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In this recurring piece I'll be going book by book through the King's archive where I'll be providing mid new insights and analysis while ranking them in a totally objective manner.
The next title we're tackling is Holly.
Book Title: Holly
Year of Release: 1998
Chronological Position in King's Work: 88th
Pages: 449
The synopsis from the back of the book:
When Penny Dahl calls the Finders Keepers detective agency, hoping for help locating her missing daughter Bonnie, Holly Gibney is reluctant to accept that case. Her partner, Pete, has Covid. Her (very complicated) mother has just passed away. And Holly is meant to be on leave. But something in Penny's desperate voice makes it impossible to turn her down.
Meanwhile, mere blocks from where Bonnie Dahl disappeared live Professors Rodney and Emily Harris. They are the picture of bourgeois respectability: married octogenarians, devoted to each other, and semi-retired lifelong academics. But they are also harboring a shocking, unholy secret in the basement of their well-kept, book-lined home, one that may be related to Bonnie's disappearance. And it will prove nearly impossible to discover what they are up to...for they are savvy, they are patient, and they are utterly ruthless. Now Holly must summon all of her formidable talents to outhink and outmaneuver these unimaginably depraved and brilliantly disguised adversaries in this chilling and unforgettable masterwork from Stephen King.
There is a ritual that occurs every time you walk into a Hudson book shop at the airport. It entails pacing back and forth between a slim offering of books that may peek your interest and the Playboy magazine that you really wish you could buy if not for the fact you would be marked as a creep, forever, and added to some secretive list amongst all airport staff.
Once you've failed to explode your life and your family name you go back to the narrow book selection with the comfort that you will find something to pass the next few hours of monotony.
For me it just so happens that I've happened to pick up a Stephen King novel with the presence of the titular character, Holly Gibney, on two such occasions.
The first was when I was hungover about to board a flight home from Edinburgh after my friend's bachelor party. I picked up The Outsider and got through about 3 pages until something graphic and terrible happened to a little boy (my son was 7 months old at the time). I laid the book down on the airport bench and walked to my gate feeling a tad queasier than I had before. That may have been the 500 drinks from the weekend, but I couldn't be sure.
So, the backstory here is I had no chance to get to a character named Holly Gibney. It wasn't until reading this book and the familiarity with which King described the character that I understood she has appeared in a handful of his novels before. I went in blind here which allowed me to have an unbiased take.
The story begins with a man, Jorge Castro, jogging alone.
As he comes upon a seemingly stranded older couple, one wheelchair bound with a stuck lift, he goes ahead and offers to push one of our villains, Professor Rodney Harris, up the lift and into the van.
Shock! He is stuck in the back of the neck with a needle by Mrs. Emily Harris and he passes out.
And so, begins a process that repeats I don't know, about 5 different times over the course of the book. Each time getting sloppier and sloppier as our villains get older and older. I mean, you have to be pretty sure handed with a syringe of God knows what to succeed with these kidnappings.
While it's not immediately clear to the reader why these two old whack jobs are doing what they are doing, it's revealed soon enough. But not through our protagonist Holly Gibney. No, it's not through twist and turns and a heart pounding search through grisly discoveries.
It's told to us directly! Midway through the book! They are eating people!!
That's right, it's Hannibal Lecter but not at all compelling, just lazy schlock instead!
They gain essentially a placebo effect from Rodney's crack pot thesis that chowing down on these all these different flanks of human butt will make all of their maladies drift away. At least for a while.
I honestly meant for this review to be longer. But there is little substance here. There is no scary monster hiding under the bed. There is no Satanic presence here to strip the souls of the pure and rip them down into hell.
No, there are just two old farts who somehow get the jump on all they target. (Side note, the cage they keep people in before eating them, they need the diet to be right of course, is expertly welded. Did they have some lovely ol' chaps down there welding them a human cage just saying, 'that's ol' right iniit?'. I don't know why they are all now British in this, but I've gone too far so I'm committing, it's Britain's fault again).
At least when their comeuppance finally arrives it arrives with style. The humorous yet bloody ways in which they meet their end had me chortling. Not enough to forgive the banality in which the story was delivered, but hey, it was something.
As someone who has dealt with writer's block, albeit as an amateur, it's impressive how Stephen King pumps out a new work of fiction so consistently.
I wonder if the price he pays from a seemingly unending ability to put pen to paper is that sometimes the result is lacking.
And the soul of Holly is indeed lacking. Lacking in any substance. It's not just the fact we can attribute this to a lesser of Kings works but if another author had put this book out, I think disappointment would still be the result. It's not unusual for him to reveal early on (or in the books own synopsis) the antagonists in his stories but usually they have a palpable menace in their very creation. These other foes keep our protagonists and the reader themselves tense and in fact I've read many of his work with goose bumps breaking out across my arms and neck.
But not Holly. Our antagonists are straight forward, feeble, and it turns out, dumb. Given their professions there is an irony present that perhaps was intentional.
Our titular character in the story was never really in danger. She proceeded to do fine detective work. Like most detective work I imagine it is a mostly boring and methodical affair.
To my point above, this book would be disappointing in its lack of tension from any author. It's not fair of course, but it is truly all the more so disappointing because it is written by Stephen King. A man who is capable of creating a bridge of primal terror from his pages to his audience's mind falls flat here.
I didn't hate this book. (I hated Billy Summers! Booooo!!! Fuck you Billy!!). For this book all I felt was the urge to sigh heavily every other chapter or so.
I also had meant to write this review for about 3 months and was seemingly incapable of doing so as I worked through some of my own shit. When I compare that failing to Kings writing fortitude, I think I need to take a hard look in the mirror.
I need to shave.
Rating: 2.24/5 King's
Kirk's Rankings:
Christine (4.17/5)
Bag of Bones (4.06/5)
Cell (3.82/5)
Salem's Lot (3.70/5)
The Institute (3.00/5)
Holly (2.24/5)
Billy Summers (1.33/5)
If you have any comments, questions, or recommendations in regard to this series, feel free to email me at kirk@illandodd.com and I'll be sure to get back to you and may include them as part of a mailbag section.