Billy Summers by Stephen King

Book Rating: 3 of 5

The last Stephen King novel I read was probably 15 years ago. I read the The Tommyknockers which I believe is considered one of his worse novels. I think I stopped reading Stephen King because I started to find his novels a bit predictable. So far in addition to Billy Summers from Stephen King I’ve read:

• Needful Things
• The Stand
• The Gunslinger
• The Tommyknockers
• The Green Mile

Maybe my selection isn’t wide enough to call King predictable? I do usually feel like his novels are too long and I find myself reading fast to try to progress the story. I’m probably being a little unfair to King as some of his books really helped me start to enjoy reading. I was 15 when I read The Stand with all its apocrypha, violence and sex. For me at the time this was a tremendously fun read.

I read Billy Summers over about a month. Like most King novels the story is easily read and easy to follow. So for someone who likes King and wants to enjoy a novel I think they will enjoy this novel.

Most of the King I’ve read in the past contains a bit of magical realism with angles and demons, Billy Summers has none of that. Although I feel like the book has a bit of an super-hero vibe to it with Bill Summers being a sort of vigilante style super hero like The Punisher Frank Castle. My opinion is the story will make a good screenplay someday.

The story is a bit of a classic “last job” story one often finds where the heart of gold criminal takes one last job before retiring for whatever reason. In this way the story is rather formula. There’s a enough twists in the story to make it interesting, but at this base layer this is what it is.

For me its more fun for me to speculate what was going through Kings mind when he wrote Billy Summers. In a sense I feel like it was bit of a fantasy novel for himself maybe? In the novel Billy Summers dreams of being a novelist. He’s a sort of a everyman Super Hero Novelist, is this King’s fantasy for himself? I think I’m stretching a bit here but its possible. Was King trying to make commentary on personalities like Chris Kyle the American Sniper? Chris Kyle came off as a bit of an asshole. Making things up about violence he had done. Maybe Billy Summers is the anti Kyle, doing violence in secret. Is this King wanted someone like Kyle to be? Billy’s time in social services and the war in Iraq features significantly in the book. Maybe King was trying to create a new Punisher, one born in Iraq rather then Vietnam. With the goal of giving something to yet another generation of lost veterans?

All in all Billy Summers is an enjoyable novel, I’m not sure it has any deeper meaning besides being a entertaining read. Thus the 3 of 5 rating. Go forth and enjoy Billy Summers but don’t expect it to stretch your mind.