#BookReview ‘Apt Pupil’ by Stephen King

About the book…

First published as a part of the novella collection,’Different Seasons’, ‘Apt Pupil’is being re-released by Hodder Books as a stand alone publication, part of the Ultimate Storyteller series, which will lead up to 2024’s 50th anniversary of ‘Carrie’ being released.

This is one of his most challenging, and I would venture, harrowing stories as the horror it deals with, actually happened. Please be warned, this is absolutely not for the uncomfortable, and there are images which will not easily leave you come bedtime.

It is the only one written in the third person, and that is probably because it is a tale that cannot be told from a first person perspective, to inhabit the mindset of either main character would be to get too close to the psyche of a monster wearing a human skin. Subtitled the Summer Of Corruption, it is up to the reader to decide who corrupts whom.

*Trigger warnings for animal abuse, sexual abuse, and descriptions of concentration camps *

If you don’t believe in the existence of evil, you have a lot to learn.

Todd Bowden is an apt pupil. Good grades, good family, a paper route. But he is about to meet a different kind of teacher, Mr. Dussander, and to learn all about Dussander’s dark and deadly past…a decades-old manhunt Dussander has escaped to this day. Yet Todd doesn’t want to turn his teacher in. Todd wants to know more. Much more. He is about to face his fears and learn the real meaning of power—and the seductive lure of evil.

Oh, you’re going to be infamous, boy, take my word for it. And do you know what such a scandal can do? It never goes away. Not for you, not for your parents. And besides, lying to judges and reporters isn’t as easy as you think. You’d have to be brilliant. Can you do that? I know I can.

There are still new stories which cause your breath to catch in your throat such as this one
I have 3 tween/teen daughters still at home, who have school friends that groan when the Second World War is brought up, and complain that it is ancient history, we should focus on the modern stuff.

But, we live in a town where the last standing prisoner of war camp clings on by a thread. The campaign to keep it as a point of historical significance and keep developers at bay continues and has been well documented hereThis is not an easy story to review, as it deals with horrors which are only too real. It picks up a rock of human nature, dislodges the insects hiding underneath, and shines a magnifying glass on your feelings until they burn. There are scenes which I will never forget reading, and when you stop and think about why King wrote this, it actually makes a lot of sense.

And that number, 6,000,000 which is indelibly burned into your mind as a figure which is at once obscene and incredible.

So how does one of the greatest writers of all time tackle a real, relevant and on going event which is a stain on humanity?

He does it like this.

Written in 1974, he presents the emblem of American youth, a clear skinned, Aryan complexioned boy of 13, who looks like the dream writ large, and makes him a monster.

The number above, that represents the deaths of which we are aware at that time, poses a completely different attraction to Todd Bowden , beloved son of Dick and Monica, granted all the benefits of being born in the land of opportunity.

He has an inkling about the man across town, Arthur Denker, who bears a striking resemblance to one of the officers in a picture he has seen in his friend’s fathers true life war magazines.

Research provides a link between him and one Kurt Dussander, an abominable creation who was personally responsible for 1000’s of deaths and over saw the efficiency of the death camps.

When Todd presents him with this information , so matter of factl-y, at the start of the novella, it completely catches you off guard. Your introduction to Todd is to a golden boy, described repeatedly as an ‘apt pupil‘, a quick learner, but the question is-what is he learning?

He is bored of his privilege, looking for something which triggers a reaction and finding his friend’s fathers stack of war magazines ignites a need to find out more. And not in the respect of being so horrified that you have the natural inclination to look at why this ever happened. Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it, or so the saying goes, and this is extremely apt in this situation. The old man is actually a war criminal, still wanted by the authorities in several countries, and is literally hiding in plain sight. His status as unmarried, no kids, no job, has him sitting quietly on the edges of a society which remembers him as a uniformed killer. Decrepit old man , or monster in waiting?

Presented with impossible to deny facts, Kurt thinks his time has come. Except what Todd wants, is not the glory of exposing him, he wants to hear all about it. Particularly the ‘gooshy stuff’.

Blackmailing Dussander, passing it off as a helpful young man reading to an infirm pensioner to his parents, he demands story after story. And as Dussander talks, it is almost as though he takes from Todd his very essence, he becomes revitalised by his stories. From fighting it, he becomes obsessed by nightmares  , thoughts which are only relieved by wearing a replica uniform that Todd makes him wear. But that only relieves the sleeplessness for so long.

Then neighbourhood cats go missing.

And Dussander finds himself visiting a dog’s home.

And neighbourhood vagrants start to go missing.

The longer this dance, this danse macabre goes on between Todd and Dussander, the more they skirt the danger of discovery, especially for Todd whose grades start falling through the floor. And then, circumstance creates a situation where both cannot provide any damage limitations and the truth comes to horrifying light.

As an allegory of what appearances, advertising, and perceptions do to create a narrative of good versus evil, this is just so dark and twisted. It is next to impossible to imagine a more dark duo, each feeding off each other, it is as though Todd awakens the killer instinct in Dussander, the monster was always there, hiding just under the surface. And in return, the golden boy becomes obsessed by death, his privilege turns to the power of life over death . The end is stark, brutal, and entirely fitting.

The American dream is sold as a place where anyone can become whoever they want, with enough work and effort all challenges can be overcome. But as Dussander rails at Todd in one of the most affecting passages of the novella-

“All of that is a filthy American lie,” Dussander said, stung. “Oh, I know how the Americans have distorted that…but your own politicians make our Dr. Goebbels look like a child playing with picture books in a kindergarten. They speak of morality while they douse screaming children and old women in burning napalm. Your draft-resisters are called cowards and ‘peaceniks.’ For refusing to follow orders they are either put in jails or scourged from the country. Those who demonstrate against this country’s unfortunate Asian adventure are clubbed down in the streets. The GI soldiers who kill the innocent are decorated by Presidents, welcomed home from the bayoneting of children and the burning of hospitals with parades and bunting.”

When you think about this, so many years later, what is the illusion that the U.S try and package to the rest of the world about moral high grounds? The line between good and bad is often an illusion and, given the right circumstances, there are those who will cross from one side to the other, protected by the widely propagandised umbrella of Western superiority.

Have you read Apt Pupil?

What are your thoughts on it?

I genuinely could not sleep after reading it, the reality of the horror of the Holocaust is not tackled with a view to titillation or re-packaged as anything other than the atrocity that it is. And therein lies the real horror of the relationship between Todd and Kurt.

About the author…

Stephen King is the author of more than fifty books, all of them worldwide bestsellers. His first crime thriller featuring Bill Hodges, ‘Mr Mercedes’, won the Edgar Award for best novel and was shortlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger Award. Both ‘Mr Mercedes’ and ‘End Of Watch’ received the Goodreads Choice Award for the Best Mystery and Thriller of 2014 and 2016 respectively.

King co-wrote the bestselling novel ‘Sleeping Beauties‘ with his son Owen King, and many of King’s books have been turned into celebrated films and television series including ‘The Shawshank Redemption‘, ‘Gerald’s Game’ and ‘It‘.

King was the recipient of America’s prestigious 2014 National Medal of Arts and the 2003 National Book Foundation Medal for distinguished contribution to American Letters. In 2007 he also won the Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America. He lives with his wife Tabitha King in Maine

Links-https://www.stephenking.com/

Twitter @StephenKing

@HodderBooks