This Sneak Peek at Stephen King's Next Book, 'If It Bleeds,' Has Us on the Edge of Our Seats

Louisa Ballhaus

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If you feel like Stephen King just released a new book, you’re not wrong: The Institute came out on September 10, 2019, and it’s already a New York Times bestseller. Even so, the incredibly prolific writer is already moving on, and an excerpt was just released from King’s next book, If It Bleeds. While we don’t know much about the book, we do know that it will be a series of four short novellas, just like Stand By Me and The Shawshank Redemption. So, perhaps we can also assume it’ll be turned into a movie too.

From what we’ve seen so far, it’s safe to say that If It Bleeds will be quite a story — though the title doesn’t actually come from gore. “If it bleeds, it leads” is an old news adage, basically meaning that scary, attention-getting stories will pull people in. Or, as Psychology Today puts it, “News programming uses a hierarchy if it bleeds, it leads. Fear-based news programming has two aims. The first is to grab the viewer’s attention. In the news media, this is called the teaser. The second aim is to persuade the viewer that the solution for reducing the identified fear will be in the news story.”

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Stephen’s excerpt, printed in Entertainment Weekly, begins, “In January of 2021, a small padded envelope addressed to Detective Ralph Anderson is delivered to the Conrads, the Andersons’ next-door neighbors.” Interesting! So the book will be set one year in the future, since it’s set to release in May of 2020.

Two mega King characters, Ralph Anderson from The Outsider and Holly Gibney, both appear in the excerpt. What do you think? Intrigued? Let us know in the comments — or tell us which King book we should be devouring instead.

 

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