July 12 - "N."

Sundays with Uncle Stevie“N.”
by Stephen King
Just After Sunset (2008)

* * * * * (Excellent) Supernatural

Dr. Bonsaint works with patient, N., to help him overcome the obsessive compulsions that keep him from sleep and health. Only the doctor comes to find that these compulsions stem from a fear – as impossible as it sounds – that might be real.

And suddenly my obsessive compulsion to double check that the garage door is down doesn’t seem so strange. At least I don’t count things – worry about bad numbers – or place things to the extent that N. does in an attempt to keep the evil at bay. The story does include the “Pandora effect” that many horror stories suffer from – that curiosity that always leads to disaster. Here it fits the story – the curiosity created for the characters is overwhelming – and the results, while tragic, make the story enjoyable, and a little scary. There’s even a Dark Tower reference: the field of the story is a thinny, and we all know there is little good inside one of those.