These novellas have been made into films. In The Body it’s the moment when Gordie stands up to Ace and his friends and refuses to let them take the boy’s body. In Apt Pupil it’s the moment when Dussander has a heart attack and Todd needs to bury the homeless man he killed with the other bodies in the basement before he phones for an ambulance. In Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption it’s the moment when the prison governor pulls the poster off the wall in Andy’s cell, sees the huge hole and realise his pet has escaped. There are so many things I love about them but I’ll choose one from each. I felt instant empathy for Andy Dufresne, Red, Todd Bowden, Mr Dussander, Gordie Lachance, Chris Chambers, Vern Tessio and Teddy Duchamp. Some of the writing in these three novellas is fine.Īs usual King’s characterisation is spot on. In The Body four young boys go hiking in the Maine woods to find the body of a missing teenager and get an unpleasant glimpse into the world of adults. In Apt Pupil a teenage boy with a morbid fascination of Hitler, Nazi’s and the death camps discovers a Nazi war criminal is hiding out in his neighbourhood and blackmails the old man into telling him about the ‘gooshy’ parts. In Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption, an innocent man is sent to prison for the murder of his wife and daughter and spends thirty years digging a hole in his cell wall behind a movie star poster to escape. Three of the novellas in Different Seasons are fantastic: Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption, Apt Pupil and The Body. THE BREATHING METHOD: A macabre story told in a strange club of a woman determined to give birth – no matter what…. THE BODY: Four young boys venture into the woods and find life, death – and the end of innocence. RITA HAYWORTH AND SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION: A compulsive and bizarre story of an unjust imprisonment and escape.ĪPT PUPIL: A golden schoolboy and an old man with a hideous past join in a dreadful union. Four spine-chilling stories by the grand master of the supernatural, stories with an interlacing of horror that captures the ever-growing dark corners of our century.

Redemption by Olivia Duncan Craig