From a Buick 8
King, Stephen. 2003. From a Buick 8. Reprint. Pocket.
Rating:
8
Summary:
Stephen King is amazing; the story isn’t quite
Ned Wilcox is the son of a former trooper of Pennsylvania State Patrol Troop D, Curt Wilcox, who was killed in the line of duty by a drunk driver in 2001. In an effort to come to grips with his father’s passing, Ned begins spending a lot of time around the barracks. As he spends more and more time there he begins to become like a member of the force and eventually is accepted into their ranks as a telephone operator for the summer before he is to go to college.
The present story (a large part of the book is told as backflashes to the past) takes place during the summer when Ned is working at the barracks. Sandy Dearborn, who is now the commanding sergeant, decides one day to tell Ned about the mystery of Troop D, which also happened to be the pet project of Ned’s father Curt – The Buick 8 Roadmaster kept behind the barracks in Shed B.
The Buick showed up at a gas station one day in 1979 but isn’t a normal Buick. The engine is fake, the exhaust system is made of glass, the wheels don’t turn, etc. What’s more, the car cannot get dirty, can’t be scratched, you can’t really do anything to it, but it can do things to you. Every now and then, without any explanation as to why, the Buick will seemingly come alive, shooting lightning bright bolts through the air (though they are for the most part harmless) and act as some sort of a portal between Earth and some other planet or dimension where things are very different. Occasionally it sucks something from Earth through the portal (it sucked Curt Wilcox’s partner Ennis Rafferty through just after they found the car and later sucked a criminal through, Brian Lippy, among other things, including a number of other animals) and at other times it delivers things from the other side, including animals, plants, and even alien ‘monsters’.
Over the years, Curt, Sandy, and the former commander, Tony Schoondist, performed a number of experiments on the car and even dissected a number of the creatures that came through from the other side. The problem is that despite their investigations they were never really able to figure anything out other than the fact that when the temperature drops in Shed B, where the car is stored, it is likely that the car is going to do something.
As the recounting of the events surrounding the Buick comes to a close, Ned seems disturbed. He claims that he is going to go home, but ends up doubling back and dousing the Buick with gasoline. He is going to try to destroy the car because he believes it is what killed his father. Sandy eventually gets him out of the car, but only barely in time to save him from falling through to certain death on the other side of the portal when the car becomes active.
Eventually Ned seems to accept his father’s death, but college isn’t right for him and he returns to work at Troop D, in essence taking his father’s place. The book ends with one of the troopers committing suicide and the Buick beginning to show signs of wear as though its magical powers are finally wearing off.
Review:
In retrospect the story is good, but not a stand out. There is no amazing ending, though there is kind of climax when Ned tries to destroy the car. But what the story does have going for it is Stephen King’s writing style. He really is a brilliant writer. I was enthralled just to listen to the book.
There are a couple of problems, the biggest being the transitions between characters. I thought it was an interesting method of telling the story, periodically switching from Sandy’s perspective and voice to that of one of the other troopers or participants in the history of the Buick, but sometimes it got a little confusing. Also, because I was listening to this on CD as I was driving I was generally annoyed by the different voices. The actors on the CD did a decent job of portraying different voices, but it was still a little distracting. I think the book would have flowed better had the author stuck to just one voice.
Also, as I mentioned above, the ending is a bit anti-climactic. But I think that is actually for a reason – sometimes you just don’t understand things and, well, that’s it. I think that is really the point with this story (it isn’t always subtle as Sandy tries to get Ned to understand this point numerous times). Of course, this introduces another problem, which really did kind of bother me about the book: Why didn’t the members of Troop B ever turn this over to a university for real study? Just because we don’t understand something doesn’t mean we can’t ever understand it. I understand that this wouldn’t have worked as well as a story if upon seizing the vehicle and discovering its mysterious powers they had immediately handed it over to someone that had a clue, but it’s what I would have done.
Overall, the book is engaging because it doesn’t really reveal everything about the Buick until the very end. But, I have to admit that by half way through the novel you have been exposed to just about everything. I think I kept waiting for something even bigger to happen, but it never did. The book is remarkably well-written (other than the character changes) and has a pretty good plot idea, but it kind of fizzles in the end. I would still recommend this book for any Stephen King fan or for anyone that would like to read a Stephen King novel that doesn’t have the sex that he often throws into the mix. I really liked the book but believe it could have been better.
