![]() ![]() What happens at the end when he does drop below one inch is not for me to reveal here (no spoilers), but what makes the growing suspense and tension of the book so successful is the way Matheson varies the pace between dramatic action and Carey’s lonely and isolated musings upon the life he has been forced to leave behind and the (perhaps very short) future he has ahead of him. (The original SF Masterworks reissue of this novel has a wonderfully chilling cover depicting this, pictured below right.) Rather than using conventional chapter titles, Matheson heads each section of the novel with Carey’s height at that stage of the narrative, suggesting how much time Carey has before he will, seemingly, become so small that he might cease to exist. ![]() Once six feet tall, he is soon just one inch in height and living in his own cellar, estranged from his own wife and family, trying to avoid being eaten by the black widow spider that will soon be bigger than he is. Matheson’s 1956 novel The Shrinking Man is a tense and engaging tale about a man, Scott Carey, who, after coming into contact with radioactive waste, finds that he is shrinking at the rate of an inch per week. ![]() Matheson’s work has influenced a raft of great writers of fantasy, science fiction, and horror: Stephen King and Ray Bradbury are among the greats who have acknowledged a debt to him, with King calling Matheson, of all writers, the most important influence on him. ![]()
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