Blood and Smoke

Did you hear the news? Stephen King’s next novel will be printed on a postage stamp! Oh sure, you’ll need a microscope to read the tiny print and you’ll have to pay $24.95 for the little square of paper, but my guess is legions of fans will be lining up at the post office just to be able to say they’ve licked Stephen King.

Okay, okay. Put down the phone—tell the World News Weekly you’ll call them back. It’s not true. Stephen “I’ll Deliver for Youâ€? King has not brokered a deal with the USPS. But who’s to say he wouldn’t contemplate such a stunt? When it comes to publishing, King has always pushed the envelope (if you’ll pardon the pun).

He started out with plain old boring books. show more Then he tried a brief foray into comic books and movies (Creepshow). And there was the Great Charles Dickens Resurrection Stunt of publishing The Green Mile in monthly installments. And then last year’s toe-dip into e-books (Riding the Bullet and The Plant which ultimately withered on the e-vine). What have I forgotten? The serial-killer novella on the cereal box?

Ah, yes, I know: audio books.

Steverino has recorded previously-published books like Rose Madder, Bag of Bones and Needful Things, but last year he released an audio-only collection of three novellas, Blood and Smoke (he repeats the aural-exclusive trick next month with LT’s Theory of Pets). Available in CD and cassette, Blood and Smoke drips with gore more often than it does nicotine, but it’s just as habit-forming as your average pack of Marlboros.

The stories—“Lunch at the Gotham Café,â€? “1408â€? and “In the Deathroomâ€?—all have cigarettes in them, but they’re not really about smoking (read the creepy “Quitters, Inc.â€? from 1978’s Night Shift for the ultimate kick-the-habit tale). No, these three-and-half hours of horror (read by King himself*) are about fear. And not just the fluttery squirm of fear that curls up in our guts like an immoveable tapeworm—no, this isn’t just about our fear. It’s the dry-mouthed, this-isn’t-happening-to-me terror that grips his character on these pages—er, audiowaves.

*in a flat, nasally voice—the one drawback of the entire experience.

These three men—for it is a man’s world in Blood and Smoke—must confront the unexpected, the unbelievable, the inexplicable. Like most of King’s characters, they’re a lot like you and me: decent Americans who work hard, play hard and yet have a hard time believing there’s such a thing out there as black evil whose gaping, salivating maw is just waiting for the opportunity to clamp its jaws down and chew us, bones and all, to a grisly pulp. We don’t like to think of things like that. But King, none too gently, puts his cold fingers on the reader’s chin and turns his face to look, look upon the horror, the horror.

Same with the Blood and Smoke guys. When Badness rings their doorbell, they’d rather stay right where they are, hunkered down on the Barc-o-Lounger with beer and remote in hand, staying very still until the black-mouthed evil goes away. But they can’t; they’ve got to face what King gives them. As one character says, “Sometimes we rise above ourselves.â€? And, later, he adds, “None of us can predict the final outcomes of our actions and few of us even try. Most of us just do what we do to prolong a moment’s pleasure or to stop the pain. And even when we act for the noblest reasons, the last link of the chain all too often drips with someone’s blood.â€?

No, these aren’t happy tales. Nary a Pollyanna in sight. But you knew that already, didn’t you? You, brave reader, are the kind who actually contemplates answering the doorbell, aren’t you? Of course you are. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be standing there holding the cleverly-designed** Blood and Smoke package in your hand, would you? It’s okay. Answer the door. Nothing can hurt you. Remember, it’s only an audio book…

**a cardboard flip-top box printed in Marlboro red-and-white (somebody in Marketing at Simon & Schuster should have won an award for that idea)

Here, then, is a brief discussion of the three stories. I’ll do my best not to give away any spoilers, but if you’re the kind who likes their Stephen King pure and uncut, I suggest you skip on down to the bottom of the review.

Lunch at the Gotham Café
Smoker: Steve Davis
Occupation: Brokerage house employee
Years Smoke-Free: Couple of days
Surgeon General’s Warning: Don’t order the blue-plate special.
“That was just before the Bad Things started to happen.â€?

Our hero, Steve Davis, comes home from work one day to find his wife has left after two years of marriage—no explanation, just a Dear John letter on the kitchen table. One of the first things he does is toss all his cigarettes out the window of their apartment. “I don’t remember any sudden decision to quit nor any dissenting interior opinions, not even a mental suggestion that maybe two days after your wife walks out is not the optimum time to quit smoking.â€?

But quit he does. That’s when he enters a weird, dreamy state brought on by nicotine withdrawals: mild unreality, helplessness and moral exhaustion. That’s also when his soon-to-be ex-wife’s lawyer calls and arranges a meeting with all parties concerned: lunch at the Gotham Café, a trendy spot in downtown New York.

Steve arrives at the café and immediately notices there’s something wrong with the maitre d’ who looks like any other maitre d’ “except for his bow tie which was askew, and something on his shirt, a splotch just above the place where his jacket buttoned. It looked like either gravy or a glob of some dark jelly.â€?

Uh-oh.

Waiter? I’ll have the sautéed Premonition with a side order of Dread.

1408
Smoker: Mike Enslin
Occupation: “Spook journalist,â€? author of 10 Nights in Haunted Graveyards, 10 Nights in Haunted Castles, etc.
Years Smoke-Free: 9
Surgeon General’s Warning: You can check out, but you can never leave…

“It’s coming. It’s hungry. And you’re dinner.â€?

Room 1408 at the Hotel Dolphin on 61st Street. There’s nothing particularly sinister about that room—not until you add up its numbers and come up with thirteen. And then you realize that, like most superstitious hotels, the Dolphin doesn’t have a 13th floor, so the 14th is it. And then there’s the room’s slightly troubling history: 12 suicides in 68 years (six jumpers, four pill overdoses, one hanging and one guy who slit his wrists then cut off his genitals “for good measureâ€? while he was bleeding to death). Not to mention the “natural deathsâ€? of people who have spent any time in the room (strokes, heart attacks, epileptic fits, one man drowned in a bowl of soup).

“1408 is always vacant…these days,â€? says the gloomy concierge. “Whatever it is in that room, it’s not shy.â€?

Author Mike Enslin is determined to debunk those creepazoid stories. Armed with his trusty tape recorder, he plans to spend a night in the room to gather material for his latest book 10 Nights in Haunted Hotels. He ain’t afraid of no ghost.

This, after all, is the guy who once slept next to the gravesites of Jeffrey Dahmer and H.P. Lovecraft. Besides, he’s wearing his “lucky Hawaiian shirt—it’s the one with ghost repellent,â€? he tells the concierge.

He’s gonna need it.

In the Deathroom
Smoker: Fletcher
Occupation: Writer for The New York Times
Years Smoke-Free: 3
Surgeon General’s Warning: The Third World can be such torture!

“Blood had been spilled in this room.â€?

In the basement of the Ministry of Information in an unnamed Central American city, there’s a soundproof room. Inside that room is a device which has at one end what looks like a stainless-steel lollipop; at the other end, it’s hooked up to a Delco battery. This is the place where beady-eyed men go around saying things like “Ve haf vays of makink you talk.â€?

Enter Fletcher, a reporter who’s had an inside track with the country’s revolutionary underground. Fletcher’s been caught by government goons and brought to the basement room where he’s about to be interrogated by Escobar—“fat and greasy as a cheap candleâ€?—who is the country’s Chief Minister of Information. He’s also “an enthusiastic torturer—a Central American Himmler.â€?

Fletcher is determined to outwit Escobar and the other thugs in the room, but first he’ll need a cigarette.

“Smoke, Meester Fletcher?â€?

Blood and Smoke is a nifty collection of stories that do their job as sharp and neat as an icepick thrust into your brain. “1408,â€? a ghost story worthy of the most lurid campfire, is perhaps the best of the trio, but they all are carefully constructed to gradually squeeze you by the wrist until your pulse is thumping wildly and your blood is crying for mercy.

Speaking of blood, I simply can’t resist including this one last reminder of what sets King apart from his peers—dead or alive—in the genre: his ability to make us look at horror in such a way that we may never want to pull our fingers from our eyes. Here, then, is what happens after one character gets stabbed by a butcher knife which “made a kind of whickering sound, like a whispered sentenceâ€? as it went through the air:

Blood exploded out of the wound in a furious spray of tiny droplets. They decorated the tablecloth in a fan-shaped stipplework, and I clearly saw—I will never forget it—one bright red drop fall into my water glass and then dive for the bottom with a pinkish filament like a tail.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is proof he’s the Hemingway of horror. show less

I found this audiobook at my local library's Wilbor page.

I have been a Stephen King fan for a long time, and his short stories, like his novels, vary a lot in quality. This collection, read by the author himself (in the audiobook form), is unified by the odd theme of smoking. Cigarettes play a part in each story, though only incidentally. I took it to mean maybe King misses smoking.....? Who knows. It made ME miss smoking...!

Lunch at the Gotham Cafe:

The quietest of the bunch. King is able to make ordinary characters interesting in extraordinary circumstances, and he has a real fondness for depicting the truly nutty nature of those who have dangerously lost their connection with reality. The sound of King loudly saying 'Eeeeeeee' will show more ring in my ears for days, now. Weird, but good-weird. This audio version may have been done recently, it sounds to me.

1408:

A writer is determined to spend the night in a haunted hotel room. Craziness ensues. King is always writing a bit of himself as character when he uses writer protagonists, and he seems to particularly enjoy making his author go crazypants before mauling or setting them on fire for good measure. This was a moderately scary story, though not much like what I've heard the movie was like. I have not seen the movie that's based on this story yet, and I am not sure whether I can, or will. Maybe, some day.

In the Deathroom:

An American journalist has been arrested to be interrogated/tortured in some South American country, and he's brought to an interrogation room featuring creepy adversaries and a chilling torture advice. The ending is a bit Jason Bourne, but still a decent story for its length. I sincerely HATE torture in stories, of ANY kind. It makes my guts clench, and I spend the night with a stomach ache. I almost didn't finish it. I'm glad it became all Jason Bourne at the end. I think it's the weakest of the three stories. King's voice seems younger in this story, as well, like he did this recording a good 20 years ago.


This collection is worth reading/listening to, if you have a few hours to kill, like most of King's work.
3 stars. show less

This is a collection of three stories, tied together in name by the fact that each protagonist smokes or used to smoke. Being an ex-smoker, I find the tie-in endearing. I listened to this on Hoopla, and each story was read by Stephen King himself. Another plus!
The first story, Lunch at the Gotham Cafe, was probably my favorite. It's about a couple who is splitting up after only a few years of marriage. They're to meet for lunch with their lawyers to discuss the details. Things go awry, to say the least!
The second story is one that was turned into a movie: Room 1408. I had only seen the last ten or fifteen minutes of the movie once, and I thought the story wouldn't really appeal to me. However, I was wrong. This is a story about an show more author who has made a living writing about haunted places--he wants to stay in Room 1408 in order to add to his newest book about haunted hotels. Things don't go quite as he'd assumed they would, however.
The final story, The Deathroom, is about a reporter who has been stationed in South America. He has found out more than the South American authorities would like for him to know, and he's been captured. He is told he will be released after he provides a certain amount of information. Whether or not he actually will be remains to be seen. show less

The best part is the 1st half (the chat between the hotel manager & Mike) but nonetheless, the rest is filled with the horror of the ordinary stuff.

I wasn't too impressed with Blood and Smoke. I loved almost all of Stephen King's older books and enjoyed the last couple of books that he has written, but there were several in between that I just didn't care for. It was interesting to hear Stephen King read the stories, himself. "Lunch at the Gotham Cafe" was just okay. I expected more when this story started and was a bit let down by it. "1408" was the best of the three stories and the only one that I would actually say I liked. I did not like "In the Deathroom." It sounded familiar to me from the beginning and I soon realized it was a story I had read in one of King's books and did not like the first time, so I stopped listening to it. This disappointed me because I was under the show more impression that all 3 of these stories were only available in Blood and Smoke. show less

Pointless stories with none of the usual panache I expect from Stephen King.

three short stories (listened to first two), wanted to experience Stephen King, profane, interesting, tried to capture horror--not to scary for me, Linda heard most of second story with me