Nowadays, it’s easy to see Stephen King’s name and have a conceived notion of his legacy. He remains well into old age one of the most prolific authors of his generation, producing masterpieces that dig under people’s skin and recontextualizes fears we’ve long taken for granted. In this Short Stop series, I will explore a period before he was the icon we know and love. Even with a handful of bestsellers to his name, his status had yet to cement. That is why I’ve chosen to take a look at his first story collection, “Night Shift,” and hopefully get a glimpse into the writer taking shape, before his style was cemented into a cultural touchstone. Was he always the master of horror, or was there a simpler time when he was as messy and weird as the rest of us? All it takes is turning the page to find out.
The best and worst aspects of King as a writer are that he’s open to every idea that floats by his head. As a fan of pulpy b-movie horror, he’s done his fair share of extrapolating on well-worn tropes already in this anthology. However, the downside to seeing his take on just about everything is that he’s bound to run into an idea that doesn’t fully land. Whereas he took “The Boogeyman” and turned it into this provocative study of internal guilt, I’m not convinced that “Gray Matter” is a deserving follow-up. Sure, it captures him exploring language in a suspenseful fashion, but a lot of it comes across as more derivative and one-note. It’s your typical gross-out story where you await the sight of something really gross. Thankfully, it works as a streamlined cause-and-effect narrative, but leaves a lot to be desired.
Another key element to understanding is the many allegories that he has used to explore his alcoholism. His most famous example is “The Shining,” which had more room to breathe and really relies on psychological fears of addiction alongside elevating madness. By comparison, this short story doesn’t have much time to get to the finish line and has to be as visceral as possible, working more as the town gossip type of story, where you’re fed information from an outside perspective. It’s like the Boo Radley character in “To Kill A Mockingbird.” Hearsay is often worse than the situation, but who knows when it comes to King? His insistence on discussing the bleak endgame of consumption can’t end with any sense of relief. Not at this stage of his writing, anyway.
The story begins at a convenience store in Bangor, ME, during a snowstorm. What makes this setting more effective is the unspoken hurdles that have to be overcome to acquire booze. It’s freezing, and the roads have become dangerous. Anyone who doesn’t have to be there is probably at home. Most of all, it adds a ticking clock for the protagonist: a young boy revealed to be the central alcoholic’s son. Shopkeeper Henry decides to personally take the beer to the house of Richie, whom he hasn’t seen since he was laid up with workers’ compensation and became a recluse.
An immediate detail that grabs the reader is the currency with which Richie’s son buys the beer. It’s covered in a gray substance, of which Henry asks nobody else to touch. There’s constant fear of contamination throughout the story, especially with gray being a recurring theme. It evokes a decay that has also faded. There’s nothing healthy about the color in this story, and it leaves the feeling of unpleasantness as the son goes into detail about how his father ended up in such a bizarre situation that he himself doesn’t even fully comprehend.
If the convenience store set-up wasn’t predictable enough, the backstory has a recognizable King flair to it that’s extra on the nose. While a cautionary story of consumption has to have some element of intrigue, “Gray Matter” feels especially lacking in creative spins on the familiar. Yes, Richie drinks to excess to the point that it has turned him into an unrecognizable monstrosity. However, he is the grotesque plot device behind the door. He is more of a source for speculation and gossip than any propelling character. It’s at best a sight gag that works because it’s unnatural and depressing, reflecting the ultimate sacrifice of human decency.
The central event that drives Richie to this state is the byproduct of a drinking contest. He is handed a bad stash of beer. King revels in detail about how awful the taste and smell are. It’s one of the few chances where he gets to dwell on sensory details that aren’t just visceral dismemberment, and it is fun in a juvenile way. If there’s a tragic irony to everything, it’s how drinking this feels like an act against nature, and yet men will undoubtedly do these challenges for some strange bragging points in real life. It may make them sick if there is any virus within, but it often passes through the body in time. Not for Richie. This is said to carry a mutagen that slowly tore him apart, turning him into a blob that’s dripping with gray matter. I guess it works in the sense that goop is yucky, but this seems like a straightforward cause-and-effect.
If there’s any suggestion of depth to be had, it’s how Richie became his own worst enemy. Whereas “The Boogeyman” shows the insular decay, “Gray Matter” suggests that alcoholism changes one physically. Could this have been prevented if he had never drunk that beer? Yes. Who knows how much better this story could’ve been. However, the codependence grows, reflecting a helplessness that’s not given nearly enough nuance to be more than basic fears. I get that addiction is scary and can be demoralizing, but this still seems obvious about it.
Maybe it’s because this feels like a test run at points for “The Shining.” It features many similar beats, just remixed slightly. There’s a distributor of beer. It’s snowing to the point that characters feel detached from the outside world. A child is stuck in these quarters, forced to make sense of the madness while lacking any tools to bring about change. By virtue of his weakness, he has to be an enabler. A greater sense of history feels like it exists just outside the page. Even if the Bangor setting means it has more ties to “Dreamcatcher,” thematically, it can’t help but point out small redundancies to the far more successful novel around the same time.
With that said, the ending does have a vulgar brilliance to it that works as one of the most surreal twists in “Night Shift.” While delivering the beer, they discover that he’s splitting into two and spreading his fungus. Another character named Henry, who joined them for this adventure, attempts to fight off the growing mess, but doesn’t return to the convenience store. The story’s ending is a cliffhanger as to whether their friend survived such a horrendous circumstance that, from the looks of it, no bullet could possibly annihilate. It’s a perverse spin on how addiction consumes everyone whole, sometimes abruptly, and leaves behind mostly tragedy.
One final detail that King inserts to make Richie seem especially inhuman is the newfound cannibalism. For starters, the house smells terrible and is drawing attention from the neighbors. He also notices him eating cats, which causes his son to finally seek help. Again, I get the metaphor of depravity, but it seems all too simple and designed for shock value. It works as a visceral read, but there are few layers to this story in the same way “The Boogeyman” or “I Am the Doorway” has. It successfully builds a pit in the reader’s stomach, but does little else with it. While short stories have the advantage of inconclusiveness, this one feels like it should’ve had something more.
To be clear, it’s still a well-written piece of schlock. It gets the point across like an addictive page turner. It empathizes with the right characters and comments on alluded domestic violence that stems from addiction. It’s a terrible feeling, and one that King writes with refreshing sincerity. However, I think the metaphor still feels a little light outside of the overbearing environment, which develops a nervous tension. It’s not terrible, but it’s not complex either.
That may explain why this one was almost considered for removal at the writer’s request. He had wanted to include “Suffer the Little Children” instead, but found his editor suggesting otherwise. The rejected work would not appear in a compilation until “Nightmares & Dreamscapes” almost two decades later. Despite hesitance, “Gray Matter” had a decent reputation at the time, appearing in a 1973 issue of Cavalier as well as two anthologies edited by Bill Pronzini. While this short story marks the first work to not be adapted into film, it would inspire an episode of the 2019 version of Creepshow on Shudder with Giancarlo Esposito and Tobin Bell. The most significant difference is the ending, which paints the titular matter as a mutagen that will spread globally in a matter of days.
It’s easy to understand why some people like this story, especially for those who like their metaphors gloopy. However, I personally think it’s a bit too straightforward to fully work on a deeper level and leaves it as one of the more enjoyable throwaways that “Night Shift” has produced. King definitely brings something fresh to addiction literature, even when it’s this rank, but it’s hard to love when the reader is aware of better options out there. It’s not a bad story, but it reflects a writer in his primitive state, still using a well-structured premise but mostly conveying the simplest of truths. It’s scary, but not much else.
Coming Up Next: “Battleground”
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