Spoiler warning.
What a weird book. For those who may not be aware, Joe Hill is the son of all-time legendary horror writer Stephen King. In King Sorrow, Hill, who once wrote under this pseudonym presumably to make his own name as an author, separate from his father’s long shadow, now seems to revel in it. From The Dark Tower to The Dead Zone, Stephen King references abound in King Sorrow. And yet, this novel most strongly reminded me of one of Stephen King’s more recent books, Fairy Tale. In Fairy Tale, King spends the first half of the novel building wonderful character relationships centered around a likeable underdog protagonist before the story becomes an odd, less successful mish-mash retelling of fairy tale adventures. I felt much the same way about Hill’s storytelling in King Sorrow.
The first part of King Sorrow is absolutely wonderful. Following Arthur Oakes and his friends as young adults was by far the best part of this book. Hill does an excellent job setting up the stakes of Arthur and Gwen’s romance, Arthur’s extortion at the hands of Jayne Nighswinder, and the overall group dynamic between Arthur, Gwen, Allie, Colin, Donna, and Van.
However, King Sorrow takes several sharp turns as the saga unfolds. Rather than following Arthur’s story, each part of this book focuses primarily on a different member of the group as they age. No single part of the book is bad, but the episodic structure makes things feel a bit uneven and disjointed. On the positive side, Hill does a really good job creating suspense. This is best reflected in the chapters that take place in the airplane above the North Atlantic and in the English cave. There are also some genuinely bold swings and twists throughout King Sorrow that I really appreciated. On the negative side, some of these swings include Hill’s decision to kill off and/or sideline some of the best characters in the book. Suspiciously, each male member of the group is knocked off, including the alleged protagonist, Arthur. This means that for the back half of King Sorrow, the novel is missing the character we have been led to believe is at the center of this story. This creates a vacuum that Hill was not able to adequately fill, at least for me. And from the time both Van and Arthur are out of the narrative, the group dynamic becomes far less interesting and increasingly reliant on side characters like Robin, Tana, and Erin to fill the void.
While I was ultimately disappointed with the story Hill decided to tell, I still really enjoyed King Sorrow. If you enjoy Stephen King’s work, Arthurian legends, a Faustian tale, messy relationship dynamics between deeply flawed characters, and thrilling set pieces, then King Sorrow has a lot to offer. This is a fun page-turner that I found undeniably entertaining, even if the story I got wasn’t quite what I thought I was going to get when I read the first 200+ pages.
The Once and Future Lit 