Why ‘Big Driver’ is a Stephen King Story You Need to Read
It might not be as famous as The Shining or Misery, but Big Driver is an outstanding Stephen King novella I highly recommend!
The Story
Big Driver is a novella, part of Stephen King’s 2010 collection Full Dark, No Stars, that tells of a female writer who is raped and seeks revenge. The POV is third person omniscient, past tense, mostly from the perspective of the protagonist Tess, but it does go into other heads as well. Tess is a well-known cozy mystery writers who takes a speaking engagement at a Massachusetts library, and afterword, the librarian Ramona tells Tess to take a shortcut back home that will save her time.
But on the backroad, Tess runs over a nail that causes a flat tire, and then she comes face to face with a gargantuan man in a pick-up truck who first acts nice but then knocks her out, and proceeds to beat her and brutally rape her. Tess fakes being dead as the man drops her into a culvert and drives away. Tess manages to get away, but before discovering three other dead women who this man raped and murdered.
She thinks about going to the authorities, but she worries how being a rape victim will play into her success as an author, thinking there might be a backlash…
