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There are three ways up to Castle View from the town of Castle Rock: Route 117, Pleasant Road, and the Suicide Stairs. Every day in the summer of 1974, twelve-year-old Gwendy Peterson has taken the stairs, which are held by strong, if time-rusted, iron bolts and zig-zag up the cliffside. Then one day when Gwendy gets to the top of Castle View, after catching her breath and hearing the shouts of kids on the playground below, a stranger calls to her. There on a bench in the shade sits a man in show more black jeans, a black coat, and a white shirt unbuttoned at the top. On his head is a small, neat black hat. The time will come when Gwendy has nightmares about that hat. show lessTags
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OneMorePage Both have a story that has objects that grant wishes. Mentioned in the novella.
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I had one of those ennui-ridden days yesterday. I had the time and the inclination to read but none of the books I'd downloaded called to me. I nibbled at a couple of them but I couldn't taste them. My imagination couldn't get any traction. So I opted for novelty as an antidote to listlessness and searched for something short and satisfying that I could read in an afternoon. I found 'Gwendy's Button Box', a novella co-authored by Stephen King (a go-to comfort read author for me) and Richard Chizmar (who I wasn't familiar with) nd consumed it in an afternoon.
I was glad that I'd opted for the audiobook version. Maggie Siff's narration was engaging and soothing and soon I was lost in another Castle Rock story in the 1970s, this time show more following a decade of the life of a young girl called Gwendy after she has an encounter with an extraordinary man who gifts her a box that is both a blessing and a curse.
I liked Gwendy, as Stephen King intended me to. She is brave, disciplined, mostly kind and is as honest with herself as any of us are capable of being. She's not perfect and she's very young so some of her decision are not a wise as they might be but those things just made her easier to engage with.
The box... well the box is terrifying. It's like handing a child a nuclear bomb and saying "Only press the button if you're sure it's the right thing to do". To make things worse, the box establishes a silently symbiotic relationship with Gwendy, offering her rewards that build dependency and reshape her life to the point where her ownership of her achievements is undermined and she questions the truth of her own identity.
This is a 'thought experiment' story, a 'What if?' speculation about power and choice and consequences, a reflection on the Spiderman truism that 'With great power comes great responsibility' that, in Stephen King's hands, also becomes the life story of a nice young girl whose childhood is ended early by an understanding that the world is not a safe place and that destruction is just a press of a button away, whether that button is in the hands of Nixon or Brezhnev or by Gwendy herself.
I was cruising along happily in the story but I couldn't see how it could be brought to an end, unless it turned into another 'IT' and one decade became three and I was watching Gwendy decide if Y2K would end the world.
The ending, when it came, was dramatic and a little sad but a little too neat and too cosy to be entirely satisifying. Still, my ennui was gone. I'd had an entertaining afternoon and I was ready to read something else.
Then I found that Stephen King's 'The Music Room' had been added as a bonus story. It's short, stylised and delightfully dark and twisted. Just the amuse-bouche I needed to clear my palette and move on to my next book.
The last thing on the audiobook is a conversation between Stephen King and Richard Chizmar about their collaboration on this story. The two of them were internet friends who often exchanged emails and chatted about things. One of those things was a story that Stephen King had started but couldn't find a way to finish. He'd sent it to Richard Chizmar, who turned it into the 'Gwendy's Button Box' I'd just read. Of course, the geek in me desperately wanted to see what the story looked like before the collaboration started and I found myself going back over the story in my head to see if I could find the join.
There are two more Gwendy novellas but I'm not heading there just now. Maybe the next time ennui has me it's grip, they can help me get free.
Click on the SoundCloud link below to hear a sample of Maggie Siff's narration.
https://soundcloud.com/simonschuster/gwendys-button-box-audiobook-excerpt show less
I was glad that I'd opted for the audiobook version. Maggie Siff's narration was engaging and soothing and soon I was lost in another Castle Rock story in the 1970s, this time show more following a decade of the life of a young girl called Gwendy after she has an encounter with an extraordinary man who gifts her a box that is both a blessing and a curse.
I liked Gwendy, as Stephen King intended me to. She is brave, disciplined, mostly kind and is as honest with herself as any of us are capable of being. She's not perfect and she's very young so some of her decision are not a wise as they might be but those things just made her easier to engage with.
The box... well the box is terrifying. It's like handing a child a nuclear bomb and saying "Only press the button if you're sure it's the right thing to do". To make things worse, the box establishes a silently symbiotic relationship with Gwendy, offering her rewards that build dependency and reshape her life to the point where her ownership of her achievements is undermined and she questions the truth of her own identity.
This is a 'thought experiment' story, a 'What if?' speculation about power and choice and consequences, a reflection on the Spiderman truism that 'With great power comes great responsibility' that, in Stephen King's hands, also becomes the life story of a nice young girl whose childhood is ended early by an understanding that the world is not a safe place and that destruction is just a press of a button away, whether that button is in the hands of Nixon or Brezhnev or by Gwendy herself.
I was cruising along happily in the story but I couldn't see how it could be brought to an end, unless it turned into another 'IT' and one decade became three and I was watching Gwendy decide if Y2K would end the world.
The ending, when it came, was dramatic and a little sad but a little too neat and too cosy to be entirely satisifying. Still, my ennui was gone. I'd had an entertaining afternoon and I was ready to read something else.
Then I found that Stephen King's 'The Music Room' had been added as a bonus story. It's short, stylised and delightfully dark and twisted. Just the amuse-bouche I needed to clear my palette and move on to my next book.
The last thing on the audiobook is a conversation between Stephen King and Richard Chizmar about their collaboration on this story. The two of them were internet friends who often exchanged emails and chatted about things. One of those things was a story that Stephen King had started but couldn't find a way to finish. He'd sent it to Richard Chizmar, who turned it into the 'Gwendy's Button Box' I'd just read. Of course, the geek in me desperately wanted to see what the story looked like before the collaboration started and I found myself going back over the story in my head to see if I could find the join.
There are two more Gwendy novellas but I'm not heading there just now. Maybe the next time ennui has me it's grip, they can help me get free.
Click on the SoundCloud link below to hear a sample of Maggie Siff's narration.
https://soundcloud.com/simonschuster/gwendys-button-box-audiobook-excerpt show less
Definitely a good read all the way through! Finished it in a few hours in one sitting and it didn’t disappoint! The storyline was great and the character development of Gwendy was perfectly developed and evolved beyond what I could imagine in only 164 pages. It wasn’t a typical novel with a million twists and turns but it was definitely a good story! Read it if you have a short flight or trip even if you don’t think it’s for you because it’s only 164 pages and if you don’t like it by 30 then it’s not a huge waste of time but maybe only 20 minutes! The only thing I’m mad at is that the bad guy surely deserved worse (idk how you can go worse but he deserved worse!) and Mr. Farris as the all seeing should have had to show more apologize somehow! show less
This story is more of a parable than anything, but it is delivered in a palatable and pleasing form. 12 year old Gwendy Peterson is determined to change her chubby life (she was recently nick-named Goodyear) before she hits middle school, so she takes a daily run up Suicide Stairs in Castle Rock, ME. This is 1978. One day she meets a man in a black hat who seems to know her, though he is a stranger (danger!) He gifts her with a box that has 2 levers and several push-buttons of various colors that correspond to the continents. The levers alternately dispense chocolate “pills” which satisfy longing/appetite and rare coins worth $600 each. His only information and advice is that this is entrusted to her and she will know how to use it. show more Her life swims along into adolescence and young adulthood and Gwendy shows great restraint in the box’s temptation. She keeps it hidden and occasionally dispenses chocolates which seem to improve her life: weight loss, athletic ability, smarts, attractiveness and money which she saves for college, in addition to working hard at her snack shop job. The only time she experiments with a button is when she pushes S. America and the next day reads about the deaths of the Jonestown cult and its leader Jim Jones. She is convinced she caused this. Other event occur which are typical teenage crises, but Gwendy always wonders if the box is related and she is somehow responsible, so she is always in the shadow of this possibility. But it does not cripple her, and she waits patiently for the man to return and retract the button box. This book would lead to great discussion about the nature of power and responsibility, and is especially effective for the ego-centric world view of most tweens and teens. It has a tiny bit of Stephen King creep factor, but presents more like a Mitch Albom tale. show less
This was a spare and lovely little tale featuring a figure familiar to many Constant Readers. The plot plays with one of those fundamentally existential questions we hope never to answer: What would you do if you were all-powerful, and are you really as good in your heart of hearts as you think you are? I also appreciated the way the ending was a bit rushed and almost unfinished, as that felt fitting for this kind of story.
Gwendy's Button Box was such a pleasant surprise. It serves as a continuation (possibly even a conclusion) to Stephen King's previous novels taking place in Castle Rock, and also references several other of his works. However, this novella also manages to stand on its own feet and doesn't need to hide behind King's more famous efforts. Whereas the premise is not as uncommon anymore after being explored countless times before, Stephen King takes things into a completely different direction with his story and allows his readers to escape into a really interesting story.
The premise is actually rather simple: a twelve-year-old girl trying to lose weight is approached by a man dressed completely in black and is given a box by him with a show more number of buttons. In the beginning, it remains ambiguous what these buttons actually mean, but they end up shaping Gwendy's life nevertheless. The box also includes two levers, one of which gives her magical chocolate everytime she pushes it, and the other one gives her silver dollars. She is only told that each of the other buttons represents a certain continent, but what happens if you push these buttons? Would you, the reader?
It's an almost classic formula, perhaps most well-known thanks to Richard Matheson's short story [b:Button, Button: Uncanny Stories|754250|Button, Button Uncanny Stories|Richard Matheson|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1323418364l/754250._SY75_.jpg|740369]. But King includes so many different twists and turns and actually manages to induce this formula with new breath. It's an immersive, engaging novella which can easily be read in the course of two hours, and proves that King hasn't lost his ability to tell wonderful stories. At just a little over 100 pages, it struck me the most how the characters were portrayed in such a thoughtful way. Even if you might expect the focus to be lying on the plot development, King still always manages to create memorable characters who drive the story along themselves. show less
The premise is actually rather simple: a twelve-year-old girl trying to lose weight is approached by a man dressed completely in black and is given a box by him with a show more number of buttons. In the beginning, it remains ambiguous what these buttons actually mean, but they end up shaping Gwendy's life nevertheless. The box also includes two levers, one of which gives her magical chocolate everytime she pushes it, and the other one gives her silver dollars. She is only told that each of the other buttons represents a certain continent, but what happens if you push these buttons? Would you, the reader?
It's an almost classic formula, perhaps most well-known thanks to Richard Matheson's short story [b:Button, Button: Uncanny Stories|754250|Button, Button Uncanny Stories|Richard Matheson|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1323418364l/754250._SY75_.jpg|740369]. But King includes so many different twists and turns and actually manages to induce this formula with new breath. It's an immersive, engaging novella which can easily be read in the course of two hours, and proves that King hasn't lost his ability to tell wonderful stories. At just a little over 100 pages, it struck me the most how the characters were portrayed in such a thoughtful way. Even if you might expect the focus to be lying on the plot development, King still always manages to create memorable characters who drive the story along themselves. show less
"It's normal. Wanting to know things and do things is what the human race us all about. Exploration, Gwendy! Both the disease and the cure!"
In the summer before middle school, an overweight bullied only child is approached by a stranger- the mysterious Mr. Farris - who presents her with a button box. The button box dispenses a seemly endless supply of chocolates and perfect silver dollars. She is told the buttons have a supernatural power. Gwendy's life changes for the better, but is there a price?
This was an original tale with a pervading sense of unease and tension. Are we truly in control of our own destiny? How much responsibility do we actually hold for the events that befall us and those around us? Can our small actions have wider show more implications? show less
In the summer before middle school, an overweight bullied only child is approached by a stranger- the mysterious Mr. Farris - who presents her with a button box. The button box dispenses a seemly endless supply of chocolates and perfect silver dollars. She is told the buttons have a supernatural power. Gwendy's life changes for the better, but is there a price?
This was an original tale with a pervading sense of unease and tension. Are we truly in control of our own destiny? How much responsibility do we actually hold for the events that befall us and those around us? Can our small actions have wider show more implications? show less
Welcome back to Castle Rock, Maine, home to numerous Stephen King stories. Clearly nothing bad is going to happen here. Gwendy is twelve when she meets the man in the little black hat. A slightly pudgy girl, Gwendy is determined to slim down before school starts up in the fall. The Man in the little black hat seems to know all about her, and he offers her guardianship of a strange little box with multicolored buttons. The Man explains that the box controlls everything. And while it will give her what she needs, it can also take things away.
This is a perfect little book, only 175 pages, but Chizmar squeezes a hell of a lot of stuff into this book. We see Gwendy grow up, and the relationship between her and the mysterious box grows and show more changes with her. The box is almost like a character in and of itself, a constant, lurking presence suffusing the entire story with a subtle menace. Gwendy herself is a fully realised character, complex and sympathetic.
I know most people either love or hate short stories and novellas, but if Gwendy’s Button Box is an indication of what the genre can do, then bring ’em on! show less
This is a perfect little book, only 175 pages, but Chizmar squeezes a hell of a lot of stuff into this book. We see Gwendy grow up, and the relationship between her and the mysterious box grows and show more changes with her. The box is almost like a character in and of itself, a constant, lurking presence suffusing the entire story with a subtle menace. Gwendy herself is a fully realised character, complex and sympathetic.
I know most people either love or hate short stories and novellas, but if Gwendy’s Button Box is an indication of what the genre can do, then bring ’em on! show less
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Author Information
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Stephen King was born in Portland, Maine, on September 21, 1947. After graduating with a Bachelor's degree in English from the University of Maine at Orono in 1970, he became a teacher. His spare time was spent writing short stories and novels. King's first novel would never have been published if not for his wife. She removed the first few show more chapters from the garbage after King had thrown them away in frustration. Three months later, he received a $2,500 advance from Doubleday Publishing for the book that went on to sell a modest 13,000 hardcover copies. That book, Carrie, was about a girl with telekinetic powers who is tormented by bullies at school. She uses her power, in turn, to torment and eventually destroy her mean-spirited classmates. When United Artists released the film version in 1976, it was a critical and commercial success. The paperback version of the book, released after the movie, went on to sell more than two-and-a-half million copies. Many of King's other horror novels have been adapted into movies, including The Shining, Firestarter, Pet Semetary, Cujo, Misery, The Stand, and The Tommyknockers. Under the pseudonym Richard Bachman, King has written the books The Running Man, The Regulators, Thinner, The Long Walk, Roadwork, Rage, and It. He is number 2 on the Hollywood Reporter's '25 Most Powerful Authors' 2016 list. King is one of the world's most successful writers, with more than 100 million copies of his works in print. Many of his books have been translated into foreign languages, and he writes new books at a rate of about one per year. In 2003, he received the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. In 2012 his title, The Wind Through the Keyhole made The New York Times Best Seller List. King's title's Mr. Mercedes and Revival made The New York Times Best Seller List in 2014. He won the Edgar Allan Poe Award in 2015 for Best Novel with Mr. Mercedes. King's title Finders Keepers made the New York Times bestseller list in 2015. Sleeping Beauties is his latest 2017 New York Times bestseller. (Bowker Author Biography) Stephen King is the author of more than thirty books, all of them worldwide bestsellers. Among his most recent are "Hearts in Atlantis", "The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon", "Bag of Bones", & "The Green Mile". "On Writing" is his first book of nonfiction since "Danse Macabre", published in 1981. He served as a judge for Prize Stories: The Best of 1999, The O. Henry Awards. He lives in Bangor, Maine with his wife, novelist Tabitha King. King's book, The Bazaar of Bad Dreams: Stories, made the 2015 New York Times bestseller list. (Publisher Provided) show less
176+ Works 8,061 Members
Richard Chizmar is the founder and publisher of Cemetery Dance magazine and the Cemetery Dance Publications book imprint. He has edited more than thirty anthologies and his fiction has appeared in dozens of publications, including Ellery Queen¿s Mystery Magazine and The Year¿s 25 Finest Crime and Mystery Stories. He has won two World Fantasy show more awards, four International Horror Guild awards, and the HWA¿s Board of Trustee¿s award. He co-authpred Gwendy's Button Box (2017) with Stephen King. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- Gwendy's Button Box
- Original title
- Gwendy's Button Box
- Original publication date
- 2017-05-28
- People/Characters
- Gwendy Peterson; Richard Farris; Randall Flagg; Harry Streeter; Olive Kepnes
- Important places
- Castle Rock, Maine, USA
- First words
- There are three ways up to Castle View from the town of Castle Rock: Route 117, Pleasant Raod, and the Suicide Stairs.
- Quotations*
- « Vouloir savoir et agir est le propre de l'espèce humaine. L'exploration, Gwendy ! À la fois la maladie et le remède ! »
Les secrets constituent un problème, peut-être le plus grand de tous. Ils pèsent sur l'esprit et encombrent le monde. - Last words*
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)Puis elle éclate de rire et le met dans sa poche.
- Original language
- English
- Canonical DDC/MDS
- 813.6
- Canonical LCC
- PS3561.I483
- Disambiguation notice
- Do not combine audiobook with bonus story with this work. ISBNs for the audiobook/bonus story are: 1508242062, 1508242054, 1508242046
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
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