Book Review: Full Dark, No Stars (Part 3 of 4)

Full Dark, No Stars by Stephen King (Scribner, 2010)

[Four novellas, reviewed over four consecutive days here at Macabre Republic.]

Today's Review: Fair Extension

As with the preceding novella, Big Driver, King adopts a familiar narrative template here--in this case, the ol' deal-with-the-devil story.  Protagonist Dave Streeter encounters a strange figure (not-so-subtly christened George Elvid) at a roadside stand outside the Derry County Airport.  Elvid sells Fair Extensions, and for a 15% tithe on Streeter's annual income, promises to increase his life span by curing his terminal cancer.  There's just one catch, as Elvid explains: "You have to transfer the weight.  In words of one syllable, you have to do the dirty to someone else if the dirty is to be lifted from you."  Moreover, this scapegoat "has to be someone you hate," but that's no problem, because Streeter has the perfect candidate: his lifelong "friend" Tom Goodhugh, a healthy and wealthy entrepreneur (thanks to the bank loan Streeter pushed through for him) now happily married to the girl he stole from Streeter back in high school.  So a deal is readily struck with Elvid, one that brings a cataclysmic reversal of fortunes for the Streeter and Goodhugh families.

Readers, though, should not expect the traditional climactic plot twist, the eventual diabolic double-cross.  As Elvid bluntly discloses early on: "This isn't some half-assed morality tale.  I'm a businessman, not a character out of 'The Devil and Daniel Webster.' [...] And if you think I'm going to show up two decades or so down the line to collect your soul in my moldy old pocketbook, you'd better think again."  Belying his reputation, the anagrammatic Elvid is a straight-talker and a fair dealer, and thus there's no stunning turnabout at novella's end.  Instead, the truly shocking aspect of Fair Extension is Streeter's utter lack of remorse, his cavalier attitude about the assorted tragedies that strike Tom and his kin.

Fair Extension exposes the envy and animosity that underlies the facade of friendship.  The novella also serves as a reminder of the various horrors--both commonplace and exotic--that potentially await us in our everyday lives.  Nonetheless, the dominant note struck here is comedic--the tale is laced with humor black as the slate of a constellation-erased sky.  Elvid ultimately proves an incidental figure--a mere plot facilitator--but the real devil here is King himself, as one can't help but sense the author reveling in his (wickedly deadpan) narration of incidents of macabre misfortune.