From what I’ve been able to gather, Gwendy’s Button Box started life as a Stephen King short story, before the horror maestro ended up getting stuck with the plotting. He reached out to fellow author Richard Chizmar, who worked on the story and sent it back to King, who in turn, did some work and sent it back. After a few swings back and forth, what emerged was Gwendy’s Button Box, a novella set in King’s infamous town of Castle Rock. And while Gwendy’s Button Box still has the feel of a very long short story more than a novella (the plotting here is pretty linear and streamlined), there’s still plenty of enjoyment here for King fans to be had.
The story is simple enough: a young woman on the verge of puberty is out for a morning run (she’s desperate to shed some pounds and take care of some cruel nicknames she’s gotten recently), when she’s stopped by a man in black who wants to “palaver”. (Constant Readers, no doubt, have guessed this man’s initials by now; would it shock you if I said they were “R.F.”?) The man offers her a box covered in buttons, as well as a couple of switches, and explains that the box can take care of her – it will help her with that weight loss, yes, but with so much more…and all it needs in return is a caretaker. Because were those buttons to be pressed – the buttons that seem to line up with each major continent, as well as an ominous black one at the end…well, things would go bad. So why not give it to a responsible, careful caretaker, one who could prevent such things?
This is classic King – there’s a bit of Needful Things here, sure, but also a bit of Richard Matheson’s “Button, Button” on display as well. But where to take the story that feels fresh? It’s to that end, presumably, that King brought in Chizmar, and together, the pair creates a coming-of-age story that finds our young heroine thriving, succeeding…but always, constantly worrying about that box, and fearing what it might unleash. Yes, Gwendy is losing weight; her grades are great, her life is wonderful…but there’s always that fear, that unease about the button, and that constant sense of pressure as to when she might be called in.
If that sounds like meaty, heavy fare…well, it’s not, really. The biggest issue with Gwendy’s Button Box is that it always feels like a short story stretched to novella, not a short novel. We watch as Gwendy grows up, as she grapples with the responsibility of the box, as things build to a couple of critical moments…but it all ends up feeling like the sort of material King would use for act one of a story, not a story in of itself. And by the time the story ends on a cryptic, uncertain note, there’s a definite sense of “wait, is that all there is?” There’s little closure, little explanation – just a strange, uncertain end for a strange, uncertain story – which is something that works much better in a short story than a novella, where we need a bit more of a climax.
Still, you could do far worse than Gwendy’s Button Box for an afternoon’s entertainment. As always with King, it’s well-written; the patter and rhythms are exceptional, and his gift for choosing the critical moments of adolescence and bringing them to life is, as always, a joy. Even better is the way he constantly gives just enough information about the box to keep us wondering, but never enough to make it all clear. It’s an engaging little tale; just don’t be surprised if it feels slighter than you’d hope, as though it’s not quite capable of sustaining all the pages in its brief time.
Umney's Alley 