If It Bleeds

For many characters in If It Bleeds, obsession gives way to impulsivity, leading these characters to act against their own best interests. The novellas in If It Bleeds consider both contemporary obsessions and the evergreen obsessions that extend from one era to the next. In all cases, characters pursue their obsessions and follow their impulses without regard to the consequences, harming themselves and others in the process.

In “Mr. Harrigan’s Phone,” one boy’s coming of age coincides with the widespread popularity of smartphones and the Internet. The elderly, retired business tycoon Mr. Harrigan exists as a representative of the era before smartphones. He initially resists this new technology, rejecting Craig’s gift of the iPhone because he fears giving all his time to it—a concern that echoes widely publicized contemporary worries about the addictive nature of smartphones and social media. Presciently, Mr. Harrigan realizes that the smartphone will transform the world of business and create new profit-making opportunities. Mr. Harrigan values the smartphone as a business tool for the same reason that he fears it: because it takes advantage of its user’s impulsiveness, offering them instant gratification and thus compelling their attention. When Mr. Harrigan dies, this instant gratification reaches a frightening apotheosis: All Craig has to do is idly wish harm on someone for that person to turn up dead the next day. When Craig starts to think that Mr. Harrigan is texting him and taking revenge for him from beyond the grave, the adults in Craig’s life try to convince him that there is no causal relationship between the messages he gets and Kenny Yanko’s death. Ms. Hargensen, in particular, points out that Craig’s thinking is a symptom of his youth. Craig thinks he is responsible for what happened because children tend to think they are the center of the universe. This is another common critique of smartphones and social media—that they encourage their users to see themselves as the center of the universe. In Craig’s case, this inflated self-importance appears to become real. The deaths of Kenny Yanko and Dean Whitmore suggest that his brief, impulsive thoughts have real and lasting consequences. Craig panics because the phone has granted him a degree of agency—and responsibility—that he is not prepared to accept.

“If It Bleeds” critiques the media-driven American obsession with tragedy and suffering. Its antagonist, Chet Ondowsky, is a supernatural being who feeds on human pain. By making Chet a broadcast journalist, Stephen King points to the way the 24/7 news cycle engages the American impulse to turn tragedy and suffering into spectacle. The story’s title alludes to a saying coined at the turn of the 20th century by American newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst: “If it bleeds, it leads.” This allusion suggests that the press, like Ondowsky himself, thrives on the spectacle of human suffering. Ondowsky knows that whenever tragedy strikes, his viewers can’t help but watch. His role as a news reporter is the perfect alibi, as it allows him to pretend that the public’s thirst for “news,” rather than his own more literal hunger for other people’s pain, compels him to be present at so many scenes of death and suffering.

“Rat” allows King to apply the problem of impulsivity to the writing life. The blocked writer Drew Larson can be viewed as a foil for King himself. He’s published short stories in prestigious publications—including The New Yorker, widely seen as an arbiter of literary taste—but he has never been able to finish a novel, in contrast to the famously prolific King, who has published more than 60 novels to date but has often struggled to be taken seriously by critics and literary institutions like The New Yorker. In Larson, King dramatizes the internal conflict between the impulse to write and the impulse to give in to self-doubt when the writing becomes difficult. Larson can’t help obeying both impulses. He follows novel ideas only when he can produce them in a state of flow, and he becomes frustrated to a self-destructive degree whenever he feels stuck. Lucy counters Drew’s impulses by offering him opportunities to take control of them. She challenges his need to write in isolation rather than at home. She criticizes his need to remain in the cabin at the onset of a storm. She calls out his developing sickness, which later causes him to admit defeat. Lucy’s reasonable advice is not enough to overcome Drew’s self-destructive impulses. His shame and frustration at not having finished a novel have become so all-consuming that when he encounters the talking rat who offers him the guarantee that he will finish his book as long as he chooses someone to die, Drew hardly hesitates. He chooses Al almost immediately after the rat suggests it, so drawn to the promised outcome that he ignores its consequences. Drew effectively abandons his agency as the writer of the novel he produces and gives himself up to impulse, which does more harm than good. Drew not only feels guilty about Al’s and Nadine’s deaths, he also no longer feels joy in the act of writing.

These stories illustrate the danger of giving in to impulsive and obsessive thinking. These tendencies can bring out the worst in people, causing them to abandon themselves and others to suffering and pain for their own short-term satisfaction.

The novellas in this book center death as life’s greatest mystery. Some characters transcend death to the terror of their loved ones. Others face death as a distinct possibility, forcing them to take stock of the things and the people that matter most in their lives. These stories drive the question of whether death is something to be feared or conquered.

In the second novella, “The Life of Chuck,” King compares death to the end of a world. Though Chuck Krantz is a seemingly unremarkable man, he is the center and source of his own reality, and that reality ends with his death. As the novella opens, the people who populate Chuck’s reality are waiting for the end of the world, seeing pictures of Chuck everywhere and wondering who he is. The remainder of the novella reframes its initial cataclysm as an anticipatory event. King raises the question of whether Chuck’s life can be considered worthwhile if it is certain to end in an early death. The second act focuses on a specific moment to offer a provisional answer. The novella ends with the revelation that Chuck has been anticipating his death since childhood. The tragic deaths of his family and the gradual passing of his grandparents familiarizes him with the earth-shattering loss that characterizes the opening of the novella. After overcoming his fear of ghosts in the cupola, he grants himself the right to live a wonderful life. By making this resolution, Chuck in his own way overcomes the fear of death.

“Mr. Harrigan’s Phone” sees changing attitudes toward death as a natural part of maturity. Because he cannot help seeing himself as the center of his own universe, Craig worries that he is indirectly responsible for the deaths of Kenny Yanko and Dean Whitmore. Though he cannot draw a plausible link to their deaths beyond the strange messages he exchanges with the deceased Mr. Harrigan, Craig believes that his mystical connection to the deceased Mr. Harrigan grants him power over life and death. The novella leaves the reality of this connection ambivalent. None of the messages Craig receives from Mr. Harrigan’s phone are clearly legible; instead, they are strings of letters to which Craig attaches significance. This ambiguity suggests that Craig imagines this ongoing connection as a way of coping with the loss of his friend. He misses Mr. Harrigan so much that he would rather accept that he can come back from the dead every time he calls. Crucially, Craig reads Mr. Harrigan’s final illegible message as a plea to “stop.” By throwing his first iPhone away, he allows himself to let go of his grief. He reveres death, but no longer fears it the way he had for most of his youth.

Similar to Craig, “If It Bleeds” protagonist Holly Gibney deals with the fear of death by reassessing her relationship to her overbearing mother, Charlotte. Holly grieves through the loss of her professional partner, Bill Hodges, while also fearing the impending loss of her uncle, Henry. When she decides to face Chet Ondowsky on her own, she fully accepts the possibility that she, too, may die by his hand. Her investigation is continuously hampered by her mother’s pleas to return home. For all her resentments, Holly comes to recognize the humanity of her deeply flawed mother. Holly emboldens herself to control her life on her own terms. She stands up to her mother’s attempts to emotionally manipulate her, then allows herself to see her mother one last time, indulging her wishes to celebrate an early Christmas. By choosing to engage her mother before her confrontation with Chet, Holly proves to herself that she is not only as formidable as death itself, she is also greater than the fear of her mother.

The fear of death forces people to resolve the loose threads of their lives. It also challenges them to prove that life can be greater than death. Despite its mystery, death pushes people to confront the wider wonder that is the world beyond them.