Stephen King's newest book, Hearts in Atlantis, is a strange and unexpected journey. In structural ways, the book is a collection. The opening selection, "Low Men in Yellow Coats," is long enough to be a novel, "Hearts in Atlantis," the second piece, is a novella; "Blind Willie" and "Why We're in Vietnam" are short stories, and the final piece, "Heavenly Shades of Night are Falling," is a short, sweet coda. But though the stories take place throughout different times and are seen with different eyes, Hearts in Atlantis as a whole must be seen as a single, cohesive narrative.

"Low Men in Yellow Coats" tells a tale of 1960, when a man named Ted Brautigan moves into Bobby Garfield's neighborhood in tiny Harwich, Connecticut. Bobby is impressed with the old man, as are his friends Carol Gerber and Sully-John. Bobby's Mom, Liz, has her own ideas about Ted, all of which become darker as the summer of 1960 wears on.

Ted teaches Bobby about adult books, in particular William Golding's Lord of the Flies, about a group of boys who "just went a little too far." That motif plays throughout the cycle of stories in Hearts in Atlantis, the theme that a bunch of scared children can always take things a little too far.

As the first of these stories progresses, we begin to understand that "Low Men" is more supernatural than not, and diehard fans of King will begin to recognize elements of the Dark Tower series before the story spikes to its climax. In the end, the fact that it does link with the Dark Tower books is nearly beside the point: what matters is what happens to Bobby, and how he copes with the sudden knowledge that his mother's oft-spoken phrase "Life isn't fair" is even truer than she could ever dream.

A rapid shift into six years after the first tale and into a first-person narrator in the second story, "Hearts in Atlantis," is a bit jarring at first. We meet a young man by the name of Peter Riley, a college freshman recently addicted to the game of Hearts. The man relaying the tale reminds one of Gordon LaChance of King's "The Body," a person writing about his younger days and trying to make sense of it. It is Riley who reveals the explanation behind the odd title of both the story and the collection: In 1966, the Donovan song about Atlantis was popular, and Peter Riley applied the idea of a sinking continent to his own turgid times. (The idea of an entire generation sinking to unrecoverable depths surfaces again in the later tale "Why We're in Vietnam.") Eventually, Peter and his friend Skip begin to see that there is a larger, darker world outside that of the 24-hour Hearts game, that there is a war going on that they are not prepared to fight. As he watches his friends flunk out and his girlfriend ("Low Men"'s Carol Gerber) move away to take care of her mother and join the peace effort, Peter must decide whether to sink in his obsession with the card game of Hearts, or to protect his own heart by staying out of Vietnam.

Again, the Lord of the Flies theme presents itself here, both symbolically and literally. During one upsetting and emotional scene, Peter becomes involved in a very Golding-esque mob. Later, when Carol send him a copy of the novel, he realizes that what he has taken part in is not unlike the boys in the book … or the situation in Vietnam.

The third tale, "Blind Willie" focuses on a minor character from "Low Men," that of Willie Shearman. Willie helped his friend do something bad to Carol Gerber back in 1960, and this tale, told in present tense, is the story of his personal penance. We also learn that Willie has been through Hell and back, went to Vietnam and saved a friend of Carol's, Sully-John. Even still, he feels he has not done enough, and it is fascinating to watch his atonement.

Those who have read "Blind Willie" in either the original Anaetus version or the later reprint in King's Six Stories are in for a treat here. The early versions were vague and ended on an undecided note. Here, in the context of Hearts in Atlantis, and buffered by interlocked stories on each side, "Blind Willie" finally seems complete.

In 1999, we catch up with war vet and onetime Harwich, Connecticut resident, John Sullivan, known to his friends as Sully-John. In the present, Sully is attending the funeral of an old war buddy, while meeting up with another who is still alive. And he is suffering his own personal hell, a long, extended trauma as the result of a horror he witnessed back in Vietnam. In the intervening years, Sully had become a used-car salesman and has made a fairly good life for himself. But he still can't shake the memory - the everyday presence - of war, and as his old friend reminds him, his generation is still stuck in Vietnam, and you can never really leave the past.

The concluding tale, "Heavenly Shades of Night are Falling" takes its title from the old Platter's song "Twilight Time," a recurring musical theme throughout the book. In a way, "Heavenly Shades" serves as a wrap-up to the entire volume, a gentle supernatural epilogue connecting Bobby, Ted, Carol, and Sully-John one last time. It is a return to the world of The Dark Tower, but the connection isn't distracting. Instead, all the themes and motifs return, and the characters look back at forty years with quiet reflection. It is a gentle, yet somewhat vivid closure to the series of events begun in the 1960's.

Hearts in Atlantis is a stunningly well-written book, at turns both supernatural and realistic, optimistic and crushingly sad. King's ordinary casual tone has been, if not replaced by, than certainly enhanced by, a calm, metered, literate voice. It seems as if, continuing in the tradition of Bag of Bones and, to a lesser extent, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon), King has consiously decided to step away from his "horrormeister" image and attempt something perhaps more "literate." If that is his intention, Hearts certainly does deliver, especially in the fantastic title piece.

As one not of the generation Hearts in Atlantis discusses, it is hard to say whether or not the book in any way truly captures the feel and the flavor of the Baby Boomers. The lessons, though - subtle and understated - remain the same: some mistakes you must pay for, and sometimes the past never really leaves. Life isn't fair, but you must make of it what you can. And though time may want to beat you down, sometimes love resists it. Sometimes love wins.

Dedication

To Joseph and Leanora and Ethan:
I told you all that to tell you this.

The New Lieutenant's Rap

Also relating to the major pre-publicity for Hearts is an interesting curio: a chap-book given out at King's "25 Years in Publishing" party called "The New Lieutenant's Rap," published by King's own Philtrum Press. The story appears, in shorter form, in Hearts (think "The Revelations of 'Becka Paulson" in The Tommyknockers). The chap-book was meant for attendees only, but of course it has begun to appear on secondary markets, selling for thousands of dollars. The book is photocopied-handwritten, with fine covers and a hand-drawn peace sign on the front cover. The book also came with a peace-sign necklace, but don't expect those to come with your secondary copy.