Hearts in Atlantis
Encyclopedia
Hearts in Atlantis is a collection of two novella
s and three short stories
by Stephen King
, all connected to one another by recurring character
s and taking place in roughly chronological order.
The stories are about the baby boomer
generation, specifically King's view that this generation (to which he belongs) failed to live up to its promise and ideals. Significantly, the opening epigraph of the collection is the Peter Fonda
line from the end of Easy Rider
: "We blew it." All of the stories are about baby boomers, and in all of them the members of that generation fail profoundly, or are paying the costs of some profound failure on their part.
with his self-centered mother, Liz, a widow. He really wants a bicycle, but Liz claims they do not have the money for a bike, despite her constant purchases of new clothing. For his eleventh birthday, Bobby's mother gives him a birthday card containing an adult library card. During this time, Bobby doesn't realize that his mother is being forced into having an affair with her boss, Don Biderman. Bobby spends his time with his two best friends, John "Sully" Sullivan and Carol Gerber.
An older gentleman named Ted Brautigan moves into the apartment on the 3rd floor, two floors above Bobby and his mother. It is obvious from the start that she doesn't like Ted, but Bobby does. Ted spends a lot of time discussing books with Bobby and gives him Lord of the Flies
, which makes a huge impression on the boy. Liz claims to be worried that Ted might be sexually abusing
Bobby, though in fact she feels guilty about neglecting her son. Bobby, understanding the situation but unable to articulate it, solves the problem by keeping the two apart.
Ted speaks to Bobby as one would speak to another adult, which makes a great impression on Bobby. Ted offers Bobby a small amount of money to read him the paper daily, claiming his eyes are not what they used to be. Bobby witnesses Ted "blanking out" several times, and realizes that he possesses psychic
abilities, which he is able to pass on to others by coming into physical contact with them. Ted places his hands on Bobby's shoulders one morning and later on that day, Bobby wins a three card monte game at the beach because he could read the card dealer's mind. As the two grow closer, Ted confesses to Bobby that he is being stalked by "low men"—the can-toi
, evil servants of King's recurring villain, The Crimson King. The signs of these men include "lost pet" signs and chalk drawings of stars and moons. Ted asks Bobby to keep an eye out for their signs and to let him know when they are near. It is revealed (although it is only understandable to readers of King's other works) that Ted is in some way connected to the Dark Tower
. He is hiding in Bobby's town as a means of escaping the struggle revolving around it. Ted makes occasional references to both the tower and its beams, including the field of roses in which it is situated.
Bobby does begin to see the signs but doesn't say anything to Ted because he is afraid of losing his new friend. One day, he finds Carol lying in a grove of trees with a severely injured arm. She tells him that two bullies, Richie O'Meara and Willie Shearman, held her down while a third, Harry Doolin, beat her badly with a baseball bat. He carries her back to his apartment house, where Ted is waiting. They go inside the Garfields' apartment, and Ted has to cut off Carol's blouse to reset her arm, which turns out to be dislocated but not broken. Just as he manages to reset her arm, Liz, also looking badly injured, enters the apartment. It turns out that her employer and colleagues invited her to a supposed real estate seminar, which was an excuse for them to take advantage of her, something that Bobby dreamed of and Ted was able to describe to her due to his psychic abilities. Seeing Carol on Ted's lap, sporting a naked torso
, immediately causes her to think Ted has been molesting Carol.
Eventually, Liz calms down, takes Carol home, and decides to sit in the local park to gather her thoughts. Bobby takes a long nap, and when he awakes he finds his mother asleep in her bed, and Ted long gone. Bobby looks into his mother's purse and finds a "lost pet" poster appealing for information on a dog named Brautigan. He realizes that his mother has telephoned the "can-toi" (low-men) and told them of Ted's whereabouts. Bobby eventually catches up to Ted, just as the "low men" are about to take him away. They want to take Bobby with them too, but Ted offers to work for them if they let Bobby go. They give Bobby the final choice and, faced with going with Ted, wherever that may be, or staying behind, Bobby chooses to stay.
The remainder of the story details, in brief, Bobby's adolescence. He beats up Harry Doolin with a baseball bat, and moves away from Harwich with his mother, and is twice put in a juvenile detention facility. When he arrives home after his second incarceration (at this point it is 1965), he receives a letter from Carol, with another envelope that she tells him is from Ted. Bobby opens the envelope and finds it is full of red rose petals, the ones which surround the Dark Tower, and he knows that somewhere Ted is free of the low men once again. He goes to his mother, who seems to have grown prematurely old, and embraces her; she cries because of the mess they have made of their lives, while he encourages her that there is hope for both of them.
. He has been a good student before, but he is drawn to the interminable card game of Hearts
that is going on in the common room in the all-male dormitory
where he lives. This marathon of Hearts is initiated by Ronnie Malenfant, a young man with poor hygiene and a corrosive personality, but a whiz at the game; ironically, it is a game he plays with Riley that begins "the mad season." The games are frowned upon but allowed by the dorm's floor-proctor, David Dearborn, or the derogatory "Dearie" to the dorm boys.
The story explores how the university of the 1960s was an "Atlantis", an imaginary kingdom isolated from the troubles of the world. The young men are avoiding serving in the Vietnam War
as a result of their student draft deferments. However, as more and more of the students become addicted to playing Hearts, their grades begin to suffer and they are putting themselves at risk of losing their deferment.
Peter Riley quickly falls behind in his studies, but even though he knows he might flunk out, he is unable to stop himself. Meanwhile, he meets Carol Gerber, Bobby Garfield's friend and childhood sweetheart
from Low Men in Yellow Coats. Peter Riley falls in love with her, and with her help tries to cure himself of the addiction to Hearts. However, he is too self-involved and therefore unaware that Carol herself has become caught up in an escapist addiction of her own: student activism, her own attempt to pay tribute to her friendship with Bobby Garfield and a call to action to stop the war. Stokely "Stoke" Jones, a firebrand activist who cannot get around without crutches, introduces the "peace sign" to Peter and his friend, Stanley "Skip" Kirk, by displaying it on the back of his jacket. As Peter Riley and his friends' self-destructive addiction to Hearts continues, the Vietnam War grows closer, and signs of defiance appear in the hearts and minds of the students, even in Riley's room-mate, a shy pre-dent student struggling with doing what he feels is right and just or disappointing his parents.
One event catalyzes the resistance to the war, when a message spray-painted on a campus wall contains a (then-scandalous) suggestion to "FUCK JOHNSON" and a call for the U.S. to leave Vietnam. It is flanked by peace signs, which draw the attention towards Jones, who is apparently trying to wake up the students to the atrocity of the war. Riley and his compatriots in the dorm, which has been suffering a rash of student failures and withdrawals due to failing grades (by this time, he says, they were "majoring in Hearts") and Riley is taken by surprise when Carol announces she will be leaving school. She explains by telling him about Bobby, what he did for her, and that her decisions are forever influenced by what Bobby did for her. She and Riley make love for the first time in his car, and she leaves the next day, leaving a note describing why she did what she did, and that what happened the previous night was special for her...and a warning: "Get out of that card game." He reads the note, then breaks down; despite Carol's firm belief that "hearts don't break...they only bend," Peter wonders about the hearts of those who were still protected in innocence: "What about hearts in Atlantis?"
After Thanksgiving break (where Peter consciously joins the anti-war movement by drawing the peace sign on the back of his high school jacket), Peter tries to pull himself away from the Hearts games already starting by returning students, but is roped in by Ronnie, and loses himself in the games as he did before. As the games continue, a massive thunderstorm approaches the campus and soon freezing rain and hail descend. As Peter plays a game where he holds an apparently superior hand and intends to sink Ronnie once and for all, Jones is spotted on the commons by one of the players, and soon all the players watch as he tries to make his way across the rain-slickened walk. As they watch, then begin to poke fun at Jones' seemingly self-destructive charge, cheering him on, and suddenly Peter hears Carol in his head about the boys that beat her up...about how they were laughing as they did it. Even with this, he can't stop himself: "Man, we just couldn't stop laughing."
Then Stoke Jones loses his balance and falls, landing in the ice-cold water, and the groups of boys, still inexplicably laughing, head down to pull him out and take him to the infirmary, where he is held for observation. They come together and Skip talks to them about a plan he has.
Afterward, Skip and Peter head back to the dorm, wondering how it happened, how they had devolved into that savage laughter; when Peter mentions he dreamed about being the hero, Skip replies, "Who ever dreams about being part of the lynch mob?" When they return to the dorm, students are cleaning up and getting ready to play again. Ronnie taunts Peter, but Peter is cured of Hearts-mania and turns him down, resolving to salvage what is left of the term and hold on to his work-study scholarship.
Shortly afterward, a meeting is called by Dearborn, where the dean and a school official are present. Dearborn begins by leveling charges against Stoke Jones for the graffiti. However, Skip (who had expected this meeting) derails Dearborn's accusations by saying that he himself had been wearing the peace sign on his own clothing. Then Peter admits to wearing it on his jacket, and the other members of the dorm attest to wearing the same sign themselves and lie about wearing it for most of the semester. Skip ends by suggesting that since Jones is suffering from pneumonia, he would not be a credible source. The two school officials leave after the Dean tells them what Peter calls an epitaph of their age: "You fellows have disappointed me." Dearborn, disgraced, leaves the dorm and joins a fraternity, his credibility lost.
He and Skip pass, but barely (he wonders if his professors were lenient on him because they might feel responsible if he got drafted and subsequently killed in Vietnam) and then Peter receives a package from Carol. It contains a copy of Lord of the Flies by William Golding, and a newspaper article of a protest she participated; it foreshadows the activist group she eventually gets involved in that results in terrorism
with which she takes part in bloody demonstrations.
Ronnie flunks out and is subsequently drafted.
At the end of the novella, Peter reunites with Skip when they are adults. Skip has become a well-known if controversial artist, and they reminisce about how they had such great ideals, and how they failed to live up to those ideals. Skip consoles him with the fervent, "We TRIED."
veteran's penance after the war. The main character in this story is Willie Shearman, and the story takes place over a single day in December 1983. At first we see him commuting from Connecticut to New York City
like any normal businessman; we then discover that he elaborately disguises himself as a blind
beggar. It is not an act, however, as he appears to have a somatoform disorder
and becomes blind every afternoon at the time of day he was caught in a firefight and temporarily blinded. We also learn that he was in combat with John Sullivan and Ronnie Malenfant, and saved Sullivan's life; and that Willie keeps a scrapbook about Carol Gerber. He has never forgotten the day that she was beaten up by Harry Doolin while he and Richie O'Meara held her down, and views his blindness as a form of penance
.
involving a former student and player in the Hearts game in Hearts In Atlantis, Ronnie Malenfant. Throughout the story, Sullivan sees an old Vietnamese
woman, "mama-san
", whom Ronnie killed during this incident. In the end Sullivan dies of an apparent heart attack during a traffic jam on the way home.
The title is a reference to Norman Mailer's
Why Are We in Vietnam?
(1967), a novel about a hunting trip to Alaska
narrated by a young man about to go fight in Vietnam.
praised Hearts in Atlantis as "the Great American Baby Boomer Novel," saying that "when he's at the top of his form, as he certainly is here, he [King] can be as provocative and inspired as."
, starring Anthony Hopkins
as Ted Brautigan, Anton Yelchin
as Bobby Garfield and Hope Davis
as Liz Garfield. Major story elements are common to the film and the story, but many of the details were changed. In addition, all the references to the Dark Tower
were removed and the final destinies of the characters, revealed in the latter stories of the original novel, are not included. A further consequence of the changes is that the title of the film is completely impenetrable to those not familiar with the novel; a snatch of dialogue attempts to remedy this. Ted remarks of childhood being a lost city like Atlantis.
overall plot is concerned, it is revealed in the seventh book that Ted is essential to the Crimson King
's quest to break the beams that hold the Dark Tower up, in turn, holding the universe
together. Roses are repeatedly mentioned in the Dark Tower novels.
Carol's reference to a man teaching her how to be "dim", and taking in "confused, angry kids," is an implied reference to Randall Flagg
, the Dark Tower series' main villain. The man's name - "Raymond Fiegler" - follows King's pattern of giving Flagg aliases with the initials "RF". The act of being "dim" is a trait shared by Flagg in The Eyes of the Dragon
.
When Bobby and Ted encounter a car and sense the low men that have been chasing Ted, Bobby describes feeling "his heart spin as a top did, with its lines rising and disappearing into other worlds. Other worlds than these." In The Gunslinger, Jake Chambers
says "Go, then, there are other worlds than these" to Roland
as he falls to his death. The two characters are also roughly the same age, and play similar adopted-son roles in their respective novels. This connection is further explored in the seventh Dark Tower novel.
"Low men" also appear in King's novella, Ur
, published for Amazon
's Kindle
in 2009. There are also clear references to the Dark Tower and the Rose.
When Bobby first sees the low men, he is reminded of the fictional film The Regulators, which is prominent in the Richard Bachman
novel of the same name
. In the Dark Tower novel Wolves of the Calla
, Pere Callahan refers to female Low Men as "Regulators".
In Hearts in Atlantis, the proctor of Pete Riley's dorm is named David Dearborn. He shares his last name with Will Dearborn, the alias Roland Deschain used in his adventures in Hambry featured in the The Wizard and Glass and the Dark Tower prequel comics. Dearborn is also the surnname of Sander "Sandy" Dearborn, one of the protagonists of From A Buick 8
.
Novella
A novella is a written, fictional, prose narrative usually longer than a novelette but shorter than a novel. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Nebula Awards for science fiction define the novella as having a word count between 17,500 and 40,000...
s and three short stories
Short story
A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...
by Stephen King
Stephen King
Stephen Edwin King is an American author of contemporary horror, suspense, science fiction and fantasy fiction. His books have sold more than 350 million copies and have been adapted into a number of feature films, television movies and comic books...
, all connected to one another by recurring character
Recurring character
A recurring character is a fictional character, usually in a prime time TV series, who appears from time to time during the series' run. Recurring characters often play major roles in an episode, sometimes being the main focus...
s and taking place in roughly chronological order.
The stories are about the baby boomer
Baby boomer
A baby boomer is a person who was born during the demographic Post-World War II baby boom and who grew up during the period between 1946 and 1964. The term "baby boomer" is sometimes used in a cultural context. Therefore, it is impossible to achieve broad consensus of a precise definition, even...
generation, specifically King's view that this generation (to which he belongs) failed to live up to its promise and ideals. Significantly, the opening epigraph of the collection is the Peter Fonda
Peter Fonda
Peter Henry Fonda is an American actor. He is the son of Henry Fonda, brother of Jane Fonda, and father of Bridget and Justin Fonda...
line from the end of Easy Rider
Easy Rider
Easy Rider is a 1969 American road movie written by Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, and Terry Southern, produced by Fonda and directed by Hopper. It tells the story of two bikers who travel through the American Southwest and South with the aim of achieving freedom...
: "We blew it." All of the stories are about baby boomers, and in all of them the members of that generation fail profoundly, or are paying the costs of some profound failure on their part.
Low Men in Yellow Coats
The first and longest part, "Low Men in Yellow Coats", takes place in 1960 and revolves around a young boy, Bobby Garfield. He lives in Harwich, ConnecticutConnecticut
Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...
with his self-centered mother, Liz, a widow. He really wants a bicycle, but Liz claims they do not have the money for a bike, despite her constant purchases of new clothing. For his eleventh birthday, Bobby's mother gives him a birthday card containing an adult library card. During this time, Bobby doesn't realize that his mother is being forced into having an affair with her boss, Don Biderman. Bobby spends his time with his two best friends, John "Sully" Sullivan and Carol Gerber.
An older gentleman named Ted Brautigan moves into the apartment on the 3rd floor, two floors above Bobby and his mother. It is obvious from the start that she doesn't like Ted, but Bobby does. Ted spends a lot of time discussing books with Bobby and gives him Lord of the Flies
Lord of the Flies
Lord of the Flies is a novel by Nobel Prize-winning author William Golding about a group of British boys stuck on a deserted island who try to govern themselves, with disastrous results...
, which makes a huge impression on the boy. Liz claims to be worried that Ted might be sexually abusing
Child sexual abuse
Child sexual abuse is a form of child abuse in which an adult or older adolescent uses a child for sexual stimulation. Forms of child sexual abuse include asking or pressuring a child to engage in sexual activities , indecent exposure with intent to gratify their own sexual desires or to...
Bobby, though in fact she feels guilty about neglecting her son. Bobby, understanding the situation but unable to articulate it, solves the problem by keeping the two apart.
Ted speaks to Bobby as one would speak to another adult, which makes a great impression on Bobby. Ted offers Bobby a small amount of money to read him the paper daily, claiming his eyes are not what they used to be. Bobby witnesses Ted "blanking out" several times, and realizes that he possesses psychic
Psychic
A psychic is a person who professes an ability to perceive information hidden from the normal senses through extrasensory perception , or is said by others to have such abilities. It is also used to describe theatrical performers who use techniques such as prestidigitation, cold reading, and hot...
abilities, which he is able to pass on to others by coming into physical contact with them. Ted places his hands on Bobby's shoulders one morning and later on that day, Bobby wins a three card monte game at the beach because he could read the card dealer's mind. As the two grow closer, Ted confesses to Bobby that he is being stalked by "low men"—the can-toi
Can-toi
The Can-Toi are fictional creatures from Stephen King's Dark Tower series and related works. They are unofficially but more commonly known as low men, as in Low Men in Yellow Coats due to their often garish yellow clothing...
, evil servants of King's recurring villain, The Crimson King. The signs of these men include "lost pet" signs and chalk drawings of stars and moons. Ted asks Bobby to keep an eye out for their signs and to let him know when they are near. It is revealed (although it is only understandable to readers of King's other works) that Ted is in some way connected to the Dark Tower
The Dark Tower (series)
The Dark Tower is a series of books written by American author Stephen King, which incorporates themes from multiple genres, including fantasy, science fantasy, horror and western. It describes a "Gunslinger" and his quest toward a tower, the nature of which is both physical and metaphorical. King...
. He is hiding in Bobby's town as a means of escaping the struggle revolving around it. Ted makes occasional references to both the tower and its beams, including the field of roses in which it is situated.
Bobby does begin to see the signs but doesn't say anything to Ted because he is afraid of losing his new friend. One day, he finds Carol lying in a grove of trees with a severely injured arm. She tells him that two bullies, Richie O'Meara and Willie Shearman, held her down while a third, Harry Doolin, beat her badly with a baseball bat. He carries her back to his apartment house, where Ted is waiting. They go inside the Garfields' apartment, and Ted has to cut off Carol's blouse to reset her arm, which turns out to be dislocated but not broken. Just as he manages to reset her arm, Liz, also looking badly injured, enters the apartment. It turns out that her employer and colleagues invited her to a supposed real estate seminar, which was an excuse for them to take advantage of her, something that Bobby dreamed of and Ted was able to describe to her due to his psychic abilities. Seeing Carol on Ted's lap, sporting a naked torso
Torso
Trunk or torso is an anatomical term for the central part of the many animal bodies from which extend the neck and limbs. The trunk includes the thorax and abdomen.-Major organs:...
, immediately causes her to think Ted has been molesting Carol.
Eventually, Liz calms down, takes Carol home, and decides to sit in the local park to gather her thoughts. Bobby takes a long nap, and when he awakes he finds his mother asleep in her bed, and Ted long gone. Bobby looks into his mother's purse and finds a "lost pet" poster appealing for information on a dog named Brautigan. He realizes that his mother has telephoned the "can-toi" (low-men) and told them of Ted's whereabouts. Bobby eventually catches up to Ted, just as the "low men" are about to take him away. They want to take Bobby with them too, but Ted offers to work for them if they let Bobby go. They give Bobby the final choice and, faced with going with Ted, wherever that may be, or staying behind, Bobby chooses to stay.
The remainder of the story details, in brief, Bobby's adolescence. He beats up Harry Doolin with a baseball bat, and moves away from Harwich with his mother, and is twice put in a juvenile detention facility. When he arrives home after his second incarceration (at this point it is 1965), he receives a letter from Carol, with another envelope that she tells him is from Ted. Bobby opens the envelope and finds it is full of red rose petals, the ones which surround the Dark Tower, and he knows that somewhere Ted is free of the low men once again. He goes to his mother, who seems to have grown prematurely old, and embraces her; she cries because of the mess they have made of their lives, while he encourages her that there is hope for both of them.
Hearts in Atlantis
The next part of the book, Hearts in Atlantis, takes place in 1966 and is narrated by Peter Riley, who has just started at the University of MaineUniversity of Maine
The University of Maine is a public research university located in Orono, Maine, United States. The university was established in 1865 as a land grant college and is referred to as the flagship university of the University of Maine System...
. He has been a good student before, but he is drawn to the interminable card game of Hearts
Hearts (game)
Hearts is an "evasion-type" trick-taking playing card game for four players, although variations can accommodate 3–6 players. The game is also known as The Dirty, Black Lady, Chase the Lady, Crubs, and Black Maria, though any of these may refer to the similar but differently-scored game Black Lady...
that is going on in the common room in the all-male dormitory
Dormitory
A dormitory, often shortened to dorm, in the United States is a residence hall consisting of sleeping quarters or entire buildings primarily providing sleeping and residential quarters for large numbers of people, often boarding school, college or university students...
where he lives. This marathon of Hearts is initiated by Ronnie Malenfant, a young man with poor hygiene and a corrosive personality, but a whiz at the game; ironically, it is a game he plays with Riley that begins "the mad season." The games are frowned upon but allowed by the dorm's floor-proctor, David Dearborn, or the derogatory "Dearie" to the dorm boys.
The story explores how the university of the 1960s was an "Atlantis", an imaginary kingdom isolated from the troubles of the world. The young men are avoiding serving in the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
as a result of their student draft deferments. However, as more and more of the students become addicted to playing Hearts, their grades begin to suffer and they are putting themselves at risk of losing their deferment.
Peter Riley quickly falls behind in his studies, but even though he knows he might flunk out, he is unable to stop himself. Meanwhile, he meets Carol Gerber, Bobby Garfield's friend and childhood sweetheart
Puppy love
Puppy love is an informal term for feelings of love or infatuation felt by young people during childhood and adolescence, so-called for its resemblance to the adoring, worshipful affection that may be felt by a puppy. 'Simple infatuation is often called a "crush" or "puppy love"...
from Low Men in Yellow Coats. Peter Riley falls in love with her, and with her help tries to cure himself of the addiction to Hearts. However, he is too self-involved and therefore unaware that Carol herself has become caught up in an escapist addiction of her own: student activism, her own attempt to pay tribute to her friendship with Bobby Garfield and a call to action to stop the war. Stokely "Stoke" Jones, a firebrand activist who cannot get around without crutches, introduces the "peace sign" to Peter and his friend, Stanley "Skip" Kirk, by displaying it on the back of his jacket. As Peter Riley and his friends' self-destructive addiction to Hearts continues, the Vietnam War grows closer, and signs of defiance appear in the hearts and minds of the students, even in Riley's room-mate, a shy pre-dent student struggling with doing what he feels is right and just or disappointing his parents.
One event catalyzes the resistance to the war, when a message spray-painted on a campus wall contains a (then-scandalous) suggestion to "FUCK JOHNSON" and a call for the U.S. to leave Vietnam. It is flanked by peace signs, which draw the attention towards Jones, who is apparently trying to wake up the students to the atrocity of the war. Riley and his compatriots in the dorm, which has been suffering a rash of student failures and withdrawals due to failing grades (by this time, he says, they were "majoring in Hearts") and Riley is taken by surprise when Carol announces she will be leaving school. She explains by telling him about Bobby, what he did for her, and that her decisions are forever influenced by what Bobby did for her. She and Riley make love for the first time in his car, and she leaves the next day, leaving a note describing why she did what she did, and that what happened the previous night was special for her...and a warning: "Get out of that card game." He reads the note, then breaks down; despite Carol's firm belief that "hearts don't break...they only bend," Peter wonders about the hearts of those who were still protected in innocence: "What about hearts in Atlantis?"
After Thanksgiving break (where Peter consciously joins the anti-war movement by drawing the peace sign on the back of his high school jacket), Peter tries to pull himself away from the Hearts games already starting by returning students, but is roped in by Ronnie, and loses himself in the games as he did before. As the games continue, a massive thunderstorm approaches the campus and soon freezing rain and hail descend. As Peter plays a game where he holds an apparently superior hand and intends to sink Ronnie once and for all, Jones is spotted on the commons by one of the players, and soon all the players watch as he tries to make his way across the rain-slickened walk. As they watch, then begin to poke fun at Jones' seemingly self-destructive charge, cheering him on, and suddenly Peter hears Carol in his head about the boys that beat her up...about how they were laughing as they did it. Even with this, he can't stop himself: "Man, we just couldn't stop laughing."
Then Stoke Jones loses his balance and falls, landing in the ice-cold water, and the groups of boys, still inexplicably laughing, head down to pull him out and take him to the infirmary, where he is held for observation. They come together and Skip talks to them about a plan he has.
Afterward, Skip and Peter head back to the dorm, wondering how it happened, how they had devolved into that savage laughter; when Peter mentions he dreamed about being the hero, Skip replies, "Who ever dreams about being part of the lynch mob?" When they return to the dorm, students are cleaning up and getting ready to play again. Ronnie taunts Peter, but Peter is cured of Hearts-mania and turns him down, resolving to salvage what is left of the term and hold on to his work-study scholarship.
Shortly afterward, a meeting is called by Dearborn, where the dean and a school official are present. Dearborn begins by leveling charges against Stoke Jones for the graffiti. However, Skip (who had expected this meeting) derails Dearborn's accusations by saying that he himself had been wearing the peace sign on his own clothing. Then Peter admits to wearing it on his jacket, and the other members of the dorm attest to wearing the same sign themselves and lie about wearing it for most of the semester. Skip ends by suggesting that since Jones is suffering from pneumonia, he would not be a credible source. The two school officials leave after the Dean tells them what Peter calls an epitaph of their age: "You fellows have disappointed me." Dearborn, disgraced, leaves the dorm and joins a fraternity, his credibility lost.
He and Skip pass, but barely (he wonders if his professors were lenient on him because they might feel responsible if he got drafted and subsequently killed in Vietnam) and then Peter receives a package from Carol. It contains a copy of Lord of the Flies by William Golding, and a newspaper article of a protest she participated; it foreshadows the activist group she eventually gets involved in that results in terrorism
Terrorism
Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion. In the international community, however, terrorism has no universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition...
with which she takes part in bloody demonstrations.
Ronnie flunks out and is subsequently drafted.
At the end of the novella, Peter reunites with Skip when they are adults. Skip has become a well-known if controversial artist, and they reminisce about how they had such great ideals, and how they failed to live up to those ideals. Skip consoles him with the fervent, "We TRIED."
Blind Willie
Blind Willie is about a VietnamVietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
veteran's penance after the war. The main character in this story is Willie Shearman, and the story takes place over a single day in December 1983. At first we see him commuting from Connecticut to New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
like any normal businessman; we then discover that he elaborately disguises himself as a blind
Blindness
Blindness is the condition of lacking visual perception due to physiological or neurological factors.Various scales have been developed to describe the extent of vision loss and define blindness...
beggar. It is not an act, however, as he appears to have a somatoform disorder
Somatoform disorder
In psychology, a somatoform disorder is a mental disorder characterized by physical symptoms that suggest physical illness or injury - symptoms that cannot be explained fully by a general medical condition, direct effect of a substance, or attributable to another mental disorder . The symptoms that...
and becomes blind every afternoon at the time of day he was caught in a firefight and temporarily blinded. We also learn that he was in combat with John Sullivan and Ronnie Malenfant, and saved Sullivan's life; and that Willie keeps a scrapbook about Carol Gerber. He has never forgotten the day that she was beaten up by Harry Doolin while he and Richie O'Meara held her down, and views his blindness as a form of penance
Penance
Penance is repentance of sins as well as the proper name of the Roman Catholic, Orthodox Christian, and Anglican Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation/Confession. It also plays a part in non-sacramental confession among Lutherans and other Protestants...
.
Why We're in Vietnam
Why We're in Vietnam describes a reunion of two veterans, one being John Sullivan, at the funeral of a third and recounts an incident that almost escalated into a My Lai MassacreMy Lai Massacre
The My Lai Massacre was the Vietnam War mass murder of 347–504 unarmed civilians in South Vietnam on March 16, 1968, by United States Army soldiers of "Charlie" Company of 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, 11th Brigade of the Americal Division. Most of the victims were women, children , and...
involving a former student and player in the Hearts game in Hearts In Atlantis, Ronnie Malenfant. Throughout the story, Sullivan sees an old Vietnamese
Vietnamese people
The Vietnamese people are an ethnic group originating from present-day northern Vietnam and southern China. They are the majority ethnic group of Vietnam, comprising 86% of the population as of the 1999 census, and are officially known as Kinh to distinguish them from other ethnic groups in Vietnam...
woman, "mama-san
Mama-san
A "mama-san", or "mamasan" is usually a woman in a position of authority, especially one in charge of a geisha house or bar in Japan and East Asia....
", whom Ronnie killed during this incident. In the end Sullivan dies of an apparent heart attack during a traffic jam on the way home.
The title is a reference to Norman Mailer's
Norman Mailer
Norman Kingsley Mailer was an American novelist, journalist, essayist, poet, playwright, screenwriter, and film director.Along with Truman Capote, Joan Didion, Hunter S...
Why Are We in Vietnam?
Why Are We in Vietnam?
Why Are We In Vietnam? is a 1967 novel written by the American author Norman Mailer. The action focuses on a hunting trip to the Brooks Range in Alaska where a young man is brought by his father, a wealthy businessman who works for a company that makes cigarette filters and is obsessed with killing...
(1967), a novel about a hunting trip to Alaska
Alaska
Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...
narrated by a young man about to go fight in Vietnam.
Heavenly Shades of Night are Falling
In Heavenly Shades of Night are Falling, Bobby Garfield returns to his hometown after almost 40 years to attend John Sullivan's funeral, and finds closure to his relationships with Carol Gerber and Ted Brautigan.Reception
Charles de LintCharles de Lint
Charles de Lint is a Canadian fantasy author and folk musician. He is also the chief book critic for The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction....
praised Hearts in Atlantis as "the Great American Baby Boomer Novel," saying that "when he's at the top of his form, as he certainly is here, he [King] can be as provocative and inspired as
Film adaptation
"Low Men in Yellow Coats" and "Heavenly Shades of Night are Falling" formed the basis of a 2001 film entitled Hearts in AtlantisHearts in Atlantis (film)
Hearts in Atlantis is a 2001 American/Australian drama thriller directed by Scott Hicks. It is loosely adapted from Stephen King's novella "Low Men in Yellow Coats", from his story collection Hearts in Atlantis.-Plot:...
, starring Anthony Hopkins
Anthony Hopkins
Sir Philip Anthony Hopkins, KBE , best known as Anthony Hopkins, is a Welsh actor of film, stage and television...
as Ted Brautigan, Anton Yelchin
Anton Yelchin
Anton Viktorovich Yelchin is an American film and television actor. He began performing in the late 1990s, appearing in several television roles, as well as the Hollywood films Along Came a Spider and Hearts in Atlantis...
as Bobby Garfield and Hope Davis
Hope Davis
Hope Davis is an American actress. She has starred in more than 20 feature films, including About Schmidt, Arlington Road, Flatliners, Mumford, American Splendor, The Lodger and Next Stop Wonderland....
as Liz Garfield. Major story elements are common to the film and the story, but many of the details were changed. In addition, all the references to the Dark Tower
The Dark Tower (series)
The Dark Tower is a series of books written by American author Stephen King, which incorporates themes from multiple genres, including fantasy, science fantasy, horror and western. It describes a "Gunslinger" and his quest toward a tower, the nature of which is both physical and metaphorical. King...
were removed and the final destinies of the characters, revealed in the latter stories of the original novel, are not included. A further consequence of the changes is that the title of the film is completely impenetrable to those not familiar with the novel; a snatch of dialogue attempts to remedy this. Ted remarks of childhood being a lost city like Atlantis.
Connection to King's other works
Insofar as The Dark Tower series'The Dark Tower (series)
The Dark Tower is a series of books written by American author Stephen King, which incorporates themes from multiple genres, including fantasy, science fantasy, horror and western. It describes a "Gunslinger" and his quest toward a tower, the nature of which is both physical and metaphorical. King...
overall plot is concerned, it is revealed in the seventh book that Ted is essential to the Crimson King
Crimson King
The Crimson King, also commonly known as Los', is a fictional character created by Stephen King. He is the antagonist in the novel Insomnia the main villain due to a plot twist in Black House and one of the main villains in the latter half of Stephen King's Dark Tower series.-Fictional...
's quest to break the beams that hold the Dark Tower up, in turn, holding the universe
Universe
The Universe is commonly defined as the totality of everything that exists, including all matter and energy, the planets, stars, galaxies, and the contents of intergalactic space. Definitions and usage vary and similar terms include the cosmos, the world and nature...
together. Roses are repeatedly mentioned in the Dark Tower novels.
Carol's reference to a man teaching her how to be "dim", and taking in "confused, angry kids," is an implied reference to Randall Flagg
Randall Flagg
Randall Flagg is a fictional character created by Stephen King. Flagg has appeared in seven novels by King, sometimes as the main antagonist and others in a brief cameo. He often appears under different names; most are abbreviated by the initials R.F. There are exceptions to this rule; in The Dark...
, the Dark Tower series' main villain. The man's name - "Raymond Fiegler" - follows King's pattern of giving Flagg aliases with the initials "RF". The act of being "dim" is a trait shared by Flagg in The Eyes of the Dragon
The Eyes of the Dragon
The Eyes of the Dragon is a novel by Stephen King published in 1987. Previously, it was published as a limited edition hardcover by Philtrum Press in 1984. The mass-market version had been slightly revised for publication. At the time it was a surprising deviation from the norm for King, who is...
.
When Bobby and Ted encounter a car and sense the low men that have been chasing Ted, Bobby describes feeling "his heart spin as a top did, with its lines rising and disappearing into other worlds. Other worlds than these." In The Gunslinger, Jake Chambers
Jake Chambers
John "Jake" Chambers is a fictional character in Stephen King's The Dark Tower series of novels. He first appeared in the short story "The Way Station" in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in April 1980, which was later compiled as one of the chapters of the first Dark Tower book, The...
says "Go, then, there are other worlds than these" to Roland
Roland Deschain
Roland Deschain of Gilead is a fictional character, the protagonist and antihero of Stephen King's The Dark Tower series. He is the son of Steven and Gabrielle Deschain and is descended from a long line of "gunslingers", peacekeepers and diplomats of Roland's society...
as he falls to his death. The two characters are also roughly the same age, and play similar adopted-son roles in their respective novels. This connection is further explored in the seventh Dark Tower novel.
"Low men" also appear in King's novella, Ur
Ur (novella)
Ur is a novella by Stephen King. It was written exclusively for the platform Amazon Kindle, and became available for download on February 12, 2009. It was later released on audiobook.-Release:King said, speaking about Ur:...
, published for Amazon
Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...
's Kindle
Amazon Kindle
The Amazon Kindle is an e-book reader developed by Amazon.com subsidiary Lab126 which uses wireless connectivity to enable users to shop for, download, browse, and read e-books, newspapers, magazines, blogs, and other digital media...
in 2009. There are also clear references to the Dark Tower and the Rose.
When Bobby first sees the low men, he is reminded of the fictional film The Regulators, which is prominent in the Richard Bachman
Richard Bachman
Richard Bachman is a pseudonym used by horror fiction author Stephen King.-Origin:At the beginning of Stephen King's career, the general view among publishers was such that an author was limited to a book every year, since publishing more would not be acceptable to the public...
novel of the same name
The Regulators
The Regulators is a novel by Stephen King under the pseudonym Richard Bachman. It was published in 1996 at the same time as its "mirror" novel, Desperation. The two novels represent parallel universes relative to one another, and most of the characters present in one novel's world also exist in the...
. In the Dark Tower novel Wolves of the Calla
Wolves of the Calla
Wolves of the Calla is the fifth book in Stephen King's The Dark Tower series. This book continues the story of Roland Deschain, Eddie Dean, Susannah Dean, Jake Chambers, and Oy as they make their way toward the Dark Tower...
, Pere Callahan refers to female Low Men as "Regulators".
In Hearts in Atlantis, the proctor of Pete Riley's dorm is named David Dearborn. He shares his last name with Will Dearborn, the alias Roland Deschain used in his adventures in Hambry featured in the The Wizard and Glass and the Dark Tower prequel comics. Dearborn is also the surnname of Sander "Sandy" Dearborn, one of the protagonists of From A Buick 8
From a Buick 8
From a Buick 8 is a novel by horror writer Stephen King. Published on September 24, 2002, this is the second novel by Stephen King to feature a supernatural car...
.
Editions
- ISBN 0-684-85351-5 (hardcoverHardcoverA hardcover, hardback or hardbound is a book bound with rigid protective covers...
, 1999) - ISBN 0-7838-8737-X (hardcover, 1999, Large Type Edition)
- ISBN 0-684-84490-7 (e-bookE-bookAn electronic book is a book-length publication in digital form, consisting of text, images, or both, and produced on, published through, and readable on computers or other electronic devices. Sometimes the equivalent of a conventional printed book, e-books can also be born digital...
, 1999) - ISBN 0-606-19496-7 (preboundPreboundA prebound book is a book that was previously bound and has been rebound with a library quality hardcover binding. In almost all commercial cases, the book in question began as a paperback version.An alternate term is "Library Hardcover Paperback"....
, 2000) - ISBN 0-671-04214-9 (hardcover, 2000, reprint)
- ISBN 0-671-02424-8 (paperbackPaperbackPaperback, softback or softcover describe and refer to a book by the nature of its binding. The covers of such books are usually made of paper or paperboard, and are usually held together with glue rather than stitches or staples...
, 2000, reprint) - ISBN 0-7838-8738-8 (paperback, 2000, Large Type Edition)
- ISBN 0-7435-0987-0 (CDCompact DiscThe Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...
with paperback, 2001) - ISBN 1-59061-258-2 (e-book, 2001)