If you asked Stephen King what book of his he found the most controversial or worthy of getting fired up about, maybe he’d say The Shining, since so many people know about that one because of a movie adaptation that made controversial/divisive changes to the source material. And they were changes King himself did not agree with, to put it mildly. But that’s more to do with a movie than a book, and in any event, most people tend to like The Shining (1980) at least a little more than Stephen King does.
So, the following is focused on King’s writing, mostly with his novels, but with a couple of novellas, too. These books, for whatever reason, have some level of controversy attached to them, usually because of content (Stephen King does not mind going to some mortifying places, especially when he writes horror), but sometimes because of narrative elements that were divisive, or not exactly liked by all readers, in other words.
8. ‘Gerald’s Game’ (1992)
Though Misery is the better Stephen King book about someone largely being confined to a bed for most of the story’s duration, Gerald’s Game goes to some even darker places. There is more trauma from the distant past here that the main character has no choice but to dwell on, when she finds herself handcuffed to a bed after her husband has a heart attack.
And there is trauma of a more recent variety, too, given the abusive behavior of that husband, and how there had been a strong element of sexual violence to the event that saw her end up in the position she’s in, throughout Gerald’s Game. The heaviness of this one, alongside how claustrophobic and introspective/psychological it was, meant a film adaptation looked unlikely for a while, but Mike Flanagan managed to make one work decently well, in 2017.
7. “Apt Pupil,” from ‘Different Seasons’ (1982)
Even if you just look at the novels Stephen King had published during the 1980s, the body of work is immense, but then he also had novellas and short stories come out in this decade, too. One of them is “Apt Pupil,” which is one of four novellas featured in Different Seasons, and it’s a good deal darker than the two most famous novellas from that collection: “The Body” (later made into Stand by Me) and “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption” (later made into The Shawshank Redemption).
There was also a film version of Apt Pupil, perhaps surprisingly, since the story here is an uncomfortable one about a teenage boy developing a strange dynamic with a fugitive Nazi war criminal living in the same area as him. Of course it’s harrowing and uneasy, but it does sort of have to be, considering what it’s about, and what it ultimately wants to explore thematically (and in relation to history).
6. ‘Holly’ (2023)
The closest Stephen King has come to stirring up a frenzy in more recent years was with Holly, which is one of several books to feature Holly Gibney in either a supporting or lead role. These books tend to be crime/mystery/suspense stories, but Holly has encountered some supernatural things while working as a detective, too. They’re also very much set in and around the years that they were published, which leads to some controversy, with Holly (2023) more specifically.
King is opinionated about cell phones, politics, and COVID-19, and you get a lot of his thoughts on the latter two throughout Holly. Even if you agree with him, it’s exhausting just how many times characters reference certain things. But not everyone agrees with him, so those readers, rather than feeling like King was droning on a bit, probably found the whole experience of reading Holly closer to infuriating. Look, those references to reality are not the worst part of Holly by any means, but you can see readers getting very angry about those parts of the book online, and King was even asked about it at one point, so that’s being counted as a kind of controversy, for present purposes.
5. ‘The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower’ (2004)
There are ups and downs when it comes to getting through The Dark Tower, which is the longest-running Stephen King series, with seven main books published over the span of more than 20 years. There’s division among its fans regarding which book represents the series at its best, and then similarly controversial is the idea of whether it ended well.
It’s probably a vocal minority thing, with The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower being incredibly disliked by some, but then again, maybe not. Maybe it’s more than just a few people who are angry, or find the eventual final stage of the massive journey disappointing. Anyway, there are fans and detractors alike, and this was perhaps the most important ending a book by Stephen King was ever going to have (wrapping up 4000+ pages, instead of “just” a few hundred, or a little over 1000), so here it is. The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower. Take its inclusion here or leave it. Start an argument about it, maybe. That would feel oddly fitting.
4.’The Stand’ (1978/1990)
The content is probably the biggest factor towards The Stand being a somewhat controversial Stephen King book, but then again, its ending is also one that people point to as being indicative of King’s inability to conclude a story properly. Without elaborating on the ending, much of the story involves a battle to control what’s left of the U.S. after a massively deadly flu takes out almost every human being. Like, over 99% of them, that level of devastating.
There’s a huge build-up, with all sorts of disturbing and horrific things happening along the way, and then King decides to conclude things a little unusually. You’ll either go with the ending and perhaps even feel quite moved by it, or throw your hands up in frustration at it, and both reactions are understandable. It’s a big, messy, sprawling book, and you have to kind of take the good with the bad, and the exciting with the disappointing. But also, there’s so much good here. The Stand is pretty amazing, and unlike much else out there.
3. ‘It’ (1986)
Speaking of absolutely incredible Stephen King books that are also incredibly long and quite controversial in parts, here’s It. The basics only go so far when the book’s over 1000 pages long and everything, but It involves a terrifying entity that takes on the form of all sorts of creatures and beings, mostly sticking to Pennywise the Clown, and terrorizes people in that ever-cursed town of Derry every 27 years.
Some kids fight him in 1958, and then they regroup as adults in 1985 to fight him again, but both battles and their build-ups are cut between throughout the novel. This allows King to go on some tangents, and he introduces some very alarming side characters throughout… probably the most horrific of all the King bullies, and that’s really saying something. Then, there’s also the way the 1958 side of the story concludes, and… yeah, if you know, you know. But that’s the most controversial part of the novel, quite comfortably. Sometimes, it’s the only part people talk about. It is alarming, but there was something being gone for thematically there, so… eh, certain people might defend it. And certain people will want to do anything but defend it. Hence, division, disagreements, and more controversy.
2. “The Library Policeman” from ‘Four Past Midnight’ (1990)
One more novella pick, “The Library Policeman” is from Four Past Midnight, and sometimes gets overshadowed by the two novellas that come before it in that collection, as “The Langoliers” and “Secret Window, Secret Garden” both received adaptations (a miniseries and a feature film, respectively). “The Library Policeman” is a much more upsetting story, and one that likely couldn’t get filmed, unless the most alarming scene here was cut out.
It’s along the lines of the infamous scene from It that always gets cut out of adaptations, only with “The Library Policeman,” that kind of thing is more violent and fully played for horror, making it genuinely hard to read and viscerally upsetting, more than just gross or a bit uncomfortable. What happens, exactly, probably can’t be discussed here, since it doesn’t feel right to get too descriptive about such things in an article like this, but it’s not hard to find why this one is particularly alarming and confronting. You might not want to know, though. It’s not something that can be unlearned.
1. ‘Rage’ (1977)
It’s not nearly as well-known as most of the other novels or novellas here, but that’s by design. Rage was a Richard Bachman book, written under King’s pseudonym, and it’s one of the only books of his you won’t find stocked plentifully at most large bookshops, since it’s gone out of print. Again, by design. It was a book about a mass shooting at a school, and then, years later, when such shootings started happening more often, there was a concern about it influencing people to do the wrong thing.
That’s not to say Rage is suggesting you should do what the central character here does, by any means, but King was concerned with copycat crimes anyway, a bit like how Stanley Kubrick was with A Clockwork Orange, and that’s made Rage now hard to find. Quality-wise… like, it’s okay? It does what it sets out to do, and it does drive home the obvious consequences of the main character lashing out the way he does, but the risk of Rage inspiring real-life acts of violence ended up being too much.
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