1922

1922 is a novella by American author Stephen King (b. 1947), first published in his collection Full Dark, No Stars in 2010. The story is written as the confession of Wilf James, a farmer living near Hemingford Home, Nebraska, eight years after murdering his wife, Arlette. In the months following Arlette’s death, Wilf’s life falls into tragedy as he becomes convinced that Arlette is haunting him. His 14-year-old son, Henry, whom Wilf convinced to help with the murder, also psychologically deteriorates, leading to him taking his girlfriend, Shannon, on a crime spree across the country. Through Wilf’s story, the novella explores themes of The Psychological Consequences of Evil, The Violence of Patriarchal Control, and The Impact of Rural Isolation.

King is a prolific, bestselling American author known as “The King of Horror” for his influence on horror fiction in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. King has won many literary awards, including the O. Henry Award, the Edgar Award, a Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters in 2003 by the National Book Foundation, and a National Medal of Arts in 2014. Many of his stories and novels have been adapted for film and television. The collection in which 1922 first appeared—Full Dark, No Stars—won the 2011 Best Fiction Collection from the Horror Writers Association. The novella 1922 was made into a Netflix film starring Thomas Jane in 2017.

This guide uses the Kindle edition of the novel.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of racism, gender discrimination, child abuse, child death, death by suicide, suicidal ideation, animal cruelty, animal death, alcohol use and addiction, sexual content, cursing, and death.

Plot Summary

Wilfred “Wilf” James writes his confession in 1930, eight years after he killed his wife, Arlette, with the help of his teenage son, Henry. Although he is now in Omaha, Nebraska, his story takes place on a farm near Hemingford Home. When his wife inherits 100 acres of land from her father, Wilf becomes convinced that they should be added to his 80-acre farm. Arlette tries to sell the land instead, wanting to move to Omaha and open a shop. In response, Wilf convinces Henry that the only way for them to be happy is to remain on the farm.

Wilf devises a plan to kill Arlette. One summer night, he sits with her on the porch, convincing her to drink wine. When Arlette falls asleep on the porch, Wilf carries her to her bedroom, where Henry is waiting. As Henry places a burlap sack over Arlette’s head, Wilf pins her to the bed, stabbing her several times with a butcher’s knife. He slashes her face several times and nearly cuts off her fingers before managing to kill her by cutting her throat. Throughout, Henry yells in terror, eventually fainting. When he comes to, Wilf makes him help carry Arlette’s body to the old well.

When Wilf and Henry get to the well, Henry faints again. As Wilf tries to lift Arlette’s body into the well, he drops it, causing her destroyed hand to fall from the quilt she is wrapped in. Wilf vomits into the well, a sound which he claims still haunts him to the present. He finally manages to drop her body in, noting the disfigured grin he carved into her cheeks in his attempts to kill her.

Over the next day, Wilf and Henry clean the house. Wilf throws the mattress and a suitcase of Arlette’s belongings into the well, wanting to make it look as though she ran away. He is horrified by the rats in the well, which begin to take over her body. Henry stays home from school, clearly overwhelmed by what he helped Wilf do. He visits his girlfriend, Shannon, lying to her and telling her that he and his mother had a fight the night before she left. When a lawyer visits, representing the Farrington Company that planned to buy Arlette’s land, Wilf dismisses him, refusing to let him into his home and insisting that he doesn’t know where Arlette went.

Wilf decides to use one of his cows, Elphis, as an excuse to fill in the well. He leads her onto the well cap, causing it to break and Elphis to fall in. As he and Henry cover Arlette, her belongings, and Elphis with dirt and rocks, Sheriff Jones arrives. He looks through their home, believing Wilf’s story that Arlette ran away. He declines to search the rest of the property, instead suggesting that Wilf report Arlette missing so that she can be brought back and punished for trying to leave him.

Through the rest of the summer, things return to normal on the farm. Although Wilf can tell that Henry is bothered, Henry grows close with Shannon, who comes two nights a week to cook for him and Wilf. Wilf allows Henry to begin driving his truck, hoping to get him excited about something.

In late August, Wilf wakes up in the middle of the night to the sound of one of his cows in pain. He goes to the barn and finds Achelois with a rat hanging from her udder. The rat tears it off, then flees to the edge of the barn and into a pipe. Wilf realizes that the pipe leads to the well, allowing them to come and go from Arlette’s body. He fills it in with concrete.

A few weeks later, Henry comes home from school upset. He reveals to his father that Shannon is pregnant. Her father, Harlan, who is Wilf’s only neighbor, will not let her return to school or let Henry see her. Shortly thereafter, Harlan comes to the farm. He tells Wilf that he is sending his daughter to St. Eusebia, a Catholic school for girls. They are going to help her give birth, then put the child up for adoption. He demands that Wilf pay $75 for Shannon’s tutoring while she is gone, even though Wilf has no money. Wilf realizes that Harlan hates him and blames Henry for everything.

Wilf searches his home. He manages to find $40 that Arlette hid. To get the rest of the money, he goes into town to the bank, where he speaks with Mr. Stoppenhauser. Although Mr. Stoppenhauser tries to get him to take out a second mortgage, Wilf insists that he only wants enough to cover the $75. When he returns to his truck, he finds that Henry has switched it with their Model T. Henry has left a note saying that he has taken the truck to go to St. Eusebia, with plans for him and Shannon to run away together.

Over the next few days, Wilf waits for Henry to come home, becoming concerned that he will be arrested and the truth will come out about the murder. When Sheriff Jones visits, he reports that Wilf’s truck was found, but there was no sign of Henry. There was a gas station robbery near where the truck was. Wilf openly defends Henry, insisting that he wouldn’t rob anyone, but internally, he knows that Henry will likely do anything to get Shannon and escape.

As it rains over the next several days, Wilf spends much of his time reading. One day in the sitting room, he becomes convinced that Arlette has risen from the well and his tapping on his shoulder. However, he discovers instead that the roof is leaking. He returns to town to see Mr. Stoppenhauser, taking out a second mortgage and deciding to use home repairs as a distraction until he hears more about Henry.

When Wilf gets home with the money, he goes to the closet to hide it where he found Arlette’s money. When he reaches into the hatbox, a rat bites him. He angrily kills it, convinced it is the same one that bit Achelois. As a result of the bite, Wilf is overcome with infection, spending the night and the next day semi-conscious. When the door to his home opens, Arlette’s body comes in, carried by rats. She leans into his ear and whispers to him, telling him about Henry and Shannon’s fate.

Meanwhile, Henry waits near St. Eusebia’s for girls from the home to come into town. He speaks with one, Victoria, and gives her a note for Shannon, then Shannon responds that she will leave with him. The two drive west, robbing multiple banks and stealing vehicles to make it into Nevada. However, when they stop one morning for breakfast, they are recognized by the diner’s owner. He shoots Shannon in the back, then they flee. A few miles later, Henry drives the car into a ditch, then the two hide in an abandoned shack. After Shannon dies of her bullet wound, Henry dies by suicide.

At the farm, Sheriff Jones finds Wilf near death from the infection. He takes him to the hospital, where Wilf has his arm amputated. When he recovers, Sheriff Jones returns to tell him that they found a woman’s body they presumed to be Arlette by the side of the road; they believe she was robbed and killed. Wilf laughs at the irony of it all.

When Wilf returns to his farm, he finds that all his livestock has died except Achelois. He moves the cow into his home. In the night, a snowstorm collapses the roof, then the same happens to his barn. In late December, he tries to sell the land to Harlan, but he refuses. Eventually, he sells it to the Farrington Company for far less than it is worth.

In the present day, Wilf sits in a hotel room with a gun. He hears the rats in the walls and knows that they are there to judge him. As he writes, the rats attack him, killing him mid-sentence.

The final page is a newspaper article from an Omaha paper. It reports on Wilf’s death. The security guard who found him reports that he was covered in self-inflicted bite marks, including chewing through his own wrists. The gun was empty, yet no one reported hearing a gunshot. Around him, his manuscript was shredded, chewed through, and destroyed.