Strawberry Spring

Much of King’s work relies on the trope of an adult or group of adults finding catharsis by reflecting on their traumatic childhoods. From Bill Denbrough, who returns to Derry, Maine to reunite with his friends in the 1986 novel It, to 90-year-old Gary in the 1994 short story “The Man in the Black Suit,” who writes about his mysterious childhood meeting with the devil, King’s characters often journey back into a disturbing past to make sense of the present.

A newspaper article about Springheel Jack prompts the narrator of “Strawberry Spring” to recount his experience during 1968 when the first murders took place. His journey into the past leads him to the realization that he is (perhaps) the murderer, responsible for the four murders eight years prior and the fifth murder the previous night.

In the horror genre, the past is often the source of evils that haunt the present. “Strawberry Spring” is not a ghost story, but the narrator is haunted by his past. Even if he committed the murders while in a dissociative state, as the text implies, the newspaper article unlocks a memory that compels the narrator to face the horror of his actions.