Look, I don’t think I’m making any grand statement when I say that King can write. We all know that. He’s been writing since the 1970’s and I’ve statistically proven his books have never gone down in popularity or quality, even after getting sober, even after getting hit by a truck, even after being shoved out of a tree by his son Joe Hill.

But we’ve all known that King is not sophisticated. He’s not Proust. He’s not “Where the Crawdads Sing” or “The Goldfinch”. Which is fine. King writes for the masses. And that’s fine. I want to write for the masses. I’m just saying that with a title like "Fairy Tale" you might be expecting epic beautiful prose and elaborate imagery like in female-written fantasy. Nope. King just tells it like it is, but somehow comes up with enough detail that never lets you down.

In fact, you get 26% of the way through the book before anything fantastical happens. Before that, it’s just about a boy and his old man. But I’m still here for it, because the characters are awesome. We’ve got a funny old crotchety man and a kind teenage boy who’s just trying to keep a promise.

This is King’s Covid-19 pandemic story. It’s what he wrote when he was depressed and locked in and just wanted to write something fun. And he has done just that, though with a streak of King darkness running through. It’s not the story of the year–some might complain that a book so epically thick and titled something as foundational as "Fairy Tale" would be so, but it’s not "11/22/63". And that’s fine by me. It’s the story it needs to be and I thoroughly enjoyed it. You have to set your expectations that it’s going to be long and settle in for it. I try to avoid doorstops, but this one is worth it.