By Wayne C. Rogers
Scribner, Hardcover, 2013, $26.00, 419pp
This is rather late coming out, but better late than never as the old saying goes.
First, let’s get the five-hundred-pound gorilla off of our shoulders. The author of Double Feature, Owen King, is one of Steve King’s children. Owen, however, has chosen to write in the field of literary fiction for the time being while his brother, Joe Hill, works in the horror genre. I say “literary fiction” because Double Feature is certainly a literary novel and rivals the early works of John Irving, who’s another New England author.
Second, allow me to add that every person who reads this novel will experience different emotions and certainly identify with the main characters in various ways. Most of it will be centered on our early childhood and how we related to our parents, especially our father. In my case, I never knew my father. My parents divorced when I was a child. I remember meeting him twice during my teenage years. Beyond that, nothing. My step-father, however, is another case. He clothed and fed the family and put a roof over our heads. Except for those few things, he was a nightmare to live with, and we all breathed a deep sigh of relief whenever he went overseas on an assignment for his job. Even though I hated the man, it was I who ended up sitting with him day and night when he was dying of cancer back in the States after my mother had divorced him.
What I got from reading Double Feature was a strong sense of forgiveness and a deeper understanding about people and how very different they are from one another. Each individual can only be as kind and good as he is in any given moment. To expect the person to live up to your expectations is to invite sheer folly into your life. It’s not going to happen, and you’re going to be a very disappointed individual. That doesn’t take away the meaning and affect of the other person’s actions. He has to take responsibility for those and own up to them. In a sense, this is what Double Feature is about—a young man learning to forgive his father and to accept the man for who he actually is as a human being.
As I said, the theme of Double Feature is a simple, yet complex one. It deals with the father/son relationship between former B-list Hollywood actor, Booth Dolan, and his son, Sam, and how things are eventually resolved.
Sam, during his early years, never cared for Booth. His father was seldom home, and when he was, he seemed to always be performing for the family and their guests. Booth was never his true self, or maybe he was. When Sam’s mother, Allie, died of an unexpected heart attack, the gulf between father and son grew wider with both of them not knowing what to say whenever their paths crossed.
During Sam’s final year in college, he writes and directs a short film called Who We Are. Sam puts every dime he can find into the movie, not to mention his blood and sweat. He manages to snag a well-known actor, Rick Savini, for a minor role, offering him union scale for the work. Everything goes according to plan, until Sam reaches the editing stage. That’s when his Assistant Director, Brooks Hartwig, the student who supplied most of the money to make the movie, steals it and re-edits the entire film to his own twisted satisfaction. Brooks adds the college janitor to the film. Unfortunately, the man is dressed up like a satyr with his huge penis exposed, and he moves silently around the forest, humping trees and looking as though he’s lost in some very serious thought.
When Sam is finally able to rescue his film, he discovers what was done to it, comprehending that he and the movie are totally dead in the water. Everything he dreamed about is now nothing more than a fading memory. Sam then drops out of school without getting his degree and attempts to get on with life.
Shoot ahead a few years, and we find Sam filming marriages for newlyweds as a living. It’s at one of these events he meets a lady named Tess. As much as he’s attracted to the girl, he’s more terrified of a relationship and having to be honest. He quickly disappears and heads out to see his father, Booth, who supposedly is near death, according to Mina, Sam’s half sister. Of course, this is when the circle of life comes back full circle. It’s time for Sam to grow up and to learn tolerance, especially for his father. There’s also the matter of accepting his film for what it is. It’s actually become a cult classic over the years, making Sam more famous than he’s aware of.
Many readers and critics have added a double meaning to the storyline of Double Feature, implying that Owen King is discussing his actual relationship with his own father. I disagree. After having read this provocative book, I feel Owen is simply telling a story as most authors do, choosing to probe into the hidden dynamics of a father/son relationship. I doubt that it has anything to do with his life, though authors do tend to write about what they know.
I can say that Double Feature is brilliantly written with prose that resonates clearly in one’s mind, bringing to life each character as though they really existed. The storyline is subtle as it follows the journey of Sam Dolan from that of a young man to a more serious adult who’s finally beginning to grasp what life is about. This is a path people follow from birth to death, constantly learning more about themselves and those around them. Little in life is black and white, but rather different shapes of grey with no clear-cut answers to the questions we often ask ourselves. Owen King seems to understand this as his characters evolve to a larger degree of maturity, accepting that few things appear as we would like them to be and that the only thing to be done is to shift with the wind. Life is seldom easy for anyone and such is the case with Sam Dolan. This is the story of his awakening and the complete acceptance of his dad, Booth.
Owen King’s first novel hits the bull’s eye with its rendition of life and what we go through as we seek to control the events around us, ultimately coming to the conclusion that nothing can be controlled. Life is like water as it slips through one’s fingers.
I certainly look forward to Owen King’s second novel, wondering what the next journey will be and where it will take the reader. This is a writer who intuitively reveals the human essence in the disguise of a great piece of fiction.
