"Big Driver," by Stephen King
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Warning: spoilers.
"Big Driver" is the second short story in Stephen King's latest collection, Full Dark, No Stars. I had read and liked the first story (almost a novella in length), "1922." Great pacing, characters, mood, regional tone . . . great storytelling. But I was leery of "Big Driver" once I started reading because there were certain memes (a reference to ending up in a culvert, for example) that indicated a story about rape was coming. I'm distrustful of representations of sexual violence in art for many reasons---the possibility of a voyeuristic enjoyment on the part of readers foremost among them. I ploughed ahead nonetheless to judge the story as it unfolded rather than preemptively.
I'm glad I did. It's an ugly tale, but King did as well with it as you could hope. The main character is a woman in her late thirties named Tess who is the author of a series of cozy mysteries called the Willow Grove Knitting Society. She's invited to speak at a library in a town not too far from her hometown, and she's advised by the librarian to take the backroads on her way home. On the way, she runs over some lumber with nails in it, gets a flat tire, and is soon joined by a large man in a truck offering to help her.
Tess survives the attack that follows, despite being left for dead in a culvert with the bodies of previous victims. The rest of the story follows her as she comes to grips with what has happened. The attack is brutal, mean, and nasty. Her escape from the culvert back to civilization feels absolutely right--she's terrified of every sound, every car, ready for her attacker to spring back onto her. When she finally arrives at a roadhouse and calls a limo service to come pick her up, she waits in shock as normal, carefree people come and go, as if her life is not hanging by a thread.
Tess knows that she should go to the hospital and report the attack. But her inability to do so feels completely realistic. She has a strong disinclination to do those concrete things that would be required for a police report----calling a neighbor for a ride to the hospital, sitting there and telling her story, dealing with the publicity. She doesn't want to get up. She wants to sleep, and take repeated showers, and burrow in behind locked doors. In the end it's this thought that decides it for her: What's in it for me? Prosecution may bring relief to the families of other victims, but would it really help her in the aftermath? The attack has devastated her but it's also created a new her, a woman filled with rage and purpose and unabashed self-interest.
I admire the way that King portrays all of the stages of this process. You really feel how being a victim of a physical attack might feel. But I also admire the way he transforms our understanding of this particular character---and her own self-understanding. She starts out as a slightly pathetic middle-aged lady. She writes the kind of fiction that is not particularly respected, she has a modest amount of money and renown, her life follows a banal script, exemplified by the predictability of the library talk: introduction by the host, affable, boilerplate talk by her, question period ("Where do you get your ideas?"), reception, $1200 honorarium. It all feels a little cheap and easy.
But in the aftermath of the attack, the characteristics that have made her a writer rally to the fore. The imagined voices that populate her world--those of her cat and her lady detective--and the ability to imagine other voices--those of her rapist and other suspects--guide her every step of the way. In the end she feels extraordinary, not because of something that is in contrast to her previous life (the attack) but because of those things that belonged to her all along: her imagination (Where would such a person hide a wallet?), her ability to construct other scripts (What if I didn't go to the police?), and her ability to think literarily (If this were a movie, the lumber in the road would not be an accident but a trap). This is ultimately what I liked best of all about the story, that her transformation came from her own resources, that her attacker was denied the honor of agency in her life. Well done.
-
Warning: spoilers.
"Big Driver" is the second short story in Stephen King's latest collection, Full Dark, No Stars. I had read and liked the first story (almost a novella in length), "1922." Great pacing, characters, mood, regional tone . . . great storytelling. But I was leery of "Big Driver" once I started reading because there were certain memes (a reference to ending up in a culvert, for example) that indicated a story about rape was coming. I'm distrustful of representations of sexual violence in art for many reasons---the possibility of a voyeuristic enjoyment on the part of readers foremost among them. I ploughed ahead nonetheless to judge the story as it unfolded rather than preemptively.
I'm glad I did. It's an ugly tale, but King did as well with it as you could hope. The main character is a woman in her late thirties named Tess who is the author of a series of cozy mysteries called the Willow Grove Knitting Society. She's invited to speak at a library in a town not too far from her hometown, and she's advised by the librarian to take the backroads on her way home. On the way, she runs over some lumber with nails in it, gets a flat tire, and is soon joined by a large man in a truck offering to help her.
Tess survives the attack that follows, despite being left for dead in a culvert with the bodies of previous victims. The rest of the story follows her as she comes to grips with what has happened. The attack is brutal, mean, and nasty. Her escape from the culvert back to civilization feels absolutely right--she's terrified of every sound, every car, ready for her attacker to spring back onto her. When she finally arrives at a roadhouse and calls a limo service to come pick her up, she waits in shock as normal, carefree people come and go, as if her life is not hanging by a thread.
Tess knows that she should go to the hospital and report the attack. But her inability to do so feels completely realistic. She has a strong disinclination to do those concrete things that would be required for a police report----calling a neighbor for a ride to the hospital, sitting there and telling her story, dealing with the publicity. She doesn't want to get up. She wants to sleep, and take repeated showers, and burrow in behind locked doors. In the end it's this thought that decides it for her: What's in it for me? Prosecution may bring relief to the families of other victims, but would it really help her in the aftermath? The attack has devastated her but it's also created a new her, a woman filled with rage and purpose and unabashed self-interest.
I admire the way that King portrays all of the stages of this process. You really feel how being a victim of a physical attack might feel. But I also admire the way he transforms our understanding of this particular character---and her own self-understanding. She starts out as a slightly pathetic middle-aged lady. She writes the kind of fiction that is not particularly respected, she has a modest amount of money and renown, her life follows a banal script, exemplified by the predictability of the library talk: introduction by the host, affable, boilerplate talk by her, question period ("Where do you get your ideas?"), reception, $1200 honorarium. It all feels a little cheap and easy.
But in the aftermath of the attack, the characteristics that have made her a writer rally to the fore. The imagined voices that populate her world--those of her cat and her lady detective--and the ability to imagine other voices--those of her rapist and other suspects--guide her every step of the way. In the end she feels extraordinary, not because of something that is in contrast to her previous life (the attack) but because of those things that belonged to her all along: her imagination (Where would such a person hide a wallet?), her ability to construct other scripts (What if I didn't go to the police?), and her ability to think literarily (If this were a movie, the lumber in the road would not be an accident but a trap). This is ultimately what I liked best of all about the story, that her transformation came from her own resources, that her attacker was denied the honor of agency in her life. Well done.
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