10 Best Non-Horror Stephen King Stories You Must Read

Drunken Fireworks is the closest thing to an outright comedy Stephen King has written.

Maine residents Alden McCausland and his mum, Ma McCausland, who he lives with, are rich. They inherited a fortune thanks to Alden's dad's insurance policy upon his death, and his mum won big on a scratchcard. Now they spend their summers at their cabin on Lake Abenaki, where they spend all day drinking, all summer long.

The 4th of July rolls around one year, and family that owns the house across the lake opposite the McCausland cabin, the Massimos, put on an impressive fireworks display to celebrate. The next year, the McCauslands try to top the display. They fail. Year after year, they fail. The Massimos just outshine them with their light-shows.

Which brings us to the present day. This year, the McCauslands go all out. Alden has bought an impressive piece of equipment that looks like the spaceship Close Encounters of the Third Kind. It's also illegal, and dangerous to boot, as both families find, out as well as all the spectators who come out to the lake every year to watch the rivalry unfold. In the end, the Massimo family home burns down, and Alden is arrested. Still, it's a lighthearted affair!

The humour in the story doesn't unfold in the form of set-ups and punchlines, it's more a of situational, you-had-to-be-there kind of humour. So if you're looking for something a little lighter than world-ending super flu's and murderous, rabid dogs from King, this is for you.