If It Bleeds

NY: Scribner's, 2020. 1st Edition. Hardcover_card stock spine. Near Fine-Collectible/Fine. 6.25"x9.5" 436 numbered pages. 4th printing. Soft rust boards. Black card stock spine w/bronze metallic letters. Teal endpapers. Interior design by Erich Hobbing. DJ design by Will Staehle. Cat Head by Valik. Author photo by Shane Leonard. Faint scraped to last endpaper. Faint crease to back inside flap. Spine straight, sewn binding tight, pages clean and bright. Not x-library, unclipped (price), & unmarked. Secure ship w/track #. The four brilliant tales in If It Bleeds prove as iconic as their predecessors. In the title story, reader favorite Holly Gibney (from the Mr. Mercedes trilogy and The Outsider) must face her fears, and possibly another outsider—this time on her own. In "Mr. Harrigan's Phone" an intergenerational friendship has a disturbing afterlife. "The Life of Chuck" explores, beautifully, how each of us contains multitudes. And in "Rat," a struggling writer must contend with the darker side of ambition.
If these novellas show King's range, they also prove that certain themes endure. One of King's great concerns is evil, and in If It Bleeds, there's plenty of it. There is also evil's opposite, which in King's fiction often manifests as friendship. Holly is reminded that friendship is not only life-affirming but can be life-saving. Young Craig befriends Mr. Harrigan, and the sweetness of this late-in-life connection is its own reward.