The Man in the Black Suit: 4 Dark Tales

3.5

Me gustó, me gustó el desarrollo de los personajes, la premisa y desde luego me encantaron las ilustraciones, me gustó ese Diablo que nos necesita motivos para ser y perseguirte. No sé si me encantó, faltó algo, quizá un final con la certeza de que el Diablo volvía por él.

Gary, ya muy mayor, hace memoria sobre un hecho que le aconteció cuando tenía nueve años, y que le marcó de por vida. Gary, que hace poco ha perdido a su hermano mayor por una picadura de abeja, se va un buen día a pescar. Tras quedarse dormido, despierta y se encuentra a un extraño que le observa.

‘El hombre del traje negro’ (The Man in the Black Suit, 1994), del genial Stephen King, es un buen relato de terror, ilustrado por Ana Juan. Como añadido, el libro incluye el cuento ‘El joven Goodman Brown’, de Nathaniel Hawthorne, en el que parece se inspiró King.

I quickly realized that I’d read all four of these stories before. They are all included in King’s “Everything’s Eventual” collection. Though it had been 10 years since I read that, I remembered almost every detail of the title story. An old man recounts meeting the Devil while fishing as a young boy. The audio version was fantastic and brought the creepy characters to life beautifully.

For me, the weakest story of the four is “All That You Love Will Be Carried Away.” The piece is about a traveling salesman who is contemplating suicide. He also has a strange habit of collecting graffiti in a notebook. “The Death of Jack Hamilton” is about John Dillinger’s gang. One of the members tells us the stories about the days show more leading up to Dillinger’s dramatic death and the unexpectedly loss of their friend.

“That Feeling, You Can Only Say What It Is In French” offers readers a trippy case of Deja Vu with an ominous tone. After 25 years of marriage a couple decides to take a second honeymoon. The story gives us a glimpse of their ill-fated vacation.

BOTTOM LINE: Great collection, though I wish I’d known this was a republication of selections from another collection of short stories. show less

The audiobook version contains 4 tales with 4 different narrators, from different collections. Most are riveting, with the possible exception of "That Feeling, You Can Only Say What It Is In French," which is hard to track in audio, due to its dreamy, repetitive format. The other three are real crackers: the titular story tells of a boy's encounter with an old-school Devil;"All that you Love" describes a despondent salesman with an unusual hobby; and finally, the poignant tale "The Death of Jack Hamilton" will make you want to read up on the Dillinger gang. More clever creations from the dizzyingly diverse mind of good old Uncle Stevie.

This is a collection of short stories Stephen King has previously written, and they may or may not have been published elsewhere. However, they were all new to me. It's hard to say if one was better than another, though I can definitely say with clarity that there were parts of 'All That You Love Will Be Carried Away' that really stood out to me and struck me in ways the other stories didn't.

To be honest, they're all great stories, and if you're a fan of King's, you'd enjoy each of these stories. Stephen King's epic novels fill me with joy like few other things in the world can; but I am always happy to fill the time between big novels with a short story or two by my favorite author!

I am not a particular fan of King, but the title story is exquisitely crafted. I can't praise it enough.

4 short stories...The title story was pretty good. The Death of Jack Hamilton was awful! The story was good, but the man's death was horrific. Jack Hamilton was one of Dillinger's gang and was shot during a car chase. All that You Love Will Be Carried Away was slightly funny. How do you let something so arbitrary decide if you will move forward or not? The sayings the man collected from bathroom walls during his travels were funny. That Feeling, You Can Only Say What It Is In French...how can a man be so good at inhabiting a woman's mind when she's irritated with her husband and trying not to show it?