The Life of Chuck - by Stephen King (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

Stephen King's "The Life of Chuck," is a "phenomenal" (USA TODAY) tale of life and legacy--now a feature film directed by Mike Flanagan and starring Tom Hiddleston, Mark Hamill, Chiwetel Ejiofor, and Karen Gillan--available for the first time in a beautiful standalone edition.

Originally featured in the acclaimed story collection If It Bleeds, this unforgettable, mind-bending tale unfolds in reverse, taking readers through the extraordinary life of Charles "Chuck" Krantz.

In a crumbling world plagued by natural disasters, collapsing infrastructure, and mass panic, bizarre billboards and advertisements appear throughout town: "Charles Krantz. Thirty-nine great years. Thanks, Chuck!" Marty Anderson, a schoolteacher, becomes obsessed with these messages as the world, inexplicably linked to Chuck's life, seems to be approaching its end.

Told in three acts, presented in reverse order, The Life of Chuck explores one man's past. We see him in middle age on a business trip in Boston as he is seduced by a busker into spinning a gorgeous sidewalk dance. And we see him as a child, in a house haunted by a terrible secret, learning to dance with his grandmother. In these pages King reminds us that life's quotidian pleasures are even more glorious because they are fleeting: the outrageous good fortune of a beautiful blue day after a string of gray ones; the delight of dancing when every move feels perfect; a serendipitous meeting. King's ability to describe pure joy rivals his ability to terrify us.

Now a major motion picture and winner of the Toronto International Film Festival People's Choice Award, The Life of Chuck is a glorious story about community and about humanity at its best, a celebration of joy, mystery, existential wonder, and the multitudes contained in all of us.

Review Quotes

Praise for The Life of Chuck and King's Short Fiction

"The Life of Chuck is one of the oddest, most affecting stories I have read in a very long time." --Ruth Franklin, New York Times Book Review

"Phenomenal... Just when you think things are getting really weird, it all snaps together like an epiphany and you get to the gorgeous meat of the matter." --Brian Truitt, USA Today

"A slightly surreal, wholly engaging narrative about dance, music, mortality and acceptance, and about the bedrock notion that all of us, like Chuck, contain multitudes." --Bill Sheehan, The Washington Post

"For a writer whose books need a big stage, Stephen King also can turn out shorter stories just as gripping as his epic novels." --Amanda St. Amand, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

About the Author

Stephen King is the author of more than sixty books, all of them worldwide bestsellers. His recent work includes Never Flinch (May 2025), the short story collection You Like It Darker (a New York Times Book Review top ten horror book of 2024), Holly (a New York Times Notable Book of 2023), Fairy Tale, Billy Summers, If It Bleeds, The Institute, Elevation, The Outsider, Sleeping Beauties (cowritten with his son Owen King), and the Bill Hodges trilogy: End of Watch, Finders Keepers, and Mr. Mercedes (an Edgar Award winner for Best Novel and a television series streaming on Peacock). His novel 11/22/63 was named a top ten book of 2011 by The New York Times Book Review and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Mystery/Thriller. His epic works The Dark Tower, It, Pet Sematary, Doctor Sleep, and Firestarter are the basis for major motion pictures, with It now the highest-grossing horror film of all time. He is the recipient of the 2020 Audio Publishers Association Lifetime Achievement Award, the 2018 PEN America Literary Service Award, the 2014 National Medal of Arts, and the 2003 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. He lives in Bangor, Maine, with his wife, novelist Tabitha King.