Author's Note: While I will be
discussing Stephen King's Never Flinch in a certain amount of detail
this isn't a book review in the conventional sense of the word. Rather this is
about how in the novel King looks at what could be considered the extreme left
and right on the most controversial of subjects and points out – remarkably to
those who know his personal politics – that both sides have inspired fanatics
who are more alike in their behavior and attitude towards not only their causes
but the rest of the world in ways that demonstrate that, in terms of
personality, they have more in common then they would ever admit.
Because I believe I can do this
without spoiling the main plot of the novel, I'm not going to issue a spoiler
warning save in terms of character analysis. I will speak in vague details
about certain events in the novel but only to reveal what it shows about the
characters involved, not the plot. Keep that in mind.
I'm very much aware of Stephen King's
personal politics: he is after all a child of the 1960s, marched against the
Vietnam War and has always been on the side of liberal causes. And I am very
aware what he has always personally thought of the current President. That
said, as someone who has essentially read every novel he's written when it
comes to the politics of the characters in his books he has the same
view of believers that the late Richard Jeni had: "If you're on the far
right or the far left, you know what you've done. You've gone too far."
This has been true of all his novels to an extent but in his most recent novel Never
Flinch, which is also the latest in his novels about his breakout heroine
Holly Gibney, he actually shows us a character who truly believes this with all
her heart.
Holly, its worth noting, has always
been liberal in her politics and indeed in her most recent book she made it
clear how much she hated Trump. But in Never
Flinch we get a real sense of her true feelings when she is hired to be the
bodyguard of Kate McKay an outspoken women's right activist who is ostensibly
on a tour to promote her most recent book, theoretically on a tour to defend a woman's right to choose,
but really – as we learn when we first meet her and becomes clear throughout
the novel – to promote the cause of Kate McKay.
Much of our insight into Kate McKay comes
from her chief of staff, Corrie. At the start of the novel Corrie is the victim
of an assault from a stalker who mistook her for Kate. When we meet her Corrie
has been hired by Kate as an assistant because she idolizes her. She knows from
the start Kate is 'a monster of ego' but she also learns that Kate only seems
to hire people who idolize her. After she is assaulted by the stalker Kate says
the appropriate words of consolation but at their next speech she brings Corrie
onstage as a prop point. After it Corrie realizes she's been used and she has a
very clear picture of who her boss is. When she tries to do the work to help
protect Kate she knows something simple: Kate doesn't like anyone telling her
what to do.
As the stalking becomes more serious Corrie
hires protection in various forms for Kate but at the end of the Kate rejects
them because safety is less important to her then optics. We get the clearest
sense of who she is when a tour date is cancelled in Buckeye City for a blues
singer named Sista Bessie (more on that below) and Kate uses the worst
obscenities in the book – including the kinds of works that are frowned upon
when men use them. She clearly wants to scream and rant at Buckeye City for
their cowardice but she chooses not to because Sista Bessie is black (her
words) and she is white. Only the politics of the issue cause to her calm down.
(We never learn the racial makeup of the crowds at Kate McKay's rallies but they
seem to be dominated by white people more than minorities. By this point
Corrine is beginning to dislike Kate actively and she thinks if the tour
reaches its natural end (it doesn't) she will end up loathing her.
Eventually Corrine hires Holly. Holly
has been following the case academically but even though she's never been hired
as a bodyguard before she decides to do it for money and perhaps to learn a new
skill. The reader knows that this is a job Holly is more than overqualified for
(by the time The Outsider was over we had full confidence she could
handle anything thrown at her). Holly has doubts and decides to do it
"assuming Kate McKay doesn't come across as an arrogant poophead'. (One of
the endearing qualities about Holly Gibney is that she refrains from foul
language and it bothers her when people swear but she never shows it.) The irony
is the reader knows that Kate is exactly that but Holly decides to stick to her
guns. Kate will be lucky because of this but Holly very quickly regrets it.
It takes Corrine months to realize
just how horrible Kate McKay is. Holly realizes it in a matter of days. You get
the feeling the longer the job goes on she would be more inclined to resign but
the reason she stays is out of sympathy for Corrine more than Kate. The main
difference is that Holly's work involves clients who respect her opinion and
Kate regards her as 'an employee'.
Very quickly Holly comes to realize
that Kate is being stalked by someone who is part of a religious cult and while
I won't try to spoil details about who and how it is worth noting discussing
the man who hired the stalker is very much in the Falwell-Pat Robertson mold The leader is very much involved in the deep
state narrative, believes doctors or part of it and is more fundamentalist than
most. He has no problem manipulated the stalker for his own ends and while the
stalker knows that he has been sent on a mission that will almost certainly end
in his death, there's a part of him that is more committed to the cause then
his handler.
The irony is that as the novel
progresses we are inclined to see both the Reverend who sent the killer on this
mission and Kate McKay as two sides of the same coin. Neither has any use for
human life aside from what it can do to benefit their cause and the further we
get in the novel we are led to doubt that maybe even Kate herself is only using
everything involving abortion as a means for self-promotion. She poses for
pictures besides the collateral damage of her accidents the same way the church
uses media to promote its agenda. And the Reverend believes his faith protects
him the same way Kate believes her celebrity does. Late in her job Holly thinks
coldly: "This woman is begging to be assassinated" unaware that just
a few pages later her stalker will have reached the exact same conclusion.
By the time the novel gets to Buckeye
City Holly knows exactly who is stalking Kate and that she may very well be in
town. When she tries to alert the media to stop the assassin – something that
will save lives and other people – Kate clamps down so hard on Holly's shoulder
to leave bruises. The possibility of her death bothers her less then being
cancelled by the politicians:
"Every time I go onstage somebody
wants to kill me, and its probably just a matter of time before someone tries
it. Do you understand that?" Kate's smile is positively
feral. Holly is speechless. So is Corrie."
When Holly tells Kate that the cops
will likely think of her is bait its Holly's turn to smile the most humorless
smile possible – she can't do feral. By this point the only reason the reader
wants Kate to live is because we know the death will do countless amounts of devastation
to Holly.
There is a press conference that
proceeds the climax of the novel and the local broadcaster actually asks Kate a
question about how she justifies the risk not only to herself but to her
audience.
Kate begins her speech about women's
rights but in the middle of it the broadcaster parrots her own words back at
her. The laughter puts her off her game but she finishing her spiel. The broadcaster
is unfazed: "You didn't answer my question." When another reporter
asks her if there's an attack and people are killed Kate is less polite:
"No matter how that sort of question is answered, it gives the accusation
credence." Kate makes it clear that either way she doesn't care if anyone
lives or dies.
It's worth remarking on the contrast
of Sista Bessie, a blues singers who's been around for decades and who is about
to give a comeback tour in Buckeye City. We spend as much time with Sista Bessie as we
do with Kate and the contrast couldn't me more striking. Sista Bessie is
clearly beloved by all of the people who have been around her for decades, and
instantly gleams on to Barbara Robinson, whose been part of Holly Gibney's entourage
since Finders Keepers. The two of
them instantly cotton to each other and at one point Sista Bessie takes Barbara
around the city to a carnival, ostensibly to work on the song, mainly for the
two of them to have fun together. Holly will meet Sista Bessie late in the
novel and she instantly likes her.
The people on the tour have a very
simple opinion of Kate McKay, calling her 'the women's libber'. Kate would no doubt prefer the term political
activist but there's a more subtle point: the people on this tour almost all of
them African-Americans and much older than Kate might very well agree with her
on her issues in an abstract sense but they are also old enough to know that
people like Kate McKay come and go, thinking that they are hot shit and
eventually being passed by. All of them
are aware of what the cause that she is fighting for (and in fact a battle is
being fought out blocks from it) but they think that for both sides, it's more
or less an abstraction.
Perhaps most critical is that at the
end of the novel both Kate and Sista Bessie end up facing a threat from a
killer who is targeted someone close to them. I won't reveal the full details
but their reactions will no doubt interest you.
Kate believes that she has the ability
to talk down anyone and can deal with violence but when faced with a person who
makes it clear he has no use for her celebrity she is struck dumb. She also thinks
that despite the fact Holly saved her life earlier in the book that there's no
way she can handle this killer. Holly knows otherwise: "This is no
pundit's forum on CNN or MSNBC." And she's right the minute Kate walks in
the door she's beaten to a pulp and trussed and tied up to be killed.
And it's worth noting that we get a
sense of Kate's thoughts near the climax of the novel:
"Kate has been afraid of death
ever since she first saw shooting targets with her face on them for sale on the
internet. That fear has been mostly academic, mitigated by the understanding if
it comes, her death will be a rallying cry. What she never expected was to be
taken by some random crazy person with no political axe to grind, a man to whom
she means nothing more than one more victim in a killing spree."
By this point we get the feeling that
it is this fact more than the actual death itself that truly bothers
Kate, that she's going to die the same death as two women who she has spent her
life advocating for but clearly thinks she's above because she's famous.
Sista Bessie's reaction when
confronted by the same killer using the exact same methodology is by contrast
lucid and rational in a way that Kate – and the killer themselves – isn't. She
asks questions that it never occurs to Kate ask. Sista Betty then thinks about
what's coming and makes a plan. She thinks it will fail and expects to die one
way or the other, but she isn't bothered by this really. What matters more is
saving the life of her friend.
Indeed it takes a lot more time for
her to make her plan, she realizes what the problems are and she is seems more
certain of the flaws in it. And its
worth noting that unlike Kate she realizes her limitations – and because of it
she ends up saving the day.
There's one last subtle commentary
that I think King is making: unlike Kate McKay who is polarizing and doesn't
care about who she pisses off, Sista Bessie is universally loved and admired in
a way Kate never will be even if she becomes President. (Holly rejects that
idea: "Kate's too focused on her own cause to ever be elected.") On
the day of the climactic events of the novel there's a speech being given by
Kate at the local theater that while heavily attended, dwarfs the 82,000 people
who have come to a charity baseball game to hear Sista Bessie sing the National
Anthem as much as anything else. I may be reading too much into this but
perhaps there's a subtle commentary there as well: that at the end of the day
all of the things that both sides of the political aisle think are life or
death matters (and they are more then willing to kill for it) really don't
matter as much in the grand scheme of things as they believe. Given the choice to
advocate for a political issue or go a ballgame and hear a retired singer belt
out the national anthem, people preferred to go out to the game. To be sure both
events end in violence (though how and why I won't reveal here) but the larger
point prevails.
And I do know what Holly thinks at the
end of the book. The experience with Kate has turned her off ever being a bodyguard
again but given a chance to hang out with Sista Bessie later makes her smile
and cheer. She might agree with Kate when it comes to politics (but looking at
her I don't think she does) but when it comes down to it she sees no difference
between the positions Kate McKay takes on one side and those of her opponents
on the other. As she'd put it, they're equally poopy. I also know that the last image we have of
her is when she thinks about seeing Sista Bessie she smiles and according to
King 'the years fall away and she's young again.'
Of course that's not King's final
image of the book but it's one I'd like to think is a larger lesson for not
just his readers but all of us. The world may be a horrible place much of the
time (and that's before you consider the usual monsters who inhabit King's
fiction) and it may seem hopeless. But considering how much of this is beyond
our control maybe it's not a bad thing that at the end of the day most of us would
prefer to turn the news off, unplug from the political debates and either catch
a ball game or see live music. The fights that are being fought in the arena
seem urgent but they did fifty years ago as King and his characters know. And
maybe they only matter to a relative few and the rest of us have just tuned
them out because we've accepted that there's only so much we can do.
Maybe most of us know that the people who claim to have our best interests at
heart, whether they are the Kate McKay's or the religious leaders, only really
care about them in relationship to themselves. Maybe most of us are smarter
than both sides think – and we've decided that they're both equally stupid.
That's the conclusion Holly Gibney's reached by the end of Never Flinch and
while I don't know if King holds with it (he very well may not) I agree with
her positions and love her even more for having them. Even more then before she
is the hero we need right now.
No comments:
Post a Comment