From a Buick 8

Background

In March 1999, while driving from Florida back to Maine, King stopped at a gas station. He slipped on ice in the bathroom area, fell down a bank, and nearly tumbled into a fast-moving stream. That near-miss became the gas-station scene in From a Buick 8, and he worked out the rest of the plot during the drive home. He wrote the first draft in two months, but a car hit him that June, and he set the book aside for two years. Once he recovered, he finished it. Because rumors of his retirement were circulating, and because the story followed his own brush with death and the September 11 attacks, readers often interpret the novel as a way of wrestling with senseless tragedy.

Plot

The story is told through the memories of the officers at Troop D, a Pennsylvania State Police post in the western part of the state. When a drunk driver kills Curtis Wilcox, a popular trooper, his son Ned starts coming around the barracks. The staff—cops, dispatcher, and janitor—grow fond of the boy, and when Ned asks about an old car kept in a nearby shed, they share the tale of the Buick 8. That car, a blue 1953 Buick Roadmaster, has sat in storage since 1979, when a strange driver abandoned it at a gas station and vanished.

After examining it, the troopers—including Wilcox—decided it wasn't really a car. It looks like a Buick, with odd details like a mismatched number of portholes, but its steering wheel won't move, the dashboard gauges are fake, the engine lacks any moving parts, the ignition wires lead nowhere, it fixes itself after damage, and dirt never sticks to it. Sandy Dearborn, now the sergeant in charge of Troop D, is the main storyteller, recounting for Ned how Wilcox became obsessed with the vehicle.

From time to time, the car experiences "lightquakes"—long episodes with harsh purple flashes. The shed's temperature shifts during these events. The Buick has also "given birth" to alien plants and animals that quickly die or rot, including a thinking, telepathic being that the troopers killed out of fear and disgust. Two people have vanished near the car: Wilcox's old partner Ennis Rafferty and an escaped convict named Brian Lippy.

The implication is that the Buick might be a doorway to another world. After hearing all this, Ned grows sure the car is tied to his father's death, especially since the drunk driver who killed Wilcox was the same gas station attendant who first reported the Buick back in 1979. Sandy warns Ned not to dwell on it, but one evening, after leaving the boy at the barracks, he realizes Ned plans to destroy the Buick and worries for his safety.

Reception

The book spent one week at Number 1 on the New York Times bestseller list and received a mixed reception. Reviewers were divided on its perceived lack of closure, lack of narrative tension, and focus on everyday characters. Kirkus Reviews criticized its "endless police procedure" and "dull characters," while the New York Times called it "a King novel to read for voice and atmosphere, not plot." Reactor, however, called it "the best Stephen King novel of the last ten years."

Adaptation

In 2005, Chesapeake Films announced that George A. Romero would direct a film adaptation, but production stalled in 2009. In 2018, an adaptation was announced with William Brent Bell as director and writer. In December 2019, Thomas Jane announced he would team up for the adaptation. On an August 2020 episode of The Kingcast podcast, Jane said Jim Mickle had signed on to direct. In 2024, James Wan acquired the rights and began working on the project.