It’s been a long time since I’ve read this novella. In fact, I might have read it in like 1990 when we were first allowed to get our hands on a Stephen King book and immediately got intimidated by how much longer this book is than the other stories in the other stories in the book.
So anyway, we begin with a trip to the grocery store in light of a series of terrible storms in a coastal Maine town. Following the trail of destruction, a father and his son make their way to the grocery store in town where the power is out and a group of shoppers is gathered. As they arrive, a serious looking mist rolls into town, not acting remotely like any other kind of mist (as in made from water particles). Strange things start to occur and it becomes apparent that some kind of monsters of living in the mist and when people go out into it, they disappear. Quickly, as happens in Stephen King novels, everyone’s psyches start to fracture and the religious fervor of one crazy person supplants the libertarian craziness of another. Small town folks can’t handle the pressures of a new horror world context.
This is every Stephen King novel in short form or at least a very specific set of them. It’s still really good and really bizarre in some ways. Like….I dunno good dad immediately cheats on his wife for no discernible reason, but that’s the way it goes in these things.
(Photo: https://www.amazon.com/Mist-Stephen-King/dp/1982103523/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=the+mist&qid=1577285996&sr=8-3)