In a small town
In a small town is the title of a horror novel by the writer Stephen King . In the USA, the novel was published in 1991 by Viking Verlag under the original title Needful Things . The German translation by Christel Wiemken was published by Hoffmann & Campe in the same year. The novel represents the conclusion of the so-called Castle Rock cycle .
The novel addresses the often only apparent “small town idyll”, petty bourgeoisie and greed.
content
In the fictional small town of Castle Rock, in the US state of Maine, the non-resident Leland Gaunt opens a shop called Needful Things . In this, every customer will find an item that he desires so much that he is willing to pay any price for it. This price is determined by Gaunt at will, but in addition to a very low dollar amount, it always includes a “prank” by the buyer against one of his fellow citizens. These pranks appear to his customers to be quite harmless at first, but deepen the conflicts that have existed in the city and have been smoldering for years. At the same time, the objects become more and more valuable in the eyes of the owner and provoke paranoia in them; in reality, however, it is worthless junk and not what the buyer thinks he is seeing. Within a weekend, the situation escalates, murder and manslaughter ensue, always controlled by Leland Gaunt, who also sells automatic weapons to his buyers. Only Alan Pangborn, the local sheriff, draws the right conclusions and manages to drive Gaunt out of town. At the end of the book, Gaunt opens a new store in a small town in Iowa.
Links to other works
The book marks the end of the Castle Rock cycle, in which King lets many protagonists of the past three novels Dead Zone - Das Assentat , Cujo and Stark - The Dark Half as well as the two novels Die Leiche und Zeitraffer appear again.
- Forensic doctor Ray Van Allen was already active in Stark - The Dark Half .
- The reader learns that Thad Beaumont from Stark - The Dark Half started drinking again and that his wife left him because of it.
- Polly Chalmers visits Townroad number 3, where Cujo once drove his mischief.
- At the end of the novel, Leland Gaunt moves into Sam Peeble's office with his new shop (from The Library Cop at Night ).
- Enfant terrible Ace Merrill is well known to fans from Die Leiche ( Spring, Summer, Autumn and Death Collection ) and Nona ( The Song of the Dead collection ).
- Alan Pangborn was already involved in the Thad Beaumont case and repeatedly remembers events from Stark - The Dark Half . In the Needful Things showdown , Pangborn remembered the central phrase 'The sparrows fly again', a phrase that Beaumont had followed.
- When Ace Merrill asks Leland Gaunt where he gets his cocaine from , the latter mockingly replies that it comes from the plains of Leng, a landscape from The Dragon's Eyes . The plains of Ling are also a landscape in the works of the writer HP Lovecraft . “ Yog-Sothoth rules” is written on the garage where Leland Gaunt's Tucker Talisman is parked . Yog-Sothoth is one of the great old men from HP Lovecraft's fictional Necronomicon .
- Deputy Norris Ridgewick will show up frequently: In The Game , he was promoted to sheriff; in love he is on his honeymoon.
Film adaptations
The book was filmed in 1993 by the director Fraser C. Heston with Max von Sydow , Ed Harris , Bonnie Bedelia and JT Walsh under the title Needful Things (German title: In einer kleine Stadt ) with a different ending from the novel.
The episode "Needful Things" in the Rick and Morty series is a parody of the novel.
literature
- Stephen King: Needful Things - In a small town. Heyne, Munich 1991, ISBN 3-453-06131-4