“Needful Things” is one of those novels where the reader should be glad the author includes references to the time when it was published.

Originally published and set in the early 1990s, the first George Bush was president and Stephen King makes references to him. The Bush “41” presidency has nothing to do with the plot but the references squarely set the story in the early 1990s, which is important to readers in 2021.

Why?

Because the plot doesn’t work if it’s set in 2021. 

Basically, the devil or a demon or something evil comes to town, though the town doesn’t know he’s the devil, because he sets up a curio shop called Needful Things as proprietor Leland Gaunt. 

Gaunt has something for everybody and everybody can have that something for a price. The price includes playing a trick on a person.

The trick is a bait and switch. The person on the receiving end of the trick doesn’t suspect the person who pulls the prank. No, the people on the receiving end of the tricks suspect a person in their lives who already aggravates them.

Here’s where “Needful Things” wouldn’t work if set in 2021. 

If someone came home and found mud splattered across all of their bedsheets hanging on the clothes line, or hundreds of traffic citations taped throughout the house, or any number of the horrible things that Gaunt talks people into doing to neighbors they have nothing against, most people nowadays would check the recordings on their door security cameras.

These characters would see that the person they hate didn’t commit the pranks but rather a person they barely recognize from the next street over. There would still be some anger but nothing like the rage set off by characters believing their “arch enemies” are doing mean things to them.

And that’s the crux of “Needful Things.” The tensions that lie underneath most communities and the little nudge that can strip away the veneer of civility to rupture into barbarism and chaos.

The book’s message remains timely in 2021 but King setting the story firmly during the time he wrote it 30 years ago – a time before residential security cameras, smart phones, etc. – ensures it remains relevant.