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Stephen King is synonymous with horror, and it isn’t hard to see why. Since his debut novel, Carrie, was published in 1976, he has written dozens of classic horror novels and stories. Thanks to his bestselling prose and the many adaptations of the same, many of his horror titles have become household names. These include IT, Christine, and The Shining.

But while King’s reputation may be for horror novels, to dismiss him as 'only' a horror writer is to overlook some of his best work. Included among this non-horror prose is the novella The Life of Chuck, the latest King story to be adapted to the big screen. While The Life of Chuck does include some surrealistic and/or supernatural narrative elements, it isn’t a horror story.

In fact, The Life of Chuck is just one of many King stories that cannot easily be categorized as genre writing. Furthermore, to peg King as a genre writer is to dismiss some of his best work, and one of the elements that makes him such a talented and enduring a writer.

The Life of Chuck

The Life of Chuck is comprised of three acts, which are arranged in reverse order. The first/third act (Act III) primarily follows a Midwest man named Marty Anderson. A teacher, Marty is contending with a world that seems to be breaking down: the internet is gone, roads succumb to sinkholes and billboards, commercials and skywriting all proclaim an increasingly ubiquitous message: “Charles Krantz. 39 Great Years! Thanks, Chuck!”

No one Marty speaks to has any idea of who 'Chuck' is, or how he relates to the ongoing societal collapse (which includes parts of California breaking off and drifting into the sea). In the first act’s climax, the lights — including the stars — begin to go out, save for glowing Chuck’s visage, accompanied by the same message.

But in the final pages of the first/third act, the reader gets an idea of what this story is about. Two men, Chuck’s son and his brother, are present as a comatose Chuck passes away in a hospital bed. As Chuck reaches the end of his life, his brother shares his view that everyone houses a world within themselves. Then, as Chuck succumbs, so too does Marty and his world.

In the second act, a younger Chuck takes a break from a work trip in Boston to dance to the drumming of a busker. Thanks to Chuck’s skill, this draws an enthusiastic crowd, and a young woman soon stops to dance with Chuck as well. The crowd loves it, earning the busker his biggest-ever payday (which he splits with the two dancers).

While there are genre elements in the apocalyptic setting of the first/third act, the second act has nothing approaching the supernatural. If anything, the events it describes border on the mundane. However, it’s the sort of 'mundane' that is beautiful and moving; the sort of day-to-day interpersonal experience that gives magic and meaning to the lives of everyone on Earth. Nevertheless, at the end of the second act, the symptoms of the terminal disease that will end his life in less than a year are highlighted.

Finally, the final/first act returns to Chuck’s childhood. Orphaned by a car accident, Chuck is raised by his grandparents from a young age. This is filled with grounded experiences, such as his grandmother teaching him to dance.

But the final/first act also includes a supernatural element. In the attic of his grandparents’ Victorian home, his grandfather experiences a vision of his grandmother’s death. This subsequently comes to pass. After his grandfather has passed, too, Chuck ventures up into the attic himself. There, he has a vision of himself dying in a hospital bed (the scene from the climax of the first/third act).

True, the idea of witnessing a vision of one’s death could be a scene in a horror story. However, that’s not how it’s handled in The Life of Chuck. Instead, and thanks in part to the fact that we’ve already seen the death itself, it doesn’t possess the flavor of horror at all.

As King states in the afterword for the collection, “I’ve always felt that each one of us — from the kings and princes of the realm to the guys who wash dishes at Waffle House and the gals who change beds in turnpike motels—contains the whole world.” Clearly, this is the point of The Life of Chuck: that everyone’s life — even a man with a “life [that’s] narrower than the one he once hoped for” — is worthwhile. In a way, a single life is worth the whole world, no matter how mundane that life might seem to those outside (or within) it.

King’s Non-Horror Masterpieces 

The Life of Chuck is not a one-off among King’s oeuvre. In fact, one of his best-known stories is likewise devoid of 'conventional horror': Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption. This story, collected in Different Seasons, gained wide notoriety thanks to its 1994 adaptation (which bears the foreshortened title The Shawshank Redemption).

This novella tells the story of Andy Dufresne, a former bank vice president who is framed for the murder of his wife and her lover and sentenced to life in prison. There, he meets Ellis 'Red' Redding, a fellow prisoner who specializes in smuggling contraband to the other inmates. As Andy navigates many incidents with the other inmates and prison administration, he also collects certain items procured by Red. These include a rock hammer (ostensibly in support of his interest in minerals) and a poster of Rita Hayworth.

After several decades in the prison, these contraband items are used to facilitate Andy’s escape from Shawshank. He ultimately travels across the border into Mexico, where a parolee eventually Red joins him. It’s a story of redemption, rebirth and the endurance and ingenuity of the human spirit. And it’s a far cry from the horror with which King’s name is considered synonymous.

In fact, all four novellas collected in Different Seasons are outside of the of horror genre. The others are Apt Pupil, The Body (adapted as Stand By Me) and The Breathing Method. King addresses this in the collection's 1982 afterword, in which he states that the question he is asked by readers second-most-often is: “Is horror all you write?”

King goes on to explain that in the early days of his writing career, his editor cautioned that the publication of Carrie followed by Salem’s Lot and The Shining would see him pigeonholed as a genre writer. This is especially interesting thanks to the included detail that, in the time leading up to Carrie’s publication, he submitted two manuscripts as potential sophomore novels: Blaze and Second Coming (which would become Salem’s Lot).

But while King did end up gaining the reputation for being a horror novelist, he continued to publish work outside the genre over the years. In the case of Blaze, which is a pastiche of Of Mice and Men, the novel would eventually be published in 2007.

And of course, there’s also On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. Part memoir, part writing advice, the book is considered by many to be indispensable, regardless of whether they’re Constant Readers or not. There’s Blockade Billy, a baseball-themed novella, and Faithful: Two Diehard Boston Red Sox Fans Chronicle the Historic 2004 Season, a nonfiction book co-written with  Stewart O’Nan.

Plus, it’s worth mentioning King’s crime genre writing, published by Hard Case Crime: The Colorado Kid, Joyland and Later. While they are genre writing, they aren’t the supernatural horror with which he’s most closely associated. The Mr. Mercedes trilogy, meanwhile, begins in the crime genre, but incorporates supernatural elements in the third volume.

The Pop of King

Whether the prose belongs in the horror genre or not, you can always swiftly identify King’s distinctive and well-honed voice. But that’s not the only thing both types of his writing have in common. There’s also a clear humanistic, thorough line.

When King’s writing horror, this humanistic bent works to the genre’s advantage. His complex characters often navigate more the more mundane elements of existence in modern American white middle- to lower-class life earlier in the stories, which only underscores the horrific nature of what comes when the supernatural terrors are unleashed in the latter pages.

King’s careful observation and detailed descriptions are equally effective when he’s writing outside the horror genre, and demonstrate why King shouldn’t be pigeonholed. A final example to consider is the relatively recent novella Elevation. Set in Castle Rock, the setting for many of King’s earlier horror novels, short stories and novellas, Elevation does incorporate an element of the supernatural, or at least the surreal. However, this element does not tend towards horror, but rather acts as a metaphor for privilege.

To ignore King’s non-horror work is to ignore some of his best and most profound writing. From Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption to The Life of Chuck, he’s a talented storyteller no matter what the genre.

Stephen King has a new book coming out this year called Never Flinch... but he re-wrote the whole thing after his wife gave it an honest, bad review.