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From a Buick 8 Hardback - 2002
by Stephen King
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Summary
The state police of Troop D in rural Pennsylvania have kept a secret in Shed B out back of the barracks ever since 1979, when Troopers Ennis Rafferty and Curtis Wilcox answered a call from a gas station just down the road and came back with an abandoned Buick Roadmaster. Curt Wilcox knew old cars, and he knew immediately that this one was...wrong, just wrong. A few hours later, when Rafferty vanished, Wilcox and his fellow troopers knew the car was worse than dangerous -- and that it would be better if John Q. Public never found out about it.
Curt's avid curiosity taking the lead, they investigated as best they could, as much as they dared. Over the years the troop absorbed the mystery as part of the background to their work, the Buick 8 sitting out there like a still life painting that breathes -- inhaling a little bit of this world, exhaling a little bit of whatever world it came from.
In the fall of 2001, a few months after Curt Wilcox is killed in a gruesome auto accident, his 18-year-old boy Ned starts coming by the barracks, mowing the lawn, washing windows, shoveling snow. Sandy Dearborn, Sergeant Commanding, knows it's the boy's way of holding onto his father, and Ned is allowed to become part of the Troop D family. One day he looks in the window of Shed B and discovers the family secret. Like his father, Ned wants answers, and the secret begins to stir, not only in the minds and hearts of the veteran troopers who surround him, but in Shed B as well....
From a Buick 8 is a novel about our fascination with deadly things, about our insistence on answers when there are none, about terror and courage in the face of the unknowable.
Curt's avid curiosity taking the lead, they investigated as best they could, as much as they dared. Over the years the troop absorbed the mystery as part of the background to their work, the Buick 8 sitting out there like a still life painting that breathes -- inhaling a little bit of this world, exhaling a little bit of whatever world it came from.
In the fall of 2001, a few months after Curt Wilcox is killed in a gruesome auto accident, his 18-year-old boy Ned starts coming by the barracks, mowing the lawn, washing windows, shoveling snow. Sandy Dearborn, Sergeant Commanding, knows it's the boy's way of holding onto his father, and Ned is allowed to become part of the Troop D family. One day he looks in the window of Shed B and discovers the family secret. Like his father, Ned wants answers, and the secret begins to stir, not only in the minds and hearts of the veteran troopers who surround him, but in Shed B as well....
From a Buick 8 is a novel about our fascination with deadly things, about our insistence on answers when there are none, about terror and courage in the face of the unknowable.
Reader reviews for From a Buick 8
Review summary
Readers were split on Stephen King’s From a Buick 8. Many found it slow and low on genuine scares, criticizing repetitive shock imagery, thin characterization, and a premise that felt gimmicky or recycled, with material stretched beyond its weight. The past–present structure and King’s readable prose earned praise, and a few noted moments of tension and poignancy. The ending proved especially divisive: some liked the theme of living without answers, while others wanted deeper payoff and felt the brief otherworld reveal undercut the book’s core.
Readers say this book is:
divisiveunderwhelminglow on scaresintriguing premisepacing issuesthin characterizationoverlongunsatisfying endingreadable proserecycled-feelWrite a review for this book
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From the publisher
Details
- Title From a Buick 8
- Author Stephen King
- Binding Hardback
- Edition First Edition
- Pages 368
- Volumes 1
- Language ENG
- Publisher Scribner Book Company, New York
- Publication date 2002-09-24
- Features Dust Cover
- ISBN 9780743211376 / 0743211375
- Weight 1.44 lbs (0.65 kg)
- Dimensions 9.48 x 6.3 x 1.34 in (24.08 x 16.00 x 3.40 cm)
- Category Fiction - General
- Library of Congress subjects Horror fiction, Pennsylvania
- Library of Congress Catalogue Number 2001055118
- Dewey Decimal Code FIC
Media reviews
Citations
- Booklist, 06/01/2002, Page 1646
- Entertainment Weekly, 10/04/2002, Page 148
- Kirkus Reviews, 06/15/2002, Page 830
- Library Journal, 07/01/2002, Page 118
- Library Journal Prepub Alert, 11/01/2001, Page 66
- New York Times, 09/29/2002, Page 8
- People Weekly, 09/30/2002, Page 49
- Publishers Weekly, 06/03/2002, Page 58
- USA Today, 12/18/2002, Page 1
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