"The Music Room" is a short story by

Stephen King Stephen Edwin King (born September 21, 1947) is an American author of horror, supernatural fiction, suspense, crime, science-fiction, and fantasy novels. Described as the "King of Horror", a play on his surname and a reference to his high s ...

, first published in the November 16, 2016 issue of ''

Playboy ''Playboy'' is an American men's lifestyle and entertainment magazine, formerly in print and currently online. It was founded in Chicago in 1953, by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from Hefner's mother. K ...

''. It was inspired by the 1932 Edward Hopper painting ''

Room in New York ''Room in New York'' is a 1932 oil-on-canvas painting by the American artist Edward Hopper that portrays two individuals in a New York City flat. It is held in the collection of the Sheldon Museum of Art. The painting is said to have been inspi ...

''.

Plot summary

Mr. and Mrs. Enderby are a childless couple living in a

brownstone Brownstone is a brown Triassic–Jurassic sandstone that was historically a popular building material. The term is also used in the United States and Canada to refer to a townhouse clad in this or any other aesthetically similar material. Type ...

apartment on

Third Avenue Third Avenue is a north-south thoroughfare on the East Side of the New York City borough of Manhattan, as well as in the center portion of the Bronx. Its southern end is at Astor Place and St. Mark's Place. It transitions into Cooper Square ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

in the late-

1930s File:1930s decade montage.png, From left, clockwise: Dorothea Lange's photo of the homeless Florence Thompson shows the effects of the Great Depression; due to extreme drought conditions, farms across the south-central United States become dry a ...

. As the story begins, they are seated in the titular music room of their apartment. Mr. Enderby is reading the ''

New York Journal-American :''Includes coverage of New York Journal-American and its predecessors New York Journal, The Journal, New York American and New York Evening Journal'' The ''New York Journal-American'' was a daily newspaper published in New York City from 1937 t ...

''; he notes that there is no mention of "our pal" George Timmons, then goes on to read aloud to Mrs. Enderby from the

funny pages A comic strip is a Comics, sequence of drawings, often cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often Serial (literature), serialized, with text in Speech balloon, balloons and Glossary of comics ter ...

. As the couple talk, there are various noises from the music room's closet. It is revealed that the aforementioned George Timmons is locked in the closet, which has been reinforced for this purpose; he is the sixth person the Enderbys have imprisoned there. Mr. Timmons is a businessman from

Albany, New York Albany ( ) is the capital of the U.S. state of New York, also the seat and largest city of Albany County. Albany is on the west bank of the Hudson River, about south of its confluence with the Mohawk River, and about north of New York City ...

whom Mr. Enderby met in

McSorley's Old Ale House McSorley's Old Ale House, generally known as McSorley's, is the oldest Irish saloon in New York City. Opened in the mid-19th century at 15 East 7th Street, in today's East Village neighborhood of Manhattan, it was one of the last of the "Men ...

and invited home for dinner, whereupon the couple drugged him by putting chloral hydrate in his wine and imprisoned him in the closet. The couple have stolen Mr. Timmons' wallet and watch and forced him to sign

checks Check or cheque, may refer to: Places * Check, Virginia Arts, entertainment, and media * ''Check'' (film), a 2021 Indian Telugu-language film * ''The Checks'' (episode), a 1996 TV episode of ''Seinfeld'' Games and sports * Check (chess), a thr ...

made out to cash, representing around $1,000. They are now waiting for him to die from thirst and starvation, upon which they will use the van of Enderby Enterprises – their company, which folded two years prior due to the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

– to deposit his body in the New Jersey Pine Barrens. Mrs. Enderby is discomforted by the noises from the closet and wishes Mr. Timmons would stop. She is shocked when Mr. Enderby offers to kill Mr. Timmons, claiming that the couple are thieves but not murderers. After Mr. Enderby disagrees, Mrs. Enderby states that if she was put on trial, she would tell the judge and jury that the couple were "victims of circumstance". Mr. Enderby notes that after Mr. Timmons is dead, the couple will not have to "go back to work" for some time. At his prompting, Mrs. Enderby admits that she enjoys capturing their victims and searching their wallets, but does not enjoy waiting for them to die. The story ends with Mr. Enderby encouraging Mrs. Enderby to play her piano. After Mrs. Enderby has played several songs, the noises from the closet have ended. Mr. Enderby jokes that music " hath powers to soothe the savage beast" and the couple "laugh together, comfortably, the way people do when they have been married for many years and have come to know each other's minds".

Publication

"The Music Room" was initially published in ''

'' magazine in November 2016. It was included in the 2016 anthology ''In Sunlight or in Shadow: Stories Inspired by the Paintings of Edward Hopper'' edited by

Lawrence Block Lawrence Block (born June 24, 1938) is an American crime writer best known for two long-running New York-set series about the recovering alcoholic P.I. Matthew Scudder and the gentleman burglar Bernie Rhodenbarr. Block was named a Grand Mas ...

. An audio recording of the story was included with the audiobook of ''

Gwendy's Button Box ''Gwendy's Button Box'' is a horror novella by American writers Stephen King and Richard Chizmar. It was announced by ''Entertainment Weekly ''Entertainment Weekly'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''EW'') is an American digital-only entertain ...

''. In July 2024, King noted that "The Music Room" had been omitted from his 2024 short story collection '' You Like It Darker'' due to him forgetting about it, but that it would "probably" be included in the paperback edition.

References

External links

"The Music Room" at StephenKing.com

The Music Room at Playboy.com (via Wayback Machine)
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Music Room Short stories by Stephen King 2016 short stories Crime short stories Horror short stories Short stories set in New York City Works originally published in Playboy

Plot summary

Publication

References

See also

External links