Introduction

Different Seasons (1982) by Stephen King is a collection of four novellas that are tied together by a connection to the four seasons. Three of the four stories (“Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption”, “Apt Pupil”, and “The Body”) have been made into films, and the fourth (“The Breathing Method”) is under consideration for adaptation.

This guide refers to the 1983 Signet edition.

Content Warning: This book contains references to death by suicide, sexual assault, racism, and the Holocaust.

Plot Summary

“Hope Springs Eternal: Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption”

Ellis “Red” Redding is serving a life sentence in Shawshank State Prison for the murders of his wife and her friend and her friend’s child. Red meets Andy Dufresne when Andy is wrongfully convicted of the murder of his wife and her lover. Andy first approaches Red to request that Red find him two things: a rock hammer and a poster of Rita Hayworth. Since Red is the prison guy-who-can-get-anything, he gets Andy what he asks for.

In his early years in the prison, Andy is often sexually assaulted, but that ends when he becomes involved in helping the prison warden with a money-laundering operation. During this period, Andy learns from another prisoner that someone else has talked about having committed the crime for which Andy was convicted. Andy goes to the warden trying to get him to help with re-opening his case. The warden doesn’t want to lose Andy’s help with the money-laundering, so he prevents Andy from contacting an outside lawyer and transfers the prisoner who told Andy about the new evidence. Andy is forced to continue working for the warden in the prison.

As Red and Andy become better acquainted, they become friends of a sort. Andy tells Red about his contingency plan; Andy always knew that there was a possibility of his being convicted, so he set up a false identity and a bank account. The papers for the new identity and the key to a safe deposit are hidden in an old stone wall marked by a particular black rock that doesn’t match the rest of the stones.

Andy casually remarks that he might be able to get out sooner than anyone thinks and suggests that Red should join him when they are both out. Red is unsure how to survive outside of prison, but he believes that Andy might have a chance. In 1975, Andy escapes from Shawshank. He disappears and is never recaptured. On the morning that Andy escapes, the warden tears down the poster of Rita Hayworth and uncovers a hole in the wall, that Andy spent years chipping through, leading to a sewer pipe.

Two years later, Red is paroled. Although he struggles with his freedom, he decides to find the stone wall and the black rock about which Andy told him. He finds it and lifts up the rock to reveal an envelope containing money and a letter from Andy inviting Red to find him. Red decides to follow Andy across the border to Mexico, full of hope.

“Summer of Corruption: Apt Pupil”

One summer day in 1974, a golden-haired teenager shows up at the door of elderly Arthur Denker. The boy, Todd Bowden, accuses the old man of being Kurt Dussander, the commandant of “Patin,” a (fictional) concentration camp during World War II. He offers to conceal Dussander’s real identity if Dussander, in exchange, will tell Todd all about the “gooshy bits” of his experience at the camp. Threatened with exposure to the Israeli Nazi hunters, Dussander complies. Todd visits Dussander several times a week, telling his parents that he is reading for the old man, who has bad eyesight. Todd eventually buys an SS Oberleutnant’s uniform and demands that Dussander put it on. Todd orders Dussander to march for him, and Dussander marches like a puppet under Todd’s control.

Todd begins to have bad dreams that are nevertheless erotic. His school grades start to slip and he has to alter several report cards to hide the fact from his parents. Eventually, however, the guidance counselor asks to see Todd’s parents. Todd gets Dussander to go instead, impersonating Todd’s grandfather and spinning a story about marital troubles between Todd’s parents and promising to get the family, particularly Todd, back on track. Now Dussander has leverage over Todd. Both their futures depend on Todd getting his grades up. Dussander forces Todd to study.

Once Todd’s grades improve enough for him to pass, he stops going to Dussander’s home, but both Todd and Dussander have been too corrupted by their relationship to go back to “normal”. They both take to killing what Todd calls “stewbums” or unhoused people.

During one of his killings, Dussander has a heart attack and calls Todd to hide the evidence. At the hospital, Dussander is recognized by his roommate, a Patin survivor. Dussander is visited in his hospital room by an Israeli Nazi hunter. Realizing that he is about to be caught and is too sick to flee and start over, Dussander dies by suicide. The police and the Israeli person are suspicious of Todd. When Todd realizes that the police are closing in on him, he takes a rifle and goes on a shooting spree, eventually being killed by the police.

“Fall From Innocence: The Body”

“The Body” is inspired by an experience that King had as a very young child in which he saw a playmate struck by a train. King says that he has no memory of the event, but he has been writing about it ever since. Twelve-year-old Gordon “Gordie” LeChance and his friends, Chris, Vern, and Teddy, are all outcasts in one way or another. When Vern overhears his older brother talking about finding the body of Ray Brower, a boy who went missing some days earlier, Gordie and his friends make a plan to see the body. The boys set out, encountering adventures and challenges along the way.

First, they stop at the junkyard and have a narrow escape from the owner and his notorious dog, Chopper. Gordie has an encounter with a shop owner who tries to cheat him. While crossing a railroad trestle, Gordie and Vern are overtaken by a train and barely escape with their lives. The boys stop for a swim at a quiet pool that turns out to be full of leeches.

The four boys arrive at the body minutes before Vern’s brother and his own gang arrive. There is a standoff over who is going to claim the right to report the body. Chris has packed his father’s pistol. Gordie gets the gun and points it at the bigger boys. The older boys retreat, vowing revenge. Gordie and his friends return home and tell no one about their adventure. They have proved themselves in their own minds and don’t need anyone else’s validation.

“A Winter’s Tale: The Breathing Method”

The narrator, David Adley, is satisfied with his life as a mid-level lawyer who will never advance any further in his law firm, but he has a sense of something missing. One day, one of the senior partners at his firm casually invites David to his club. The building is bigger on the inside than the outside. It is full of strange doors that go to strange places. The members come and go, playing cards and pool, but their main occupation is telling stories.

One evening, one of the members, Emlyn McCarron, a retired doctor, tells the story of something he witnessed 50 years earlier. He had a patient, Sandra Stansfield, who was pregnant and alone. Sandra is determined to carry a healthy baby and dedicates her energies to the project, obeying every one of the doctor’s orders. McCarron introduces her to his special breathing method for mothers giving birth. Sandra practices the method, finding that it gives her the ability to control her temper when people denigrate her for being a single mother.

Sandra goes into labor on a snowy, icy winter night. Using McCarron’s breathing method, she gets in a taxi and goes to the hospital. They are just reaching the hospital when the taxi skids out of control. It strikes a statue, and Sandra is beheaded in the accident. McCarron arrives and finds the body still breathing with its head gone. It is still using McCarron’s method. The baby is delivered safely. McCarron goes to Sandra’s head, assures her that the baby is born—a healthy boy. Her lips form a “thank-you,” and she finally dies. McCarron keeps track of the baby boy for 40 years before making an excuse to meet him. He finds the man to have his mother’s determination and hazel eyes.

David continues to attend the club for many years, accepting the strangeness and feeling that some part of him is fulfilled and satisfied by the sense of wonder that it invokes.