But these apparently mild jokes – smearing somebody's bed-linen with mud, for example – will have a domino effect, and the reactions to the these acts will be far more powerful than the initial action itself. That's the deal: you get what you've always wanted – or, as Gaunt would have it, needed – in exchange for some small physical act that will cause somebody else minor distress. Leland Gaunt – being a Very Bad Man, in the King tradition of Very Bad Men – wants tricks to be played on other people who live there. The denizens of Castle Rock can't believe their luck surely there must be a catch? This is Stephen King. The things are cheap, as well well below their actual street value. It's essentially a knick-knack shop that sells one-off items, and – for the customers of the shop – they just so happen to be the exact thing that they've always wanted to buy. In lovely, sunny, not-at-all terrifying Castle Rock, the titular shop is opened by Leland Gaunt. So when King calls a novel Needful Things, you know he's not entering the territory of desire with anything resembling a soft touch. In Misery, Annie's wants – her basic desires – turn nasty when they become needs (as, frankly, do Paul's). In The Shining, Jack wants to write, to look after his family he needs the drink that he's trying to escape from. He's shown that again and again, with characters demonstrating that what they need isn't always the same as what they want. If there's one thing that Stephen King understands above all others – above spider demons and psychic communication lines and psychopathic fans – it's addiction.

Needful things book