Stephen King will publish two books this year: one is already out, and the other will be released tomorrow. In January or February the publishing schedule was switched around for some reason, so Everything’s Eventual – a collection of short stories – was released in March, while From a Buick 8 will be released on Tuesday. Why this is, I know not, but I can certainly say Mr. King did not save the best for last in his publishing schedule of 2002. From a Buick 8 is simply not that good.The book begins at a rural gas station in rural Pennsylvania with some backcountry characters whom King has such a way with telling. A bright, shiny blue Buick pulls into the station, and the estranged driver wearing a billowing trench coat and looking menacing tells the attendant to fill her up and then heads off to the bathroom. The attendant fills the tank, but the owner of the opulent automobile never returns. He just disappears. When the police arrive, a preliminary search and detailing is made of the classic car, and some very astonishing facts are discovered. The car has an engine with “Buick 8” written on the sides, but the engine is not connected to anything. All the dials on the dashboard, while looking very realistic, are entirely artificial and serve no true purpose. The exhaust system appears to be made of glass.The car, like its owner, remains a complete mystery, and is left in Shed B at the barracks of the Pennsylvania State Police (PSP). We soon meet our main character, Sandy Dearborn, and the scene is set in the present day, some twenty-five or so years later. We also soon discover that this harmless vehicle has apparently been spitting out some hideous creatures, as well as sucking in a few humans without a trace. Where they go, nobody knows.250 pages of the 356 page book focus on a detailed retelling of the history of this Buick 8, told to a young man, Ned, whose father was killed – by the car? It does not seem so, but as the story unfolds this becomes uncertain. At parts it becomes a little slow, as King waxes diatribe on the little ineffectualities of rural PSP life, juxtaposed with scary scenes of these helpless cops dealing with monsters erupting from this organic car, all dead (except for the last one).What comes to the greatest shock, having read just about everything King ahs ever published, is that there is very little resolution, which has always been an important quotient in King’s books. Once all the ups and downs of the car have been revealed, there is a big final scene where our young hero, Ned, attempts to blow up the car with himself in it, with the intention of getting sucked to wherever the ingested go, and killing whatever is on the other side, as the car explodes. But this never comes to pass as Sandy Dearborn saves the day, unsurprisingly.And that is pretty much how the book ends. We do not find out who the mysterious character that disappeared was. We do not discover whether the car attempts to take over the world. We do not discover whether there is anything in this other dimension that the car takes its victims to (I was personally hoping for a Dark Tower tie-in that seems to be popular with King these days). The car simply begins to age and rot, end of story.And there’s not much more to say about it. It’s nicely written, there’s some amusing character work, though no great character development, since most of the book is delivered in hindsight. It is simply a very remarkable story (short for King) about a strange car that doesn’t really do much, and has no real ending or explanation. It seems that something is amiss in Stephen King’s From a Buick 8, I only hope it does not carry on in his future publications.Originally published on September 23rd, 2002.For over 500 book reviews, and over 40 exclusive author interviews (both audio and written), visit BookBanter.
2002 - I just didn't "get" it.October 2014The first (and second) time I read this book the extent of my thoughts were “Hmmm...I just didn’t get it.”. I gave it 2 stars and called it good. I’ve always felt a little guilty about that. Not only because I generally adore everything King writes on principal, but also because I obviously didn’t care enough to write a bit more. I have been on a Colorado Kid/Haven kick for the last ten months or so. For anyone unfamiliar with either of those, the novel was written by King specifically for the Hard Case Crime label and is basically the telling of an insolvable mystery. There simply is no answer to the questions that arise from the tale. Unlike King’s normal dare there is also not a drop of anything supernatural or magical. It’s “the facts and just the facts ma’am.” at their most basic level. Haven is a television show based on the town and characters he created in the book that actually explains the mystery. Quite a bit of supernatural WTFery is used to explain, but I love it.The reason I explained all that is that I feel this was King’s practice for The Colorado Kid. Nothing much happens in Buick 8. The entire novel, just like CK, is a re-telling of events that happened long ago. Well, to be fair, one new thing happens at the end, but it hardly adds anything to the story. In Buick 8, a car is abandoned and the owner is never found. Unlike CK supernatural WTFery abounds. The Buick is obviously from another place. An “other” place. It occasionally gives off light storms, lowers the temperature in it’s vicinity and even “births” other worldly creatures and things from it’s trunk. The car is kept and cared for by a troop of patrolmen. They keep all mention of it off the books, but are aware of it’s quirks and take measures to keep it safe and keep those in it’s vicinity safe. One particular trooper, Curt, becomes a bit obsessed with it. He logs the cars activity, dissects it’s physical offerings and basically just studies it. The troopers take turns guarding the Buick when it’s in it’s active phases and keep the Buick’s secrets. When the Buick actually takes a few things from our world back to wherever it came from, the troopers cover that up as well.The reason I feel this book shares so much with The Colorado Kid is that there is no resolution. We never know where the car came from, how it got here, why it’s here in the first place, and really we get no end to the story. The narrative just sort of stops.It’s a pretty freaky coincidence that a character is run over in the story and his “accident” share many details with King’s own van mow down despite the book being begun before said accident and not finished until well into his recovery. King was amazed himself at how little he needed to change or add to make the accident in the book realistic.I enjoyed the novel being set in Pennsylvania instead of King’s more natural Maine or Florida locales. He says the idea came to him while he was in Pennsylvania and so that’s where the story stayed. Good for him!
What do You think about From A Buick 8 (2002)?
I’ve written so much elsewhere about my love for Stephen King that I steadfastly refuse to do it here. It’s not just because I’m tired of my own enthusiasm, but because From a Buick 8 is such a tepid, by-the-numbers effort that my affection starts to look a little silly.Reading this book – and thinking about King’s longevity – I couldn’t help but think in terms of my other great pop culture loves, music and film. At some point we have to acknowledge that artists who’ve been around for 30+ years essentially get by on their past glories, and that if we appreciate their newest efforts, it’s rare that we love them in the way we love their earlier accomplishments. Claiming to adore a 21st Century Stephen King novel is sort of like fawning over a new Rolling Stones album: it’s good that they’re still alive, but do we really want to compare Bridges to Babylon with Exile on Main St.? I’ll dutifully see every film Woody Allen directs, but it’s pure folly to think Magic in the Moonlight can hold a candle to Annie Hall. That isn’t to say late-career artists can’t create a winner – Dylan being Example A – but it’s rare. And so the question becomes: At what point do we stop letting nostalgia cloud our opinion of new works from tired artists?And that’s sort of where I am with From a Buick 8. I don’t really fault King for recycling storylines after all this time – to continue the Stones metaphor, Keith Richards only has so many riffs in him – but I’m not sure there’s any way to look at a second haunted car novel as anything but creative fatigue. In the Afterword, King describes how the idea came to him on a drive up the Eastern seaboard and how he then filtered it through his subsequent near-fatal accident, but it doesn’t do much to make the story seem fresh.And that story? A group of Pennsylvania State Troopers, headed up by chief Sandy Dearborn, talks to Ned, the 18-year-old son of a colleague who was recently killed by a hit-and-run driver, about the haunted car in their storage shed. Resembling a 1953 Buick Roadmaster, the car was abandoned at a gas station by a mysterious driver and later appears to be the portal to another world.It’s a book where, to be honest, not much happens. The car spends the book in the shed, occasionally emitting blinding flashes of light … and, oh yeah, sucking unknowing people into its trunk and occasionally sending creatures from the other world to our own. These arrivals look vaguely like things from our world – a creepy bat, a creepy fish, creepy leaves – without actually being from our world, and they don’t live long once they’re here. One of these sequences – a screaming humanoid thing arrives after an unusually violent light show – is the most effective scene in the book, a genuinely disturbing encounter that’s right in King’s wheelhouse.But the rest of the book is more a story of how Ned’s father Curtis became obsessed with the car – or, maybe more importantly, how the car obsesses Curtis. Structurally it’s sort of interesting, told mostly in flashback by the troopers, but their voices are largely indistinguishable (with the exception of Arky, a Michigan transplant who speaks in dem‘s and dere’s), and King’s folksy idioms seem clunkier than ever, bordering dangerously on Garrison Keillorisms.It’s not even really a case where I can say, “Man, there’s a good story in here somewhere, but this isn’t it.” It’s a goofy premise handled about as well as can be. Fortunately, I’ve read a couple of King’s post-Buick 8 works, and it’s good to see that he would return, near as can be, to form. 11/22/63, especially, is close to prime King – his Match Point rather than his Scoop.More reviews at goldstarforrobotboy.net
—Rob
I really liked From A Buick 8 as just a story. King at his narrative best. I listened to it on audio and it rocked because that worked very well with the different narrators!
—Holly
A much better book than most people think ... you just have to take it on its own terms. It's ridiculous to say "nothing happens" in this book just because (a) the action is subtler than most SK novels, and (b) the plot unfolds mostly through the telling of narrators relating stories of the past. Regarding the latter - that's exactly how the story of *Wuthering Heights* is told ... and nobody would try to argue that "nothing happens" in that book. So grow up, relax a little, and try again. This is really a wonderful book.
—JerryB
