OFF RADAR: Stephen King’s ‘Later’
Another tight-knit horror story, with a weird little knot at the end
By Dana Wilde
“Later” by Stephen King; Titan Books, London, 2021; 272 pages, paperback, $14.95.
The narrator of Stephen King’s latest novel, “Later,” admits early on that the story’s hook is not exactly original: “So yeah. I see dead people. … But it’s not like in that movie with Bruce Willis.”
Actually, it’s quite a bit like in that movie, “The Sixth Sense.” What’s different is the point of view: The movie’s whole gimmick (spoiler alert, though this film is 22 years old) is that we see events from the dead guy’s perspective; in “Later,” the kid who sees the dead is the storyteller.