I suppose the ultimate irony is that readers will find after only leaving Kings latest novel that they identify with the Big Bad on one important point — they'll wish they could remain there for longer, even if it’s turning into a little mini-hell on earth. The conceit is simple. Put a force field around an American small town and watch what happens. Inside, the citizens slowly come out of their everyday disguises and reveal their true characters. This is perhaps King's most character-driven work.
King handles every aspect of this novel with a professional ease that makes it easy to ignore just how good a writer he is. For one, thing, King quite pointedly does not write about Great People. There are no Mahatma Ghandi's there in Chester's Mill once the Dome falls. The population of this small town is about as shallow as most of the folks you'll meet in the grocery store. But they are eminently real, and King involves you in a lot of lives while delivering a pulse-pounding thriller. It's an all American small-town mimetic reality novel as seen through a magnifying glass that might burn a few ants while revealing some deep flaws.
King handles his huge cast with a perfectly even hand. We know who we're supposed to care about and why, but he also uses the large cast as a sort of plot point, eliciting "Oh, yeah, THAT guy!" from the reader as he turns his attention to secondary characters. Given his one invention, the Dome, he explores the consequences of such an event in ever manner possible, from the smallest critters to the entire US government. It's all fun to read, and often-enough, thought-provoking.
And as for the page count, this book is so tightly edited and constructed, that you'll really feel and read it as if it is a 300-page thriller, not a 1,000-plus page tome. It's relentlessly unhappy, yet there's the true joy of actual humanity revealed, not to compensate, but because humans are actually worthy of (bits of) true joy. Every life can include them. In every life, there can be a week when one spends the days glued to the couch, immersed in a wonderful book that somehow reveals to us how monstrous and wonderful we can be, we are. This is America — and King offers you America under the dome. Served straight up, with a side-order of truth. Try not to be at that point where the magnifying glass burns the ants it reveals.
New to the Agony Column
08-08-11: Commentary : Simon Rich Wishes For 'Elliot Allagash' : The Unbottled Genie
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2011 Interview with Simon Rich : "My goal as a writer, more than anything is just to write something that people will finish voluntarily."
08-03-11: Commentary : Scott Simon Knows 'Baby, We Were Meant for Each Other' : The Family We Choose
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2011 Interview with Scott Simon : "...then of course, our kids will be there too, and that's going to change everything."
08-01-11: Commentary : Glen Duncan Transforms 'The Last Werewolf' : The Literature of Ennui
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2011 Interview With Glen Duncan and Stephen Coates : "I try and imagine what it would be like to be that person in that situation."
07-28-11: Commentary : Bruce Duffy Proclaims 'Disaster was My God' : Seasoned in Hell
Agony Column Podcast News Report : Five Books With Alan Cheuse : The Lotus Singers edited by Trevor Carolan, Digital Geishas and Talking Frogs, Edited by Helen Mitsios, Disaster Was My God, by Bruce Duffy, Triple Crossing by Sebastian Rotella and We All Fall Down by Michael Harvey
07-27-11: Commentary : Arielle Eckstutt and David Henry Sterry write 'The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published: How to Write It, Sell It, and Market It . . . Successfully' : Swiss Army Knife for Would-Be Writers
07-25-11: Commentary : Mark Seal Meets 'The Man in the Rockefeller Suit' : Unmistaken Identity
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2011 Interview with Mark Seal : "He said he was the producer and director of a new TV series called Alfred Hitchcock Presents."
07-21-11: Commentary : 'Song of Slaves in the Desert' by Alan Cheuse : Voices, Stories and Songs
Agony Column Podcast News Report : Alan Cheuse Live at Capitola Book Café, July 9, 2011 : "..if any of you have ever spent any time in academia, you can imagine what this meant..."
07-18-11: Commentary : David Eagleman Goes 'Incognito' : Dethronement
07-15-11: Commentary : David Darlington Searches for 'An Ideal Wine' : One Generation's Pursuit of Perfection — and Profit — in California
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2011 Phone Interview with David Darlington : "...the fact that so many wineries mouth this catechism while behind the scenes they are doing something completely different..."
07-13-11: Commentary : Joe R. Lansdale's 'Crucified Dreams' : Urbane Extreme
Agony Column Podcast News Report : Howard V. Hendrix Interviewed at SF in SF on May 9, 2011 : "We're going to bring in people from all different menus who have talked about Mars."
07-04-11: Commentary : Donald Ray Pollock Sees 'The Devil All the Time' : Flaying Americana
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2011 Interview with Donald Ray Pollock :"You need some trouble, you know, for the book to be interesting. I may go a little overboard on the trouble."
06-30-11: Commentary : Melissa Marr Minds the 'Graveminder' : Tending to the Dead
