincidence it all is), Billy helps build Alice back up from the events that could have broken anyone. Innocent, once lost, cannot be regained. But Billy does his best, and sees that there is indeed something worth fighting for. Not the relationships he built up on lies, but the truth. She is the first to read his book, and is probably the only person who really got close to him in the end. That honesty means they can begin to see each other for their truth. Billy sees a capable woman. Alice sees a man trying to do good. In building her up again and giving her the space, Billy realises he cannot be redeemed fully. His presence corrupts to the rebuilding potential of Alice, and so in the end it’s only right that he should die. He has a debt to pay, and the book is about his last job after all. But Billy gets to become a man he wanted to be. An important thread of the book is Billy’s semi-autobiography that he writes. While it could be dismissed as being a way to get character depth quickly, justifying the otherwise outlandish backstory of Billy Summers, it instead humanises him and gives him the opportunity to be something other than who he was. Writing about his past almost fictionalises it, puts the past away and gives him space to be the man he realises he always should have been: a writer. Stories have the power to heal, and in confronting the past Billy is able to reflect on the man he is, the man he wants to be and the gulf that exists between them. In writing about it, he is able to put it to one side and become the Good Man he always should have been. The reality is that he dies. But the legend, the story told to us at first isn’t that. The legend is that he goes off to find his destiny and become the Good Man. We know the truth of the ending, but in some ways it reminds me of the ending of **The Life of Pi** by Yann Martel, where the insurance investigators are asked which version of the story they choose to believe. Martel is able to achieve a level of ambiguity that I don’t think King likes (subtlety is not something King does), but the same principle is in play. There’s a story you want to believe versus the reality of the situation. But unlike **Life of Pi** ‘s ending, which is about faith, **Billy Summers** is aspirational. Billy may not have become better, though his end was cut short, his life inspires others to be better. Alice ends the novel changed, grown, with a couple new skills under her belt and a better understanding of the world around her. It’s not a safe or kind world. But it could be. So long as try to fight for it. **Observations and Connections** In an interview with NPR, King discusses that this novel was shifted to be set in 2019 to avoid the ramifications of the pandemic. I don’t blame him for not rewriting the novel mind you, but it’s interesting to note! Later in the novel, Billy and Alice make their way to Sidewinder. Not a hugely memorable location, but first appeared in **The Shining** as well as **Misery** and **Doctor Sleep**. There is a subtle reference to the Overlook and its nature accordingly. In fact, when Billy gets to the little cabin there’s a rough painting of the hedge animals. He turns the painting around, though they may still be somewhat active. Speaking of that cabin, I wonder if it was Annie Wilkes’ Laughing Place. There are a number of **19** s in the book. One notable one is the total to Nick’s safe room. Literally in the final few pages, Alice and Billy end up in Hemingford Home, which was down the road from **The Children of the Corn** (and a couple other **Night Shift** stories), as well as the hometown of Mother Abigail and Ben Hanscom’s haunt in **It**. **UP NEXT:** One last go round for Gwendy in **Gwendy’s Final Task** ### Share this: * Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook * Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X * More * * Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window) Reddit * Click to share on Mastodon (Opens in new window) Mastodon * Like Loading... ### _Related_

Billy Summers ist Auftragskiller mit einem gewissen Ehrengefühl. Er tötet nur böse Menschen.