Book Review: Stephen King's Cell

I always get wound up on word of a new Stephen King novel, and he seldom disappoints. When the US Snail showed up with my copy of his latest, Cell, I was ready for the usual routine: Tear open the box, sit down with the book, get up when I finish. And that's exactly what I did.

So I read Cell in one sitting — but not, unfortunately, because King held me spellbound. Instead, I just felt a gnawing desire to be done with this book so I could move on to something worthwhile. I didn't get my fix. For a King addict, Cell is methadone, not the real smack. I hate to even write something like this. It feels, well, treasonous. I did okay through King's early slump when he was fighting his own demons, because The Tommyknockers, whatever else it may have been, was real King. Cell reminds me of those "in the tradition of" novels that never live up to the tradition.

The hook may be the best I've seen for a horror story in many moons: A cell phone "virus" turns its victims first into raving maniacs and then into hive-mind zombies. The idea isn't implausible: We live in an age when record companies are sued because "backmasking" and "subliminal messages" allegedly provided the starting gun for Little Johnny's murder spree. I hoped for — and from King, expected — a yarn that would confirm my aversion to the damn new-fangled things.

What I got, instead, was something along the lines of The Stand, Lite: Societal breakdown in minutes instead of weeks, cardboard cutout caricatures instead of characters whose struggles grabbed me and wouldn't let go. Others have characterized Cell as starting with a bang and never letting up. I felt like it was a false start and the runners never really moved down the track.

The characters are stock King:

Clay, the art teacher/cartoonist who's in Boston (signing his first big-time book contract) when the world goes to hell in a handbasket. The novel's story line is centered on his attempt to get back to Maine and rescue his son and estranged wife.

Tom, the sort-of-sidekick whom Clay rescues early on, and whose sole function in the story seems to be that of Token Gay Man in a Novel. I could forgive King if he had either treated this character badly (making him campy and stereotypical), or developed some sort of interesting sidebar storyline (a relationship, or hell, even a few sentences' worth of romantic tension). But if Clay is two-dimensional, Tom is just sort of ... there ... with barely form and entirely sans function.

Article Author: Thomas L. Knapp

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