I am only 200 pages in so…
This is a different sort of novel for King. Its a police procedural; a riff on the mob mentality; a deeply human work with few cookie cutter characters. I’m enjoying this very much.
What say you?
I enjoyed it. He still knows what scares me.
Yet it doesn’t grab me the way certain of his other works did. When he’s really got my number, the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end, I’m uneasy turning the lights out, and I can’t stop thinking about the story he’s weaved. Not so for this one.
It’s not that he’s lost it. “Gwendy’s Button Box” pushed those buttons for me. And this latest one is much better than that unfortunate “Sleeping Beauties” he wrote with his son. That one was the first book of his I didn’t bother to finish.
So: I’ll keep reading whatever fiction he writes, or at least attempting to. Meanwhile, enjoy!
I’ve just got to the Footsteps and Cantaloupe section. Nothing spooky yet! 
But the way he handled the crime and the investigation was scary in a real world way that the supernatural could never be and the pain and uncertainty of the characters was quite moving.
Can’t wait to read what happens next.
It’s good. My favorite remains Duma Key.
I enjoyed it a lot more than many of his recent works. After barely making it 50 pages into Sleeping Beauties (which I realize was mostly written by his son) I was afraid he’d lost it. But this one sucked me in and kept me reading.
I’ve long said that King’s works fall into two categories: The ones he writes to pay the bills (which can rack from atrocious to great) and the ones that he (at least) regards as serious attempts to commit literature. Still, after forty years, the sight of a new Stephen King book has me reaching for my wallet like a Pavlov dog.
The Outsider falls into category 2 imho.
It might be literature, but it’s not “literary” (much, anyway, IMO). It does make you think about some areas of the human condition, but for the most part it’s the kind of good solid page-turner I look for in a Stephen King novel.
I generally really dislike King’s stuff when he tries to get too “literary” (examples: the previously mentioned Sleeping Beauties, which was like watching paint dry, and Lisey’s Story, which wasn’t much better.)
Thank you for this. I had never thought of his work in those terms.
I’m just a little farther along than madsircool (I find the cantaloupe story very Kingesque) and the creep factor is starting to pick up, if only a little at this point. I would be fine if it were to remain in the crime genre but I must admit the few hints at the horror aspect are very welcome. I love SK’s writing no matter what the subject but I love it best when he’s bringing the scares.
Also, I liked Sleeping Beauties though it could have been trimmed down by about a third.
This one didn’t work for me. It was a police procedural with too many characters for me to keep straight. I felt held at arm’s length from the crime. I also felt I didn’t want to know any more about that particular crime. 
There was a really unexpected event which kept things interesting for a while, and a character King’s readers will know from elsewhere. That boosted the story along to the big showdown…which was so short and anticlimactic I felt like some pages had fallen out of my book.
I always enjoy the journey with King, I’ll always buy his books. But this one will collect a lot of dust before I pick it up again.
This is my feeling too as I am in the 400s.
I’m guessing King is in his 70s now. He still creates wonderful everyday person characters and his worldview isn’t stuck in the past. It saddens me a bit thinking his career is in its last stages…unless someone can find a special place to bury him when he finally passes. 
I’ve always felt that what made King special were his characters. His plotting isn’t nearly as good. IMO the same criticism could be made about The Stand. It ended so abruptly and I truly wanted to know what happened to the characters I came to know and love. M-O-O-N that spells what became of Tom Cullen as Boulder reverted back to a normal city. 
I had The Outsider on Audible. It runs about 18 hours and was a good listen. I agree about the climax, though. It was like, “Is that it? Hell, I could have done that.”
I hope this is a fair analogy. I’ve been reading and mostly enjoying King since 1975, when I picked up a used paperback copy of “Carrie”, which frightened my little 13 year old brain.
I see my relationship with his work and approach to writing AND to his audience as an analog to what Bruce Springsteen says about his body of work and his relationship with his long-time audiences.
He refers to the ongoing conversation that he has had with his audiences since 1973 when he broke on the Jersey Shore and then slowly nationally.
Similarly, Stephen King has - to me - been engaged in an ongoing dialogue with his longer-term readers, a group he has referred to as “Constant Reader” almost since the beginning.
As someone who enjoys the way he works his craft AND has always deeply enjoyed the deconstruction of creativity, this approach is a pleasurable one. But it’s side-candy. The body of works King has produced has been uneven but almost always worth the time. Sometimes, they are SO much worth the time that I am aware I’m reading very slowly.
Not every book has to be a smash-hit. Sometimes things slip in along the edges that resonate, well, for decades.
YMMV !!
I absolutely agree. I found the last few pages of The Outsiders a bit sappy but then after reading your post it hit me that perhaps he wrote it in response to the Age of Trump and wanted to communicate that basic human decency was still alive. Or he is becoming a big softie in his advancing years.
Coming soon to TV…
I’ve just gotten to the part where it’s started to get really creepy and I can absolutely picture it.
Actually, there are several things that could make for effective visuals
SPOILERS
The burned guy at the courthouse who mysteriously doesn’t show up on the video; the scene with Jack in the barn and then later in his bathroom; Jeannie’s encounter with Bolton)
I hope, if they make a movie, they keep it in the same vein as the book; a crime mystery with some supernatural elements as opposed to an all out horror story. I think it could be really chilling without a bunch of CGI and gore.