Hearts in Atlantis

About “Hearts in Atlantis”

Hearts in Atlantis (1999) is a collection of two novellas and three short stories by Stephen King. The stories are connected by recurring characters and take place in roughly chronological order. They explore the Baby Boomer Generation from King's perspective, focusing on what he sees as the generation's failure to meet its ideals. The collection's opening epigraph, a line from Easy Rider—"We blew it"—sets the tone for the stories, which all deal with the 1960s and the Vietnam War. The characters in the stories often face the consequences of their failures or the failures of their generation. The collection includes the stories Blind Willie, Hearts in Atlantis, Heavenly Shades of Night Are Falling, Low Men in Yellow Coats, and Why We're in Vietnam.