"Jumper" is a short story by Stephen King. Originally serialized in the

self-published Self-publishing is the publication of media by its author at their own cost, without the involvement of a publisher. The term usually refers to written media, such as books and magazines, either as an ebook or as a physical copy using POD (pri ...

newspaper ''Dave's Rag '' in 1959-1960, it was later collected in the 2000 work ''

Secret Windows ''Secret Windows: Essays and Fiction on the Craft of Writing'' is a collection of short stories, essays, speeches, and book excerpts by Stephen King, published in 2000. It was marketed by Book-of-the-Month Club as a companion to King's '' On Wri ...

''. It was King's first piece of fiction to be published.

Plot summary

The protagonist of "Jumper" is Jeff Davis, a police counselor. Davis is summoned to the

Chrysler Building The Chrysler Building is an Art Deco skyscraper on the East Side of Manhattan in New York City, at the intersection of 42nd Street and Lexington Avenue in Midtown Manhattan. At , it is the tallest brick building in the world with a steel fra ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

after Robert Steppes, a "serial

jumper Jumper or Jumpers may refer to: Clothing *Jumper (sweater), a long-sleeve article of clothing; also called a top, pullover, or sweater **A waist-length top garment of dense wool, part of the Royal Navy uniform and the uniform of the United State ...

", threatens to jump from the 15th floor. The police accidentally knock Steppes from the ledge he is standing on when trying to catch him with a hook, but he is able to pull himself back onto the ledge. After talking to Steppes, Davis becomes convinced that "although theoretically, any man can take his own life, few men could really commit suicide, and Robert was not one of those men" and walks along the ledge to Steppes, who ultimately does not jump.

Publication

King wrote "Jumper" at the age of 12. It was originally published in ''Dave's Rag'', a weekly neighborhood newspaper

by King's older brother David King in

Durham, Maine Durham is a town in Androscoggin County, Maine, United States. The population was 4,173 at the 2020 census. It is included in both the Lewiston- Auburn, Maine Metropolitan Statistical Area and the Lewiston-Auburn, Maine Metropolitan New Engla ...

, as a three-part serial from December 1959 to early-1960. In 2000, it was collected in ''

'', unchanged other than spelling corrections.

Reception

Rocky Wood Rocky Wood (19 October 1959 – 1 December 2014) was a New Zealand-born Australian writer and researcher best known for his books about horror author Stephen King. He was the first author from outside North America or Europe to hold the po ...

describes "Jumper" as "clearly juvenilia" but with "some sentences that are stunning when one considers a 12-year-old boy wrote them", noting "sophisticated thinking is evident".

References

External links

"Jumper" at StephenKing.com

Plot summary

Publication

Reception

References

External links

See also