Стивен Кинг: Different Seasons

Different Seasons(1982) is a collection of four novellas, markedly different in tone and subject, each on the theme of a journey. The first is a rich, satisfying, nonhorrific tale about an innocent man who carefully nurtures hope and devises a wily scheme to escape from prison. The second concerns a boy who discards his innocence by enticing an old man to travel with him into a reawakening of long-buried evil. In the third story, a writer looks back on the trek he took with three friends on the brink of adolescence to find another boy s corpse. The trip becomes a character-rich rite of passage from youth to maturity.

These first three novellas have been made into well-received movies: «Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption» into Frank Darabont s 1994 The Shawshank Redemption, «Apt Pupil» into Bryan Singer s 1998 film Apt Pupil, and «The Body» into Rob Reiner s Stand by Me(1986).

The final novella, «Breathing Lessons,» is a horror yarn told by a doctor, about a patient whose indomitable spirit keeps her baby alive under extraordinary circumstances. It s the tightest, most polished tale in the collection.—Fiona Webster