Different Seasons

Different Seasons (1982) is a collection of four novellas, markedly different in tone and subject, each on the theme of a journey. The first is a rich, satisfying, nonhorrific tale about an innocent man who carefully nurtures hope and devises a wily scheme to escape from prison. The second concerns a boy who discards his innocence by enticing an old man to travel with him into a reawakening of long-buried evil. In the third story, a writer looks back on the trek he took with three friends on the brink of adolescence to find another boy's corpse. The trip becomes a character-rich rite of passage from youth to maturity. These first three novellas have been made into well-received movies: "Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption" into Frank Darabont's 1994 The Shawshank Redemption, "Apt Pupil" into Bryan Singer's 1998 film Apt Pupil, and "The Body" into Rob Reiner's Stand by Me (1986). The final novella, "Breathing Lessons," is a horror yarn told by a doctor, about a patient whose indomitable spirit keeps her baby alive under extraordinary circumstances. It's the tightest, most polished tale in the collection. A "hypnotic" (The New York Times Book Review) collection of four novellas from Stephen King bound together by the changing of seasons, each taking on the theme of a journey with strikingly different tones and characters. "The wondrous readability of his work, as well as the instant sense of communication with his characters, are what make Stephen King the consummate storyteller that he is," hailed the Houston Chronicle about Different Seasons. This gripping collection begins with "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption," in which an unjustly imprisoned convict seeks a strange and startling revenge--the basis for the Best Picture Academy Award-nominee The Shawshank Redemption. Next is "Apt Pupil," the inspiration for the film of the same name about top high school student Todd Bowden and his obsession with the dark and deadly past of an older man in town. In "The Body," four rambunctious young boys plunge through the facade of a small town and come face-to-face with life, death, and intimations of their own mortality. This novella became the movie Stand By Me. Finally, a disgraced woman is determined to triumph over death in "The Breathing Method." Different Seasons (1982) is a collection of four Stephen King novellas with a more dramatic bend, rather than the horror fiction for which King is famous. The four novellas are tied together via subtitles that relate to each of the four seasons. [Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption][1]--the most satisfying tale of unjust imprisonment and offbeat escape since The Count of Monte Cristo. [Apt Pupil][2]--a golden California schoolboy and an old man whose hideous past he uncovers enter into a fateful and chilling mutual parasitism. [The Body][3]--four rambunctious young boys venture into the Maine woods and in sunlight and thunder find life, death, and intimations of their own mortality. [The Breathing Method][4]--a tale told in a strange club about a woman determined to give birth no matter what. ([source][5]) [1]: https://openlibrary.org/works/OL14917488W/Rita_Hayworth_and_Shawshank_Redemption [2]: https://openlibrary.org/works/OL149093W/Apt_Pupil [3]: https://openlibrary.org/works/OL149108W/The_Body [4]: https://openlibrary.org/works/OL19652127W/The_Breathing_Method [5]: https://www.stephenking.com/library/story_collection/different_seasons.html Contents: Hope Springs Eternal : Rita Hayworth And Shawshank Redemption -- Summer Of Corruption : Apt Pupil -- Fall From Innocence : The Body -- A Winter's Tale : The Breathing Method. Rita Hayworth And Shawshank Redemption -- Apt Pupil -- The Body -- The Breathing Method. Stephen King. Hope Springs Eternal : Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption -- Summer of Corruption : Apt Pupil -- Fall From Innocence : The Body -- A Winter's Tale : The Breathing Method -- Afterword. The bestselling master of horror and suspense offers four new tales of outlandish, commonplace, and surprising terror There's a guy like me in every state and federal prison in America, I guess-I'm the guy who can get it for you.