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What is Needful Things About?Connie

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Stephen King

Needful Things: A Novel Paperback – March 20, 2018

by Stephen King (Author)

4.5 7,641 ratings

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Set in the fictional town of Castle Rock, Maine

Master storyteller Stephen King presents the classic #1 New York Times bestseller about a mysterious store than can sell you whatever you desire—but not without exacting a terrible price in return.

The town of Castle Rock, Maine has seen its fair share of oddities over the years, but nothing is as peculiar as the little curio shop that’s just opened for business here. Its mysterious proprietor, Leland Gaunt, seems to have something for everyone out on display at Needful Things…interesting items that run the gamut from worthless to priceless. Nothing has a price tag in this place, but everything is certainly for sale. The heart’s desire for any resident of Castle Rock can easily be found among the curiosities…in exchange for a little money and—at the specific request of Leland Gaunt—a whole lot of menace against their fellow neighbors. Everyone in town seems willing to make a deal at Needful Things, but the devil is in the details. And no one takes heed of the little sign hanging on the wall: Caveat emptor. In other words, let the buyer beware…

Print length

816 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Gallery Books
Publication date

March 20, 2018
Dimensions

5.31 x 1.9 x 8.25 inches
ISBN-10

1501147412
ISBN-13

978-1501147418
Lexile measure

910L
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Popular Highlights in this book

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Everyone loves something for nothing . . . even if it costs everything.
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At fifty-one you had to keep running just to escape the avalanche of your own past.
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But the real reason he’d gone was the one most bad decisions have in common: it had seemed like a good idea at the time.
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Stephen King is the author of more than sixty books, all of them worldwide bestsellers. His recent work includes Holly, Fairy Tale, Billy Summers, If It Bleeds, The Institute, Elevation, The Outsider, Sleeping Beauties (cowritten with his son Owen King), and the Bill Hodges trilogy: End of Watch, Finders Keepers, and Mr. Mercedes (an Edgar Award winner for Best Novel and a television series streaming on Peacock). His novel 11/22/63 was named a top ten book of 2011 by The New York Times Book Review and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Mystery/Thriller. His epic works The Dark Tower, It, Pet Sematary, Doctor Sleep, and Firestarter are the basis for major motion pictures, with It now the highest-grossing horror film of all time. He is the recipient of the 2020 Audio Publishers Association Lifetime Achievement Award, the 2018 PEN America Literary Service Award, the 2014 National Medal of Arts, and the 2003 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. He lives in Bangor, Maine, with his wife, novelist Tabitha King.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Gallery Books; Reissue edition (March 20, 2018)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 816 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1501147412
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1501147418
Lexile measure ‏ : ‎ 910L
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.3 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.31 x 1.9 x 8.25 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #21,833 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #29 in Psychic Thrillers
- #101 in Werewolf & Shifter Thrillers
- #111 in TV, Movie & Game Tie-In Fiction

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4.5 7,641 ratings

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Stephen King

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Stephen King is the author of more than fifty books, all of them worldwide bestsellers. His first crime thriller featuring Bill Hodges, MR MERCEDES, won the Edgar Award for best novel and was shortlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger Award. Both MR MERCEDES and END OF WATCH received the Goodreads Choice Award for the Best Mystery and Thriller of 2014 and 2016 respectively.

King co-wrote the bestselling novel Sleeping Beauties with his son Owen King, and many of King's books have been turned into celebrated films and television series including The Shawshank Redemption, Gerald's Game and It.

King was the recipient of America's prestigious 2014 National Medal of Arts and the 2003 National Book Foundation Medal for distinguished contribution to American Letters. In 2007 he also won the Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America. He lives with his wife Tabitha King in Maine.

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Travis Brashear

A chilling novel about the dangers of acquisition...you should buy it now!

Reviewed in the United States on June 18, 2013

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Finally finished reading Stephen King's NEEDFUL THINGS, which has probably been the most consistently enjoyable book of my recent return to King's canon. A sprawling book, with dozens of major characters, the parochial, "OUR TOWN circa 1991" setting nevertheless makes everything feel very intimate and quaint...at least until proprietor Leland Gaunt quietly arrives in town and sets up a shop that accepts all forms of payment--cash, checks, credit cards...even souls--and sets off a chain of events that turns smalltown America into a self-contained Armageddon. All the things you love about Stephen King are on full display here--the bellylaugh-eliciting turns-of-phrase; the powerfully textured and nuanced evocations of places, peoples and time; the deeply chilling, nauseating horror; the wicked, bitter, coldly accurate observations of human nature and, minor qualms about some rocky canting back-and-forth between audience-winking broad humor and some really dark, brutally serious commentary aside, King's voice holds consistently throughout the entire narrative (which is more than I can say about the "what the hell?" jumping of the rails that happened during the last 100 pages of IT). That is not to say this book is one of King's all-time classics (it isn't, though it's far from the bottom of the pile), or that it doesn't have its failings (it does), but it's still a dynamite [pauses while former readers of the book wince] read! Ultimately, I only have two major complaints and two minor ones; in the category of the latter, there are the aforementioned schizophrenic tonal shifts, as well as a great amount of repetition in the plotting. There's a good defense for it but, nevertheless, after the umpteenth citizen of Castle Rock is primed by Mr. Gaunt for a destructive task, a sense of "all right, Stevie-boy, we know what Gaunt's up to and how he goes about it--we get it already!" weariness begins to set in with the reader. In terms of more substantial complaints, we spend far too little time with the true main characters at the heart of the story, Sheriff Alan Pangborn (of the earlier book THE DARK HALF) and Polly Chalmers. King is too interested in spending dozens of pages tightening the myriad strings tied to dozens of lives into a vile knot that he doesn't seem to realize that the reader spends much of his/her time frustrated, wondering what's happening in the lives of the two characters we care about most. Secondly, there is some harsh and worthwhile commentary about the nature of Man and His unceasing capacity to confuse want with need and to turn a blind eye to the blessings all around him to focus on bright baubles that can never love us back--the whole "the things you own end up owning you" FIGHT CLUB mantra--that is undermined by a trick, a type of hypnosis, or brainwashing, performed on his victims by Leland Gaunt. It's a bit of a Catch-22 in that none of the goings-on in NEEDFUL THINGS would seem believable for a minute if Gaunt didn't perform this mental sleight-of-hand but, when it becomes a necessary device to put all the chess pieces together in service of his plot, it actually waters down King's intended commentary. In simpler language, if people can't do the horrible things they do in this story without some supernatural prompting of which they're not fully conscious taking place, then Man surely isn't as bleak at heart as King wishes to make a case for. This sort of trickery, this conniving stacking-of-the-deck, serves the character of Leland Gaunt well, but the message of the story not at all. As with most narrative failings in King's books, they don't damage the tale irreparably, but they do prevent the book from really taking off and reaching its full potential. A final note to interested readers--you owe it to yourself to read THE DEAD ZONE, CUJO, "The Body" (novella in DIFFERENT SEASONS), THE DARK HALF and FOUR PAST MIDNIGHT before reading this book. It is the conclusion of a town's sad saga, and should not be your starting point for seeing if there's something nice to eat (or even better, a nice forgotten, but well-tended, collectible for sale) at the little dot on your map marked Castle Rock while you tour the great state of Maine. Now, I'm off to the first short story collection of King's I've read in years, NIGHTMARES AND DREAMSCAPES...

9 people found this helpful

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Amazon Customer

Love Stephen King

Reviewed in the United States on July 17, 2023

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This book is taking a long time getting going and it's commitment at about 800 pages small print, but I trust it will get better, cause it's Stephen King. Hopefully!

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John Anile

Great Book, Perfect Hardcover

Reviewed in the United States on August 14, 2023

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Book was indeed new and in perfect condition!!! I’ve had some not so great experiences in the past when buying so called new hardback Stephen King books from years ago, but this seller is reliable.

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Aren LeBrun

King at his best and worst. So long, Castle Rock.

Reviewed in the United States on January 18, 2017

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Needful Things has Stephen King at his best in some places and at his worst in others.

First, the good: Needful Things gives you 950 pages of classic King doing something he's really, really figured out how to do well: lock some average Joes in an enclosed space (usually a small town or a single building), introduce some horror/paranormal catalyst, and then bring it all to a slow boil before your eyes. This is a central driving force in Carrie, Salem's Lot, The Shining, The Tommyknockers, IT, Misery, Under the Dome, and probably many others I haven't read yet. Also, the book concludes a loose series of novels and one novella that center around Castle Rock, ME... those being The Body (which became the 80s hit movie Stand By Me), The Dead Zone, Cujo, The Dark Half, and, finally, Needful Things. There are a few recurring characters and other Easter egg winks at those who've read the others, but there's no need to go through the "series" in any particular order.

Now, the bad stuff: Parts of Needful Things are almost literally unbelievably cheesy – which is terrain King can fall into from time to time. Apparently when he was drafting "Needful Things" he was trying to put together a sort of 80's satire thing under a veneer of Horror Story. Something got mucked up in the works, however, and the result is entire sections and subplots that have that ghastly combo of being funny when they are not trying to be, and vice versa. This was also allegedly the first book King wrote sober in his entire career – which, good for him – but maybe some of the crap can be chalked up to the fried nerves of substance recovery. Gaunt is a pretty obvious Satan stand-in, okay, but I could have done without the scene where Ace Merrill catches him eating an uncooked rat.

This book shares a ton of similarities with The Tommyknockers, that disaster of an alien book written just beforehand during whose creation King was for the most part coked straight out of his gizzard. The Setup: Conservative and Sexually Repressed and Abusive and Somewhat Dumb Rural Mainers Get Exposed to a FOREIGN ENTITY & Away Go Everyone's Pesky Repressions & Out Comes the Homicidal Lunatic Underneath (Us All?).

In The Tommyknockers the FOREIGN ENTITY is a spaceship buried in the rural Maine woods, stumbled upon by Bobbi Anderson, who writes Western novels. Bobbi goes insane and unburies the thing and exposes the whole town to some weird cocktail of alien radiation that was insulated for millions of years by dirt. Everyone gains telepathic powers and genius mechanical insights but also loses his or her mind and slowly becomes an amorphous blob like the Adenoid in Gravity's Rainbow. The world is saved by a drunk poet named Jim G. Jim G. is insusceptible to the seduction of ancient intergalactic mind control air poison because of a steel plate in his head from an old skiing accident. King has since himself dismissed the book as quote "awful."

In "Needful Things," the foreign entity in question goes by the name Leland Gaunt. Gaunt is a Twilight Zone-ish mystery man of assumed infinite age who opens a new flea market in Castle Rock, ME, setting in motion a catastrophic annihilation of the town from within. Once you buy something at Needful Things – something you feel you desperately need– for a low price, this Gaunt fellow gains hold of your mind and soul and dreams and sexual fantasies etc. etc. etc., and you start doing bad things to repay a debt which never ends.

All things considered, like the Tommyknockers, Needful Things is an enjoyable book if you can choose to ignore its flaws, which abound, and which occur to some degree in a lot of King's stuff from this time period. Over-expositional dialogue, random cutesy tangents by the narrator that don't mean anything or go anywhere, gratuitous detail for its own sake, the occasional character who if real would perhaps be the dumbest human currently alive, etc. But the story remains thrilling and emotionally strong at times, and King takes expert care in weaving all these intersecting plot-lines and backstories in and out of one another, and you probably won't put the thing down if you start it. This is a testament to King's work ethic and bottomless imagination, which (as that unchecked combination tends to do, see D. Lynch or C. Dickens for more) has produced some great work and also some total stinkers.

That said I'm happy King worked through this low period and kept chugging on rather than sitting back on his fortune from the 70s/early 80s, because some of his recent stuff has been a serious return to form in my opinion. He is a fiercely talented storyteller who remains as lovably fallible as ever. For the heavy duty King fans and/or compulsive completionists, Needful Things is a quick read and satisfying conclusion to the Castle Rock stories. For everyone else, please skip it and go read The Stand, IT, Dark Tower, The Dead Zone, Different Seasons, On Writing, or 11/22/63.

43 people found this helpful

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Gypsy33

Worth the read

Reviewed in the United States on August 17, 2023

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Not King’s best by any means but still worth reading by his fans.

Reviewed in the United States on August 12, 2023

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Condition of the book was great. It’ll take a while to read it, but I’m very happy- Thank You!

2 people found this helpful

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Brian Blessing

Great read!

Reviewed in the United States on July 18, 2023

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This book was amazing, the slow build that climaxes into a magical escapade of good vs evil with a touch of magic. The last few chapters will give you goosebumps.

One person found this helpful

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Pablo

Another banger

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 9, 2023

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Great concept, better than the movie by a mile. Would recommend

Adnan Soysal

The Need

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 14, 2020

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Another hundreds of pages of Stephen King novel (935 pages) with loads of characters.
I found quiet some repetitive narratives of inflated set of characters.
So, why read it all then?
This is the paradox, in my view, reader is suffering here.
On the one hand, a thick book with inflated set of characters, and repetitive narrative, on the other hand, a very very interesting, great plot.
I think no one can dare to degrade Stephen King's God given like talent of narrating dialogues of middle class, ordinary Americans.
But when you start coming across more and more of these dialogues in repetitive fashion without adding anything new to plot, reading becomes boring, tiring. And then you slide into disengagement.
Stephen King amazes me with his largeness, energy, comfort while generating new characters, and making them talk.
One needs a catalogue of them under his hand through out the book to check who is who.
This great plot could have been far more sharper, and impacting with less characters.

So, what is the plot here?
In general I saw the subject pretty psychological, and philosophical. And I loved it.
To me it touches at the motivations of modern man resulting in the drive of economy.
And it touches at the things modern man can dare to do for a few dollars for their silly obsessions where they fail to foresee possible horrible, sad results of their actions.
And Stephen King fantastically catches all this. And I loved the way he configured, and labelled the elements and the characters of these affairs.
I am very impressed Stephen King's observation of all these mind-boggling socio-cultural-economical-psychological relations, and plotting them in a compact, simple way.
A novelist should be a good social, cultural, psychological observer. And this novel is a proof that Stephen King is a great one.
It is also magnificent that such a in-depth subject is covered with such an ordinary way.

A business man comes to a small town called Castle Rock in Maine, and launches a shop on the main street of the town.
Name of the shop is NEEDFUL THINGS. I just love this name. Message is clear; One needs this thing, and It is sold here.
In fact, it sounds like having contrary message also; No one needs these objects, but there is no shortage of people still obsessed with them, and will buy them.
Throughout the book author invites us to think why people, that is we, need these objects, and buy them.
The shop is a gloomy hall where all kinds of antique like objects displayed.
An ordinary man of modern pop life would find them very unique, rare, interesting, and valuable.
Objects have no price tag on them. And shop's opening-closing hours seems to be pretty flexible, or is arranged on customer's convenience on spot.
At one point it mentions that toilet in the shop is scarcely dirty.

Owner of the shop, Mr. Leland Gaunt, has a unique way of selling.
Before selling something, he first gets quiet close, sometimes intimate talk with customer understanding his obsessions.
And Mr. Leland Gaunt never forgets praising object's uniqueness.
All these scenes remind reader how much we like our obsessions are glorified by sellers.
In fact, in a magical way, Mr. Leland Gaunt already knows his customer.
But he still talks to them first, leading them to their object. And when the customer sees the object, it is always love at first sight moment.
Sometimes these objects in a mysterious way are displayed on window of the shop while customer is walking by. And when customer notices it then his/her feet take them into the shop.
And in a scary way, Mr. Leland Gaunt is always readily waiting for them.

Price bargaining and closing deal is done in a unique way. Mr. Leland Gaunt asks how much customer would pay for the object.
Because he knows how crazy is the customer for the object, so he transfers the price setting task to customer.
He also knows customer will try to set a lower price within his financial constraints. Even customer himself does not believe in the price he/she offers.
So Mr Leland Gaunt already makes his customer feel guilty of setting a lower price upfront.
And this is the moment Mr. Leland Gaunt strikes back.
He accepts it with one condition. Customer should do a joke, a prank, a task to another person in town.
Since customer is already in a happy mood with his silly obsession for symbolic price, he is in psychological trap already.
Customer is no longer in a position to judge the consequence of this joke / prank / task Mr. Leland Gaunt is asking from him.
After all it all sounds like a small fooling thing. At least customer enjoys fooling himself with believing like that.
This moment is perfectly described by one of the customers later confessing "Mr. Leland Gaunt buys our SICKNESS in return"
Indeed aren't human beings ready to get blind for their small greed, and for their silly obsessions?

And here is some examples of these customers, objects they are sort hypnotised for , the prank they will do it

- A student boy buys baseball card for mudding a woman's clean sheets drying, and breaking her house's window by throwing stones
- Student boy's mother buys King's (Elvis Presley) sunglasses not for a particular prank. But when she founds them broken, she has someone in her mind to revenge.
- A widow woman who also owns a small shop, buys necklace which heals pains in her hands. She has to bury a fake letter to mislead a treasure hunter.
- An alcoholic buys a foxtail for killing a woman's dog.
- Board member of the local government buys Horse Race Toy for placing dynamites in and around town.

Eventually these jokes, pranks, tasks results in blood shed, suicide, even town's Catholics and Baptist communities go against each other fatally.
This book is a not only story of Castle Rock, it is story of the World where how people are ready to unleash their already built up resentment, grudge with a small excuse.
And excuses are planted by Mr. Leland Gaunt, The Devil.

9 people found this helpful

Luis

Ambicioso, pero ultimadamente insatisfactorio.

Reviewed in Mexico on September 11, 2023

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Es un libro bastante extenso que consigue hacer de su misterio una experiencia bastante entretenida hasta que deja de serlo.
Considerando que su climax con los protagonistas transcurre en las últimas 15 páginas y que este queda muy lejos de lo que el relato venia planteando si queda un sentimiento de decepción. Es Stephen King después de todo y sus libros están llenos de altibajos. Pero creo que si vale la pena agregarlo a la colección.

El producto llegó en perfecto estado. Ese golpe que se aprecia en la esquina superior de la imagen fue por mi descuido.

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Robert Ralph

Not as good as I remembered.

Reviewed in Japan on July 1, 2023

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The book came quickly and condition was fine, but I remembered the book as being more interesting when I read it long ago. It was a slog to get through and I found each and every character annoying.

Livia Laszlo

Good

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 3, 2023

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Good

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