Stephen King’s newest novel, Elevation, is perhaps the most uplifting of his career. It’s so short—wafer-thin, melt-in-the-mouth—that you might call it a novella, or even a story. Its protagonist is, on the face of it, not very interesting. Scott Carey is a middle-aged man. He lives with nobody except a cat, in the fictional Maine town of Castle Rock (which you may remember from other Stephen King novels). Scott is divorced and professionally successful and content. Castle Rock is a small town with only a few small, well-defined social conflicts. In the setting of Elevation, King has drawn up a novel the way that a scientist grows fungus in a petri dish: with limits.

The problems in Scott’s life start out invisible, then flourish fast. As his age and station in life demand, our hero has a considerable paunch. One day he starts to lose weight. Unfathomably, however, Scott loses weight on the scale, and nowhere else.

Scott loses weight continually but never appears any thinner. Gravity’s hold on him is weakening, and he appears to change gravity’s effect on things he touches, too. When Scott steps on the scale holding 20-pound weights, it shows a number identical to the weight he’d be without them. Week by week, as the number dwindles downward, Scott feels lighter, as if there is an extra spring in his step. And still—at 210 pounds, at 190 pounds, and so on—he looks the same.

Scott doesn’t know whom to turn to besides his doctor and friend, Bob Ellis, who figures there’s no medical explanation for Scott’s condition. Scott and Bob are also flummoxed by another matter. Up the road from Scott live a married couple, Deirdre McComb and Missy Donaldson, who own a restaurant in town. Deirdre especially is extraordinarily rude to Scott, seemingly without reason, and she tells him to stay away from her slightly more friendly wife. Nothing Scott does seems to work. Even worse, Deirdre and Missy are the object of some serious homophobia in the town, which is affecting business at their joint, Frijole. How can he help them, if they won’t trust his friendship?

The Deirdre problem and the weight-loss conundrum work in tandem throughout Elevation, colliding finally in the fateful day of the Turkey Trot 12-kilometer run. Deirdre is a former competitive athlete, sure to win the race. Scott gives Deirdre a wager: If he beats her (by this time he weighs under 100 pounds and almost leaps through the air), he gets to take her out to dinner and try to establish a real friendship. Infuriated by his presumption—the man still looks old, still looks fat—she takes the bet.