| "Cookie Jar" | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Short story by Stephen King | |||
| Country | United States | ||
| Language | English | ||
| Genre(s) | Horror short story | ||
| Publication | |||
| Published in | Virginia Quarterly Review | ||
| Publisher | University of Virginia | ||
| Media type | Print, digital | ||
| Publication date | 2016 | ||
| Chronology | |||
| |||
"Cookie Jar" is a short story by Stephen King, first published in the spring 2016 issue of the Virginia Quarterly Review . [1]
13-year-old Dale Alderson is interviewing his 90-year-old great-grandfather, Barrett "Rhett" Alderson, for a school assignment. After telling Dale about radio programs he listened to before the advent of television, Rhett – suspecting that he only has months to live – decides to tell Dale a story he has never told anyone before.
In 1927, when Rhett is aged two, his mother Moira leaves the home she shared with her husband and their three sons, moving into a cottage on the other side of their town. Moira, who has bipolar disorder, mysteriously claims that this is necessary to protect her family. Rhett and his older brother Jack regularly visit Moira in her cottage, where she entertains them, including feeding them cookies from a large blue ceramic cookie jar that is always full.
Over time, Moira's behavior becomes increasingly erratic. She begins drawing an elaborate map on a wall of her cottage which she claims depicts "Lalanka", a country in another world populated by "entities": creatures that want to come to Earth to devour it. Moira tells Jack and Rhett stories about Lalanka, including a war between "Red Henry" and "Black John" in which Black John sets Lalanka's "Long Forest" on fire, and the existence of "Gobbits": monstrous creatures capable of producing a white mist, "forza", that kills small animals. Later, Rhett comes to believe that the stories were a distraction from the thing Moira truly feared: the blue cookie jar.
The visits continue until 1938, when Moira commits suicide. The boys are each permitted to take one item from her cottage as a memento, with Rhett taking the cookie jar. Rhett and Jack begin eating cookies every night to remember their mother, realizing after several days that the jar is inexplicably still full of fresh cookies. On one occasion, Rhett begins trying to empty the cookie jar, but gives up when it begins to refill; while replacing cookies in the jar, he notices that his watch stops when inside the jar.
Following the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the three brothers all enlist in the military, with Jack dying when his fighter plane is shot down during the Battle of Iwo Jima. Rhett participates in the Battle of Normandy, the liberation of France and the Western Allied invasion of Germany. In April 1945, he participates in the liberation of the Buchenwald and Dachau concentration camps, where the horrific sights he witnesses make him remember his mother's description of Lalanka. Rhett draws parallels between "Black John" and Adolf Hitler.
After returning from Europe, Rhett began working as an auto mechanic. In March 1946, he retrieves the still-full cookie jar from the attic of his father's home and finally empties it. When Rhett looks at the bottom of the empty jar, he sees an aerial view of what he recognizes as Lalanka. Rhett sees the burned remains of the Long Forest, a thick mist of forza, and a pedlar who is attacked by two Gobbits. Horrified by the sight, Rhett drops the cookie jar, which eventually refills once more.
Dale asks Rhett what became of the cookie jar; Rhett tells him that it is in the attic of Dale's uncle Bill's house. Rhett gifts the jar to Dale, telling him to be careful. Although Dale promises he will, Rhett privately suspects that Dale will himself empty the jar and look into it, reflecting that "in the end we all prefer the bitter to the sweet. It's our curse." [1]
"Cookie Jar" was initially published in the spring 2016 issue of the Virginia Quarterly Review . It was included in the paperback edition of King's short story collection The Bazaar of Bad Dreams , released in October 2016. [2]
Justin Hamelin of Tom Holland's Terror Time wrote that "King continues to age like a fine wine as a writer", describing Rhett as "as enthralling as any of King's characters". [3] James Arthur Anderson describes "Cookie Jar" as "more literary than King's other fiction" and "an excellent story". [4] Stephen J. Spignesi notes that Cookie Jar" shares a similar framing device as Blockade Billy and The Green Mile , with "a retired senior citizen recounting an epic story from his past". [2]
An abridged radio adaptation of "Cookie Jar" was broadcast in three parts by BBC Radio 4 in October 2016 as part of its Fright Night Shorts series. [5]
Stephen Edwin King is an American author. Called the "King of Horror", he has also explored other genres, among them suspense, crime, science-fiction, fantasy and mystery. Though known primarily for his novels, he has written approximately 200 short stories, most of which have been published in collections.
The Shining is a 1977 horror novel by American author Stephen King. It is King's third published novel and first hardcover bestseller; its success firmly established King as a preeminent author in the horror genre. The setting and characters are influenced by King's personal experiences, including both his visit to The Stanley Hotel in 1974 and his struggle with alcoholism. The novel was adapted into a 1980 film and a 1997 miniseries. The book was followed by a sequel, Doctor Sleep, published in 2013, which in turn was adapted into a film of the same name in 2019.
There have been many books published about Stephen King and his works.
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The Trollenberg Terror is a 1958 British science fiction horror film produced by Robert S. Baker and Monty Berman and directed by Quentin Lawrence. The film stars Forrest Tucker, Laurence Payne, Janet Munro, and Jennifer Jayne. The special effects are by Les Bowie. The story is based on a 1956 British ITV "Saturday Serial" television programme written by George F. Kerr, Jack Cross and Giles Cooper under the collective pseudonym of "Peter Key". The film was released as The Crawling Eye in the United States on 7 July 1958 by Distributors Corporation of America and as The Trollenberg Terror in the United Kingdom in October 1958 by Eros Films. It played on a double bill with the British science fiction film The Strange World of Planet X, retitled Cosmic Monsters for its American release.
Forza is a series of racing video games with two main sub-series: Forza Motorsport and Forza Horizon.
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Dennis William Etchison was an American writer and editor of fantasy and horror fiction. Etchison referred to his own work as "rather dark, depressing, almost pathologically inward fiction about the individual in relation to the world". Stephen King has called Dennis Etchison "one hell of a fiction writer" and he has been called "the most original living horror writer in America".
Daniel Anthony Torrance, also known as Doctor Sleep, is a fictional character who first appears in the 1977 novel The Shining by Stephen King as a child with psychic powers called "the shining". His parents are father Jack Torrance and mother Wendy Torrance. The character was portrayed in the 1980 film adaptation The Shining by Danny Lloyd and by Courtland Mead in the 1997 television miniseries The Shining.
According to books by Tyson Blue, Stephen J. Spignesi, and Rocky Wood et al., there are numerous unpublished works by Stephen King that have come to light throughout King's career. These allegedly include novels and short stories, most of which remain unfinished. Most are stored among Stephen King's papers in the special collections of the Raymond H. Fogler Library at the University of Maine, some of which are freely accessible to the library's visitors. However, others require King's permission to read. Additionally, there are a number of uncollected short stories, published throughout King's long career in various anthologies and periodicals, that have never been published in a King collection.
The Bazaar of Bad Dreams is a short fiction collection by Stephen King, published on November 3, 2015. This is King's sixth collection of short stories and his tenth collection overall. One of the stories, "Obits", won the 2016 Edgar Award for best short story, and the collection itself won the 2015 Shirley Jackson Award for best collection. The paperback edition, released on October 18, 2016, includes a bonus short story, "Cookie Jar", which was published in 2016 in VQR.
Dale Frederick Bailey is an American author of speculative fiction, including science fiction, fantasy and horror, active in the field since 1993. He writes as Dale Bailey.
"Laurie" is a short story by Stephen King, first published as a free download on his website on May 17, 2018. It was collected in King's 2024 book, You Like It Darker.
"The Turbulence Expert" is a short story by Stephen King, first published in the 2018 horror anthology Flight or Fright. It was collected in King's 2024 collection You Like It Darker.
"The Night of the Tiger" is a short story by Stephen King. Originally written in the 1960s, it was first published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in February 1978.
"The Little Green God of Agony" is a short story by Stephen King. It was originally published in 2011 as part of the anthology A Book of Horrors.
"I Was a Teenage Grave Robber" is a short story by Stephen King. It was first published in the fanzine Comics Review in 1965; a rewritten version was published in 1966 under the title "In a Half-World of Terror". It was King's first independently published story.
"Pinfall" is an unpublished short story/film treatment by Stephen King and George A. Romero. It was originally written by King as a segment for the 1987 anthology film Creepshow 2, with Romero developing it into a script in 1984, but was never filmed. In 2016, a comic book adaptation of the story was produced by Jason Mayoh.
People, Places and Things is a short story collection by Chris Chesley and Stephen King, self-published in 1960.
