Fairy Tale by Stephen King

 

I have been a fan of Stephen King and his books for about fifty years, beginning with Carrie. He does horror and dark fantasy so very well. He spends a lot of time on character development and backstories, setting the stage for what is to come. Many people are turned off by this because they feel he goes on too long before getting to the “meat” of the story.

Fairy Tale is a story about loyalty, friendship, and love. The hero, a 17-year-old boy named Charlie Reade, has to leave home and go to a very different, dangerous place to save the aging dog he loves. He suffers and goes through life-threatening events as he not only saves his dog, Radar but strives to save an oppressed people from the ruling evil. There are a lot of references and comparisons to fairy tales, particularly to Rumpelstiltskin.

In his backstory, I learned that Charlie grew up with issues similar to mine. His mother was killed in a freak accident, and, in his grief, his father turned to alcohol. As a child, Charlie took on the family hero role. He cared for his father and took on adult responsibilities while still a child. Dealing with a parent’s alcoholism and grown-up responsibilities affects a child deeply. While Charlie outwardly was kind and helpful, resentful anger burned inside and he and a friend committed deplorable acts.

Eventually, Charlie’s father joined Alcoholics Anonymous, for which Charlie was eternally grateful and made a spiritual pledge. It was with this pledge in mind that Charlie volunteered to help a cranky elderly neighbor who’d fallen off a ladder and broken his leg. The neighbor, Mr. Bowditch, had an elderly lovable dog named Radar that the old man loved dearly. Charlie fell in love with Radar as well.

Once the relationship between Charlie and Mr. Bowditch developed into a friendship, weird events began to happen. Stephen King was leading me toward the meat of the story. Mr. Bowditch had a locked shed, and Charlie began to notice strange scratching noises coming from it. When Charlie asked Bowditch about it, the old man became irritable and refused to answer.

With time, as the friendship solidified, Mr. Bowditch began to confide some of his secrets to Charlie. As his health declined, so did Radar’s. As he was dying, Mr. Bowditch left a tape explaining all the details of the shed, which contained a portal to an alternate world. It was there that Charlie could save Radar from dying of old age. With that, Charlie’s long journey and trials began.