Stephen King’s new novel ruined by ideology, stereotypes, and amorality

Just a decade ago, a reasonable case could be made that, in “some important ways,” famous and best-selling author Stephen King “provides the last bastion of biblical morality in popular fiction.”

Today, having finished reading his newest novel, titled Never Flinch, it appears that King has not only lost whatever faith in God he may once have had, but he has channeled his disillusionment into a book that relentlessly ridicules those of us who believe.

The anticipated novel has a bitter tone and is filled with passages and pages mocking Christians and their core convictions regarding the sanctity of life, the hope of salvation, and the ultimate victory of good over evil. In many ways, King appears to have made politics his new religion. Sadly, when politics replace religion in King‘s narrative, the art loses its soul, diluting the depth and nuance that once captivated those of us who have long enjoyed his books.

Abandoning any attempt to explore universal truths, King has penned a rigid polemic that feels more like a woke manifesto than a journey through the human experience. And, in elevating ideological purity over a compelling narrative, King creates caricatures instead of characters.

Readers are first introduced to “Trig,” a deranged serial killer on a quest to kill “13 innocent individuals and one guilty” to avenge the death of a man who was framed for a crime he didn’t commit. Trig shows no remorse about the deaths of the innocent, but readers are reminded of the depravity of the serial murderer who keeps a photo of himself with Vice-President JD Vance prominently displayed on his office wall, and listens to “right-wing” radio commentator Glenn Beck each day when he eats his lunch.

In his public life, King has always been quite open about his progressive politics. But it is not until this latest novel that his deep disdain for those who do not share his politics has bled so deeply into the narrative. King’s politics have adopted the characteristics of dogma—rigid and unyielding beliefs that demand unquestioning loyalty. His notable ability to construct strong narratives is undermined by a narrowing of perspectives and the elevation of ideological purity over what was once compelling storytelling. Even his characters’ dialogue has been stifled as the pursuit of truth and justice is overshadowed by the need to maintain ideological conformity.

Not content to have a single deranged right-wing serial murderer, the novel introduces a second, deranged fundamentalist psycho named Christopher Stewart, who is an anti-abortion zealot from a Church called Real Christ Holy Church. Christopher, who sometimes calls himself Chrissy, is being controlled by an evil Pastor Jim (who carries a sign that celebrates the murder of an abortion provider and claims that the hero who killed the abortionist was “sent to do God’s work”), and the equally murderous Deacon Andy, who is encouraging Chris to assassinate Kate McKay, an attractive and charismatic women’s rights activist.

Not surprisingly, in King’s world, McKay, who is embarking on a multi-state lecture tour to protest the Dobbs decision and advocate for abortion, is the most attractive character in the book. McKay draws packed venues of fans, as well as some small groups of obnoxious, loud-mouthed, unattractive pro-life protestors and hecklers. King provides McKay with a barrage of tiresome pro-choice cliches and long sermons throughout, focused on the importance of protecting a woman’s right to choose abortion.

In portraying the pro-abortion McKay as someone beautiful, competent, and captivating, King apparently intends to present her as someone readers will want to emulate. King writes, “When Kate walks onstage—no, struts—most of the audience rises to its feet cheering and applauding.” She then smiles and asks:

“Who makes the laws here in Nebraska? I’m thinking of that question as regards the Dobbs decision, which kicked abortion legislation back to the states. In Nebraska, the cut-off is twelve weeks. Seventy-two percent of the legislators who made that law are men, who have never had to decide whether to terminate a pregnancy.

And when a loathsome pro-lifer in the audience shouts “God’s law!”, she responds: “I didn’t know God had been elected to the Nebraska Legislature.”

In King’s world, the progressives are all perfect, attractive, and engaging, while those whose politics King disagrees with are all ugly losers. Like caricatures from the 1950s, the female pro-life protestors have heavily hair-sprayed bouffant hairdos and hateful rhetoric.

The hunger for horror novels has helped King remain at the top of the best-seller lists for decades. Although the demons may have won a few of the battles in his books, King used to offer reassurance that the demons will never win the war because they don’t pose a real threat to the power of God Himself. Such reassurances are missing in Never Flinch. And his most recent posts on X seem to reject the presence of evil even in the most malevolent of men. Describing the murderous rampage in Minnesota last week by the wicked Vance Boelter, King refused to call the act evil and instead, blamed mental illness and access to guns for the nightmare that this demonic man perpetrated on lawmakers:

Vance Boelter is clearly as nutty as a fruitcake. The real culprit is the gun he used. They’re everywhere, and it’s years too late to put that genie back in the bottle. Nuts are gonna’ do nutty, violent things, and guns are easily obtainable.

In Danse Macabre, King’s 1981 non-fiction analysis of the role that the horror story plays in our everyday lives, he suggests that “horror is innately conservative, even reactionary.” He believed that we are attracted to horror because we need to reestablish our feelings of essential normality. It is likely that readers—including many Christian readers like myself—have been drawn to King’s tales of horror because he was among the last popular fiction writers willing to acknowledge that evil exists. And that even in our therapeutic society, which has redefined badness into “illness”, evil results from an act of the free and conscious will. This is a truth long understood by Christians, though Stephen King now appears to flinch at the very thought of it.

Never Flinch: A Novel
By Stephen King
Scribner, May 2025
Hardcover, 448 pages