‘I think that a lot of people are not going to like it’: Stephen King anticipates a lot of one-star reviews for his new book ‘Holly’

There’s a reason Stephen King is the master of horror, and it’s not just because his dark imagination has birthed some of the most gruesome, terrifying, and riveting stories of all time. It’s because he’s not afraid to go where other novelists won’t, and that’s no more evident than in his newest novel Holly.  

Holly should, on paper, be a fan-favorite among many of King’s “constant readers” as he likes to call them, but the acclaimed novelist is convinced a good chunk of the population is not going to like it. And it doesn’t take a genius to know why. 

Holly is set during the COVID-19 pandemic where elbow taps, masks, social distancing, Black Lives Matter, MAGA, and vaccines are at the forefront of the worldwide conversation. Unlike a lot of other modern-day novelists, who consciously choose to set their stories prior to 2020 so as not to cross that thorny bridge, King dives in head-first, anti-vaxxers and all. 

The novel tells the story of Holly Gibney, a character many of King’s readers will remember from his Mr. Mercedes trilogy and the novel that inspired the HBO show The Outsider. In all four novels, Gibney plays a pivotal role in the outcome of the plot, but not until now has she been given the spotlight to shine. This time around, Gibney, a Private Investigator who lives with OCD and operates somewhere on the autism spectrum, is tasked with solving a crime that puts the gore in horror (think: cannibalism). More importantly, Holly takes place smack dab in the middle of the pandemic and takes repeated jabs at Americans who chose (and choose) not to get the COVID-19 vaccine, namely, Gibney’s mother, whose funeral kicks off the novel — a funeral that could have been prevented had she gotten the COVID-19 vaccine. 

In an interview with Rolling Stone, King made clear his opinion of the naysayers.

“I think that a lot of people are not going to like it. I think that a lot of people — particularly people on the other side of the Covid issue and the Trump issue — are going to give it one-star reviews on Amazon. But all I can say to those people is, ‘Knock yourself out.’”

King says he was inspired — if such a word can be used here — to lean into the savagery of the COVID-19 pandemic instead of shying away from it so that his art could serve as a necessary “time capsule” of the harsh realities that will one day live in history books — realities such as human corpses being loaded into refrigerated trucks outside hospitals. 

“Well, I wanted to write the book set in the time that I was actually writing the book, which was around 2020 or 2021. And I thought to myself, ‘Nobody would believe this if they hadn’t been through it. Nobody would actually understand the paranoia and the fear of Covid.’ People will see archival footage when we’re old and gray. Well, I’m old and gray now, but when you’re old and gray, people will see footage of bodies being put in refrigerated trucks outside hospitals, and they’ll say, ‘Did that really happen? Could that have really happened?’ And of course, it did. So in that sense, Holly is a time capsule of a particular time when I was writing the book.”

Indeed, King’s willingness to shine a light on the most horrific aspects of humanity is further proof that even at 75, and likely for decades (if not centuries to come), he will always and forever be the king of horror.

Holly is currently available. Should you wish to get your hands on a copy, you can do so wherever books are sold.