The Girl on the Porch

by Richard Chizmar
150 pgs

I might be a fan of Richard Chizmar. My introduction to his writing was Gwendy's Button Box, which he co-wrote with Stephen King, and which I liked, but wasn't sure at the time how much I should credit Chizmar vs. King. Then I read his solo follow-up to that book, Gwendy's Magic Feather and enjoyed it just as much, sans King.So, I decided to pick up his novella-length story The Girl on the Porch, and the hits keep coming.

The story centers around the identity of a girl who in the middle of one night rings the doorbell of a couple of houses in a small neighborhood. None of the neighbors answered the door, since it was around 3:00 AM, but the next day, when Kenny and Sarah Tucker check the footage of their home security system, they see that it was a half-clothed woman with a shackle hanging from one of her wrists, who frantically rang their doorbell numerous times before running away and disappearing. When the police begin investigating, and when the girl's body turns up a short time later, tensions in the small community begin to build as neighbors begin turning on each other, questioning how much they really know and should trust one another.

The story is short and only takes an hour or two to read, which is both a positive and a negative. Chizmar doesn't waste much time with backstory and character development. He just throws you into the heart of the mystery and takes you for a ride. Unforunately though, I felt like the premise of the story merited a lengthier book. I would have loved for a longer and more gradual build up, along with an ending that didn't feel quite so abrupt.

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

Gwendy's Magic Feather

by Richard Chizmar
333 pgs  (Gwendy series #2)

If I'm going to be entirely honest, even though there were two authors' names on the cover of Gwendy's Button Box, only one of the names mattered to me (guess which one it was). Not because I didn't like Richard Chizmar, I'd just never read anything by him before. That being said, I enjoyed the story so much, that when I learned that Richard Chizmar had written a sequel by himself, it didn't really matter to me that Stephen King's name wasn't going to be on the cover. I wanted to know what happened next.

Gwendy's Magic Feather continues the story of Gwendy Peterson, now a 37-year-old, first-term congresswoman from Maine. Her life since the events of the first book has been relatively charmed. She's found success as a novelist, a filmmaker, and now in D.C. representing her constituents back in Castle Rock.

When the button box reappears inexplicably in her townhome one evening a few days before Christmas, without a note or another appearance by the mysterious Richard Farris, Gwendy is left with only the temptations of her own thoughts as to whether the box, and the powerful gifts it dispenses, could, or should, be used again.

When Gwendy flies home to see her parents for the holidays, she takes the box with her. But she returns to a Castle Rock currently under a dark cloud. Two girls have recently gone missing, and the police have no idea what's happened to them. Soon after her arrival, a third girl goes missing, and Gwendy, with her box, might be the only chance any of them has for surviving.

Any disappointment I might have had with Stephen King not being an author of this book were quickly forgotten when I started reading it. Richard Chizmar does both the character and town King created justice. Like the first book, it's a novella, and with its short chapters, it makes for a very quick, but satisfying read. I enjoyed it enough to place an order for another of Chizmar's books as soon as I finished this one, and I'm looking forward to seeing what else he has to offer.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

Gwendy's Button Box

by Stephen King & Richard Chizmar
170 pgs  (Gwendy series #1)

In Gwendy’s Button Box Stephen King accompanies friend and coauthor Richard Chizmar to Castle Rock. The small town in Maine which served as the locale for many of his earlier books. But don’t let the fact that there’s a second author’s name on the cover dissuade you from reading it. It has Uncle Stevie’s prints all over it.

As the story begins, Gwendy Peterson is a 12-year-old girl who is starting to feel self-conscious about her weight. She has decided that this summer she’s going to lose some of that extra weight and return to school in September looking better and ready to shed the “Goodyear” nickname some of her peers use when referring to her. So, each day Gwendy races to the top of the stairs at the park known as the Suicide Stairs.

One day, when she reaches the top, she’s met by a man wearing on old-fashioned hat. The man speaks to her as if he’s known her all his life and proceeds to give her a strange wooden box with different colored buttons and levers on it. The man tells her the box will give her gifts, but that the gifts are compensation for the responsibility she will bear in keeping it.

Each time Gwendy pushes one lever, the box dispenses a small chocolate animal. It’s delicious and satisfies her appetite to the point that Gwendy no longer overeats. When she pushes the other lever, the box dispenses an 1891 Morgan silver dollar, in mint condition. They’re worth hundreds of dollars apiece and will allow her to attend the Ivy League college she dreams about. But the buttons each have destructive powers, and Gwendy soon learns just how important it is to guard the box and make sure it never gets into the hands of someone who would use those buttons with evil intent.

The story is short, but is a prime example of what has made King so well liked. It’s a great story and I think it’s King providing an analogy to how he feels about what he has spent his lifetime doing. Pushing buttons and pulling levers on a small box his entire career has given him everything he has ever wanted, or needed in life, but it hasn’t come without a sense of importance and responsibility.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆