Four Past Midnight, Part I

Stephen King's book, Four Past Midnight, published in 1990, deals with time and how we as humans perceive it. This is a theme that he has dealt with in other books such as "It", and short stories like "My Pretty Pony", found in his book "Nightmares and Dreamscapes".

In his introduction, Stephen relates a story to the reader about watching the Boston Red Sox play the Milwaukee Brewers and seeing Robin Yount of the Brewers step up to the plate. Yount started in 1974, right out of high school, which was the same time that King published his first novel, "Carrie".

To the commentators of the game, 1974 seemed like a long time ago, but to Steve, it did not. He related this story to show that the perception of how time passes is a highly individual thing, and it is a recurrent theme in all of the four stories found in this book.