Philippa Pride on Stephen King's Holly Gibney

On Thursday 3 August at 7pm GMT, I joined an audience from around the world for the premiere of Stephen King reading from his new novel Holly, due for release from Hodder & Stoughton on September 5. From the chat boxes, I would see that many who had tuned in were already dedicated followers of King’s ingeniously resourceful detective Holly Gibney. Others were keen to meet her. 

For readers new to King’s work or those who may think of him only as the author of novels like Carrie, It and The Shining and haven’t yet discovered that ‘in recent years Stephen King has earned a place among America’s finest crime writers’ according to The Sunday Express, Holly is a great place to start.  It’s a compelling stand-alone thriller in which the investigator sets out to uncover the gruesome truth behind disappearances in a mid-western town.  For those who are already Holly fans, having read some or all of the books in which she features, here is a welcome chance to reconnect with her and dig deeper into her history. And this month, August 2023, Hodder are reissuing our five previous books featuring Holly Gibney. 

 

So, what is it about Holly? How has she enticed Stephen King to write about her six times, drawn a growing legion of international readers, and attracted two brilliantly talented and distinctive actresses – Cynthia Erivo and Justine Lupe – to play her in different TV adaptations? And what makes her such a first-rate detective?

When we first meet Holly in Mr Mercedes she is somehow on the fringes of society, an outsider of sorts. She’s a relative of one of the killer’s victims, in her forties, hides in shapeless brown clothes and has bitten off most of her lipstick. But inside this anxious rescue whippet lurks a tenacious Jack Russell terrier. My kind of girl! Over the course of Mr Mercedes, Finders Keepers and End of Watch, she works closely with retired detective Bill Hodges and his neighbour Jerome. They increasingly value her skills and realise the traits that make her unique, from her awkward communication style to her obsessive qualities, are also what make her brilliant. While Bill recognises she is someone who would have preferred to swallow ‘drain-cleaner rather than step in front of television cameras and answer questions’, she’s an organisational genius and a computer wizard who ‘plays the keyboard like a Steinway’. And more than this, in spite of her anxiety (or maybe even because of it) she is incredibly resourceful and courageous – willing to put herself in jeopardy in order to prevent danger to others.

One of the treats for me of reading an ongoing character is that with each new book I reunite with a friend – and with Holly there’s huge joy in seeing her growth, because she is someone determined to better herself. We learn early on that she keeps a journal of the books she has read, and a list of films she has watched, including The Godfather Part 2 which she rates more highly than the first film (rather like the author himself!) In King’s second book featuring Bill Hodges and Holly, the two work together in the Finder Keepers detective agency. Bill can see that ‘little tics aside, this Holly Gibney is very different from the one he first met four years ago . . . and the changes are all for the better. Although she’s sneaking the occasional cigarette again.’ She may still be jumpy when people touch her, but under the care of Hodges, Jerome and his family – and diverted from her smothering mother – she has started to blossom, to feel smart and useful.  Even though she pretends not to like their nickname Hollyberry! 

 

Part of what makes Holly such a great detective is that she is so thorough – we will learn in Holly that she had a job as an indexer and can’t walk by a picture without putting it straight. I also find the combination of her fragility and her resilience inspirational – she is not afraid to seek out some of the most terrifying adversaries in fiction: in End of Watch she faces Brady Hartsfield, perpetrator of the ‘Mercedes Massacre’ in his new reign of terror; in The Outsider, she determines to help Detective Anderson figure out how a killer could have been in two places at the same time; and in If It Bleeds she notices something suspicious about the TV reporter who is first on the scene of a crime. But perhaps her most complex adversary throughout her journey is her mother. Even after Charlotte dies at the start of Holly, Holly can still feel her presence echo around the family home: ‘How many times have I told you never to put a juice glass in the dishwasher until you rinse it?'

At the start of Holly, King’s new book, Holly is in the Finders Keepers detective agency which she now runs with her partner Pete. Pete has Covid - it’s set in the year of Covid and Steve wanted to make that a character in the book - Jerome is in New York and Holly is meant to be on leave, as her mother has just died. Then she gets a call from Penny Dahl whose daughter has gone missing and determines to follow up on it. When she sees the note on Bonnie’s bike reading ‘I’VE HAD ENOUGH’, Holly is ‘not ready to believe Bonnie didn’t write it, but she’s far from ready to believe that Bonnie did’. I find it so refreshing to be in the company of a detective who doesn’t just go on her instincts but sets about the task in a methodical way. Joining the dots will lead her to the door of two professors, who are harbouring a chilling secret in the basement of their book-lined home.

I hope that you too will enjoy spending time with Holly, a fascinating, neurodiverse and growing character.  She has problems and difficulties and a quiet courage and qualities others often don’t see – but which make her someone to whom so many of us can relate. There is a line in Finders Keepers which I treasure and I believe that all those who pick up Holly will agree with it:

‘For readers, one of life’s most electrifying discoveries is that they are readers – not just capable of doing it . . . but in love with it. Hopelessly. Head over heels. The first book that does that is never forgotten, and each page seems to bring a fresh revelation, one that burns and exalts: Yes! That’s how it is! Yes! I saw that, too! And, of course, That’s what I think! That’s what I FEEL!’