Summer of Stephen
Title: “Crouch End”
Publishing Date: 1979 Length: 16 pages Start Date: November 10, 2017 End Date: November 10, 2017 The main premise of “Crouch End” has a lot of potential. Two London police officers think back on an unusual case of a woman reporting her husband missing, claiming that monsters and the supernatural are involved. As she tells the story of what happened, though, it’s clear that the atmosphere of the place, the titular Crouch End, provides most of the creep-factor. She insists that some sort of monster was summoned by two children and it consumed her husband. But that’s all she can remember, so it’s unsurprising that the police are skeptical of her tale. As the story returns to the police officers’ point of view, one goes out for a walk, the other goes to check on him, and one of them is never seen again. The best parts of this story involve King’s emphasis on the emptiness of Crouch End when the couple is trying to find their way. He gives everything an ominous quality and it’s incredibly effective. It’s a rare case of King being subtle and it works. Then he throws it all away with a Lovecraftian-style monster. The inclusion of the monster, rather than just an implication of one, kind of cheapens the story into just an average creature feature.
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Jacinta M. CarterProfessional Book Nerd Archives
July 2019
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