Review: Holly

Holly by Stephen King
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

King said he was welcoming one star reviews from the many MAGA types he freely insulted through Holly’s perspective in this book, and while I do enjoy a few digs at Der Orangeführer and his many supporters in Holly’s unspecified red state home (okay, a lot of digs, but that’s nothing new from Stephen King anyway), it was really the constant Covid content that made me round my 3.5 down instead of up. I mean, it does make sense that Holly, who is famously neurodivergent and cautious and guarded in her life, devotedly wears masks everywhere and inquired about vaccination status (and regrets that her Trumpist mother refused the vaccine and died of Covid.) But as with the movie Glass Onion, it really doesn’t serve much purpose in the narrative other than being an unnecessary extra layer of political messaging that overly dates the story. (And I highly doubt that for all King says about Holly’s views on Covid matching his own, that he’s anywhere near as super cautious as she is.)

At least the main storyline is some top tier King, walking the fine line between horror and realism in its depiction of a couple of geriatric serial killers who want to steal brains and fat from younger people, thinking erroneously that it’ll keep them from aging. These old folks, retired college professors, come off like the secret origin of the sinister Armitage grandparents from Get Out, wanting to steal the vitality of younger folks, many of whom happen to be people of color. They’re also quite racist, and very good at hiding it publicly, but the deeper into their psyches you get, the more you realize how hateful they really are. Although King (who used to be no slouch at including the N word in his manuscripts) deliberately dances around including that actual word, and yet uses a number of other archaic slurs openly, plus homophobic slurs in both English and Spanish. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised since King isn’t exactly a perfect progressive.

It’s not King’s best work, but it’s a good showcase for why Holly Gibney is one of his best characters. But hey, if they ever do make a movie out of it, I can’t imagine them setting it in 2021, if only so they can subtract the Covid storyline and leave the mystery and murder and mayhem center stage.

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