#LetrasMacabras: 8 by Stephen King | Part Three of 3

By: Casandra Vicario.

Third and final installment featuring the 8 most outstanding novels in the bibliography of the master Stephen King. Admired by many and despised by just as many, the one thing Stephen Edwin King never provokes among horror fans is indifference, which is why he has become a major icon of horror in our time, with close to 100 million books sold worldwide.

DOLORES CLAIBORNE. 1993.

Published in 1993. The text has no chapters, no double spacing between paragraphs, and no kind of dividing element; the story is narrated by a single character.

The novel follows Dolores Claiborne, who in 1992 becomes the prime suspect in the death of Vera Donovan. Claiborne had worked as her housekeeper on Little Tall Island for years, but according to her, she didn't kill her. She does, however, confess to having murdered her own husband, Joe St. George, in 1963 during a solar eclipse.

I understand my rights well enough, Andy. My mother didn't raise any fools. I understand my responsibilities too, so help me God. You're saying anything I say can be used against me in court? Well, will wonders never cease! And you, Frank Proulx, wipe that smirk off your face. You might be a tough cop now, but it wasn't so long ago I watched you running around in a saggy diaper with that same stupid grin on your face. I'll give you a little piece of advice: when you're trying to put one over on an old woman like me, you'd better save the smile.

LA LARGA MARCHA. THE LONG WALK. 1985.

One of King's works written under the pseudonym Richard Bachman in 1985. King himself has said this book was written well before Carrie, though it was published much later.

It tells the story of a 17-year-old boy named Ray Garraty, chosen at random from among millions of people to take part in the Long Walk, a race in which 100 competitors risk their lives trying to win a prize, fame, fortune, and whatever else the winner asks for. Ray makes friends and enemies along the way, but to win he'll have to forget his companions and walk right over them.

An old blue Ford pulled up that morning in front of the guarded parking lot, looking like a tired little dog at the end of a long road. One of the guards, an expressionless young man in a khaki uniform with the matching straps, asked to see their blue ID card. The boy sitting in the back seat handed the plastic card to his mother, who handed it to the guard. He fed it into a computer terminal that seemed out of place in that peaceful rural landscape. The terminal swallowed the plastic and the screen lit up.

CARRETERA MALDITA. ROADWORK. 1981.

This is another of Stephen King's works written under the pseudonym Richard Bachman.

The story is set in an unnamed city in the 1970s. Barton George Dawes, following the death of his son and the collapse of his marriage, discovers that both his workplace and his home are to be torn down to make way for a new highway.

(...) things keep rotting away inside me. It makes me sick (...).

"Do you have cancer?" she asked in a whisper.

"I think so."

"You should go to the hospital, get them to..."

"It's cancer of the soul."

"You're a man with an unsettling ego."

"Maybe, but it doesn't matter."

BUICK 8. 2002.

Published on September 24, 2002, this is Stephen King's second novel about a car with a life of its own, the first having been Christine.

Stephen King has said he was inspired to write this book by a road trip he took in 1999. During the trip he stopped at a gas station in western Pennsylvania, had an accident, and ended up in a creek; the idea that he might not have been found until much later gave him the seed of this story's plot.

Pennsylvania, 1979. A stranger pulls into a gas station. He's driving a 1954 Buick Roadmaster in perfect condition. The driver goes to the restroom and never comes back. The police take charge of the car, which no longer runs, and store it behind the station.

The officers go on with their work, but the car interferes with them from time to time: sometimes their radios and phones stop working. Sometimes the car starts moving and throwing off flashes of lightning; sometimes the trunk pops open and spits out indescribable objects... it even seems responsible for several deaths, including that of officer Wilcox.

Years later, in the fall of 2001, the dead officer's son starts working at the station and decides he needs to know the truth about the Buick.

"What happened to Curtis Wilcox was very simple. He died because of a longtime drunk from the county, a man he knew and had arrested six or eight times. The drunk, whose name was Bradley Roach, didn't mean to hurt anyone, as is usually the case with drunks. Of course, that doesn't make you any less eager to kick his sleeping ass all the way to Rocksburg."