Everything’s Eventual (2002) Overview

Inevitable, really.

The Biograph Theater, after Dillinger was shot.

I mean, come on here, ladies and gentlemen, whom can I possibly kid at this late date, except maybe myself? I sold my first story when I was twenty-one and a junior in college. I’m now fifty-four, and have run a lot of language through the 2.2-pound organic computer/word processor I hang my Red Sox hat on.

Stephen King, Everything’s Eventual‘s introduction

It’s interesting, this collection. Firstly, it’s been a while since this happened, but this is a chance to revisit a book I had read long before I had started doing my marathon of reading Stephen King’s bibliography. In fact, Dark Tower books aside, this is the first fiction book I have reread since Misery. Secondly, since Nightmares & Dreamscapes (his last collection) cleared the decks, this is a collection made out of material only published since 1994, arguably presenting a better insight into King’s state of mind during the 90s than his last collection and having more in common with his first two collections.

In his introduction, King discusses the fact that he has been writing for a long time by this point, and that writing short stories are hard and not necessarily that rewarding, beyond sharpening the skills of a writer. He goes on to discuss the methods by which he tries to keep writing alive for him, making it new and interesting, which when looking at the output throughout the 90s, are much more experimental for King.

Here are some of the ways King innovated his publication methods in the 90s. 1408 and In The Deathroom first started as audio only stories, and were at first intended to remain that way before being collected here. Riding the Bullet was first released as an e-book, like a more successful version of The Plant. Little Sister of Eluria was published as part of a collection of stories where authors wrote stories set in their created worlds, alongside the likes of Ursula K. LeGuin and Terry Pratchett, which delights me no end. Perhaps most bizarrely, the novella Everything’s Eventual was released as part of the ‘video game’ Stephen King’s F13 (though had been published a couple years before that). King also managed to get four stories in The New Yorker: The Man in the Black Suit, All That You Love Will Be Taken Away, The Death of Jack Hamilton and That Feeling, You Can Only Say What It Is in French, which by contrast is a very traditional form of publishing.

Think of this in the context of his writing during this time, including trilogy of strong women characters (Gerald’s Game, Dolores Claiborne, and Rose Madder), older protagonists (Insomnia) or unique publishing approach (The Green Mile, The Regulators and Desperation); even his Dark Tower entry at this time was a radical departure to what had come before. In that way, it does reflect King’s interest in the 90s of reinventing himself. It probably helped his sobriety during that difficult time.

But what about the content of the stories themselves?

I made no secret that I was rather cool towards King’s last collection Nightmares & Dreamscapes, despite containing some very fine stories indeed. It may be the rose-tinted spectacles, but Everything’s Eventual is a far more cohesive collection overall, slightly let down in the manner in which King arranged the stories. By randomly dealing the stories out, we lose the big opener like The Mist or Dolan’s Cadillac, and the collection itself ends with the rather damp squib Luckey Quarter. But the stories are stronger, perhaps freed from the ‘clearing out the decks’ approach of Nightmares & Dreamscapes.

There is no story older than 1994 present, covering the relatively brief period of eight years. Taken in that context, I believe they only further my suspicion that this was period where King was enjoying being adventurous and experimental. As well as the consideration for how they were published, there is the stories themselves. There is experimentation in King’s form, with the most first person stories yet, experiments in genre (Riding the Bullet, L.T.’s Theory of Pets), form (That Feeling, You Can Only Say What It Is In French) and some beautiful little character studies (All That You Love Will Be Carried Away, L.T.’s Theory of Pets again). There are also some of King’s scariest short stories ever included, (1408, The Main in the Black Suit, The Road Virus Heads North, amongst others).

But what I enjoyed this time around especially is that the stories do share a thematic link. There are some references to the wider King universe, especially for a collection that contains Dark Tower prequel, but in general it’s light on those references. The stories contained tend to stand more on their own. Instead, this collection feels like most of the characters contained within are very much on the brink of certain disaster.

There is King’s horror typical on the edge of Death that you can expect. Autopsy Room 4 is possibly the closest any character of King’s has got to death and still survived, but the protagonists of of The Road Virus Heads North, 1408 and That Feeling, You Can Only Say What It Is In French feature characters who are on the brink of everything being lost. Not quite horror (though related at least), there is also In The Deathroom and The Little Sister of Eluria, where a character has to fight for his life. And at the same time, there is the melancholic haunting of Riding the Bullet, which contemplates being on the brink of death in a different way. In those moments, we get to see characters at their most vulnerable. Weakness or strength is revealed in these baptisms of fire (literally, in the case of 1408), living or dying by the choices they make. King is always interested in melting his characters, but usually the characters are a part of motivated circumstances, and the focus here is more on the characters against forces. Not always – but enough that it becomes apparent that King is shifting the focus in his stories.

It’s not all doom – there’s gloom too. Marriages and relationships tend not to do well in this collection, with L.T.’s Theory of Pets, That Feeling, You Can Only Say What It Is In French and Lunch at the Gotham Café confronting this most explicitly. There is hatred and spite and resentment, and the feeling that maybe there should be something beter out there. That Feeling… could almost be a metaphor for being trapped in a toxic relationship, where Lunch at the Gotham Café is the moment you snap back to the reality of what killed a relationship in the first place. L.T. is perhaps one the saddest one of all, structured like a joke throughout until the punchline leaves you (and it’s main character) bereft of closure. There are even small moments, like the quick relationship that came out of Autopsy Room 4, the fling of Roland’s from Little Sisters of Eluria and the quick mention of friendly divorce in 1408. One hopes that everything was all right in the King household during this time.

There is also the brink of success. Everything Eventual has a young man who finally finds a use for his talent, only to realise the pain he’s inflicting. He makes the brave choice to stop, do something else. In this context, even Luckey Quarter has a woman who seems to constantly live on the brink of disaster getting her lucky break, completely turning it around – possibly. It’s still not the greatest story, but that reading does help it a little bit.

The constant teetering on the brink forces the characters to reflect on themselves. Maybe King is in a reflective mood. The publication in 2002 could tempt one to think it’s a reaction to his accident a couple of years ago, but it is important to note that a lot of these stories come during King’s early sobriety. Those are difficult times for anyone, forcing a person to confront parts of themselves they may never have felt comfortable confronting before. King’s characters are so much on the brink of failure throughout, sometimes falling, sometimes flying, depending on how they deal with their circumstances.

It comes back to the title of the collection, which disguises but perfectly sums up the theme of the collection – Everything’s Eventual just means inevitable. Death comes for everyone, all relationships hit their tough stretches, and everyone has their highs and lows when they think about they’re doing with their lives. It’s what happens. The stories in this collection accept that this things may well be inevitable – but what are you going to do about it?

Observations and Connections has been given its own page. Click here to read that and more individual thoughts on each individual story.

UP NEXT: The next instalment in King’s informal ‘Spooky Car’ series, From a Buick 8.