Night Shift (Signet) (Mass Market Paperback)

~ (Author) "How good it was to step into the cold, draughty hall here at Chapelwaite, every bone in an ache from that abominable coach, in need..." (more)
Key Phrases: speed ironer, green fatigue jacket, strawberry spring, Jerusalem's Lot, Harold Parkette, New York (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

A horrible delight...don't read late at night or without locking all your doors. -- Cedar Rapids Gazette

Eerie...ought to chill the cockles of many a heart. -- Chicago Tribune

Spooks galore. -- Publishers Weekly

Unbearable suspense -- Dallas Times-Herald

Review

Unbearable suspense (Dallas Times-Herald) Eerie...ought to chill the cockles of many a heart. (Chicago Tribune)

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Signet (February 1, 1979)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0451170113
• ISBN-13: 978-0451170118
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (180 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #143,623 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

59 of 66 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, Entertaining, Early Stephen King, June 17, 2003

By	Stacey Cochran. Visit staceycochran.com (Raleigh, NC, USA) - See all my reviews

An early collection of Stephen King short stories, Night Shift was a whole lotta fun to read. The collection really started to pick up steam about half way along. Most of the stories after "Trucks" were little gems, man. I think my two favorite were "Children of the Corn" and "Strawberry Spring."

"Strawberry Spring" was a first-person story told by a serial killer. As the story unwinds we find that the narrator might have had more to do with a series of brutal murders at his college than he at first leads us to believe.

"Children of the Corn" was about a violently dysfunctinal couple who find themselves in the middle of a Twilight Zone-esque town in Nebraska. Edward Albee meets Rod Serling here.

"The Ledge" was a thrilling story about a cuckholding tennis pro forced to circle a five-inch ledge on a high building.

"The Last Rung on the Ladder" was a poignant story about a young brother and sister who have a near fatal accident jumping from a barn railing to a giant pile of hay. Only, years later we find the young girl all grown up and jumping to her suicide death from a Los Angeles highrise. King combines action and emotion very well here.

"The Man Who Loved Flowers" is a twisted O'Henry-esque story where we find a thoughtful sweet, young man is actually a homicidal maniac. Vintage King.

Similarly, "I Know What You Need" is the story of a dark but charming guy who lures in an emotional young woman. But the young woman finds to her horror that he's anything but a nice and sweet guy.

"The Woman in the Room" one word -- devastating. King was clearly was drawing on his own mother's death and his problems with alcohol here. Bad Ass fiction that will leave you wiping the tears way. 'Nuff said.

"Quitters, Inc." was a funny little story about the pains some people go through to quit smoking. King carries the "treatment" over-the-top, and this was a lotta fun to read.

And "Graveyard Shift" -- this was the first one that really got King going. It's about a group of guys who work at an industrial laundry that is in ill repair. Giant rats, and dive-bombing bats await you in the basement. Great story.

All in all, Night Shift is one of the best short story collections I've ever read. Some of these stories are already classics, and you just know a few of these will end up in our grandkid's English textbooks one day. I highly recommend Night Shift to darn near anyone who enjoys good fiction. And check out the late great John D. MacDonald's intro. Good stuff. Good stuff. Highly recommended. And, of course, I write these reviews because I want to know I'm helpful to you, so click on that "helpful" button to let me know you care!

Yours,
Stacey

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars King's best book, May 21, 2000

By	Brian D. Rubendall (Oakton, VA) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

I've read over two dozen of Stephen King's books, and this one is his best. King's short story writing is what allows him to be mentioned in the same sentence with the likes of Poe as one of the best horror writers ever. There are so many King classics in "Night Shift" it is scary. "Graveyard Shift," "The Mangler," "Children of the Corn," "Trucks," "Gray Matter," "Quitters Inc.," the list goes on and on. Many of these were made into inferior movies, but the stories themselves are are among the scariest things he's written because they reduce fear to its most basic elements. This is one King book that qualifies as a "must" read.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Classic King; and it only gets better, August 13, 2006

By	Desmond Warzel (Cleveland, OH) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Night Shift (Signet) (Paperback)

By now, it seems likely that most mature readers who would be inclined to read Night Shift already have, and certainly nearly every Stephen King fan has already partaken. Of course, there is always the next generation of readers to consider, not to mention the many avid readers of novels who are surprisingly resistant to the short story format. At any rate, this is the first of King's story collections, collecting tales published in the early 1970s. They are the product of a much-less-mature writer, and were written at a time when the field of contemporary horror was also thirty years less mature. But this is Stephen King; thus, even when the plots are thin, predictable, or nonexistent, the manner of their presentation is to be savored.

I first read this book in junior high school, nearly two decades ago; my only previous experience with Stephen King was the novel The Eyes of the Dragon. Those familiar with that work will agree that it leaves one ill-prepared for some of the things that transpire within the pages of Night Shift. Recently I decided to read through it again, both for a dose of nostalgia and to gain an adult sense of the stories I enjoyed so long ago.

These stories have already been extensively discussed and dissected, so, as I often do with anthologies, I'll just give brief impressions of each entry.
"Jerusalem's Lot" (1978): A Lovecraft tribute, written in epistolary format, that delves into a bit of the sordid history of `Salem's Lot. King manages to convey the disturbing atmosphere to the precisely right degree, with no overkill. This one remains a favorite for me, in no small part because King nails the conventions and language of nineteenth-century epistolary writing perfectly.
"Graveyard Shift" (1970): Rats. That's it, really, although King's rats exceed ordinary expectations, having simultaneously evolved and devolved into monstrous parodies of their mundane antecedents. It has pretensions of being a distillation of management-employee tensions, but that's just a mechanism to get the protagonist into the basement. The rodents are the real stars of the show.
"Night Surf" (1974): A companion to The Stand. More of a mood piece than a story, since the conclusion for these young people seems to be forgone. It also serves as a character study; how would you behave if the end was coming and you had nothing to do except wait?
"I Am the Doorway" (1971): An astronaut returns from space to discover several eyes peering out of each of his hands; someone is using him as a conduit through which to observe our world and, eventually, to act upon it. This is a horror-writer's unique take on the well-worn science-fictional idea of possession by aliens. One of King's more unique stories, and, as it's never been a TV segment or feature film, unjustly unheralded.
"The Mangler" (1972): An industrial laundry machine becomes possessed by a demonic force. Though the police investigation is fun to follow, the ending is a little overwrought; even if you can manage to imagine a laundry machine rampaging down the street of its own accord, the image seems so ludicrous that it's difficult not to laugh.
"The Boogeyman" (1973): A psychologist's patient discusses his fear of the boogeyman who has killed each of his children. When I read this as a youngster, I was perhaps a little dense because I thought the ending was ridiculous; this particular doctor just happens to be the boogeyman in disguise? Of course, it's obvious in retrospect that King is showing us a severe case of denial--most likely.
"Gray Matter" (1973): A guy drinks bad beer and begins to transform into a gelatinous creature. This is a straight monster story, with no real resolution. However, as is often the case with King, the journey--the set-up and delivery of the idea--is the real treat, with the threat posed by the monster serving only as justification for telling the story.
"Battleground" (1972): A hitman bumps off a toy executive and, in return, receives a package containing toy soldiers, which turn on him. This has always been a favorite of mine, as a youngster and today; it's so wonderfully over the top, and sports a killer ending.
"Trucks" (1973): The trucks come to life and take over the world, forcing humanity to serve them. You've seen this as Maximum Overdrive, starring Emilio Estevez, though this original version has a negative, or perhaps slightly ambiguous at best, ending that's more befitting a King short story.
"Sometimes They Come Back" (1974): Figuring that only the dead can fight the dead, a teacher haunted by the since-dead thugs who killed his brother attempts to summon his brother for help. When I was a kid, the depiction of the ritual absolutely freaked me out; I had to stop reading for a while. That was the first time I'd really read something that grisly and graphic.
"Strawberry Spring" (1975): A college campus is stalked by a serial killer. You jaded latecomers will see the ending coming a mile away, but only the hopelessly unimaginative and literal-minded among you will let that ruin your enjoyment of the story.
"The Ledge" (1976): To remain alive and a free man, a tennis pro must walk around the top ledge of a high-rise apartment complex. There's nothing supernatural here, but, despite its weird originality, this piece would have been right at home as a segment of Alfred Hitchcock's television series--to which it owes a thematic debt (and indeed, it does appear as a segment of the film Cat's Eye).
"The Lawnmower Man" (1975): What starts out as ordinary lawn care takes a decidedly bizarre and disturbing turn. This one never really did it for me; this is a rare case in which I would need a little more explanation or exposition before I could buy the premise. It's just weirdness for the sake of weirdness. Incidentally, don't confuse this with the film of the same name, which, despite having King's name plastered all over it, has literally nothing in common with the story except the title (and I thought The Running Man was bad; at least the main character retained his name in that story's translation to the screen).
"Quitters, Inc." (1978): Nightmarish tale of a firm that offers relief from addiction, by any means necessary. Yet another homage to Hitchcock, and yet another segment from the film Cat's Eye.
"I Know What You Need" (1976): The mysterious new man in her life seems to know exactly what she needs. This was originally published in Cosmopolitan, which says something about how King's career has evolved but says a lot more about how Cosmopolitan has evolved.
"Children of the Corn" (1977): Forget about the film, and especially about the sequels it spawned. King's story exhibits much more control, as he secrets of the little town are gradually revealed.
"The Last Rung On the Ladder" (1978): A man's powerful reminiscence of an episode in which he saved his sister's life. The tightly-knit nature of their relationship, and the bitter ending, prefigure The Body (aka Stand By Me).
"The Man Who Loved Flowers" (1977): A man in love wanders the streets, looking for his beloved. Again, you may see the twist coming, but as they say, getting there is half the fun.
"One for the Road" (1977): Yet another, more contemporary, visit to the abandoned town of Jerusalem's Lot. Now the vampires have moved in.
"The Woman in the Room" (1978): One of many tales in which King works through his mother's death. Shifting narrative sections add weight to this story of an assisted suicide.

The most amusing thing, I find, is that when I passed my now-ancient copy of Night Shift around to my school friends, I had marked the stories I thought were "good." That categorization consists entirely of the "monster" stories: Trucks, The Mangler, Gray Matter, and so forth. I had no appreciation for the more thoughtful pieces like Night Surf or The Woman in the Room. Now, of course, I think I like those a little better.

If you are a fan, or a casual reader, or even just an occasional sampler of King's work, you ought to read Night Shift just to get a sense of where his continuously-evolving career got its start. Read these stories and compare them to those in a later collection; Everything's Eventual, for instance. In the old days, King was published in porn magazines. Now he's published in the New Yorker. All of his work has worth, though, and the early segment of his output shouldn't be given short shrift.