"The Man Who Would Not Shake Hands" is a short story by Stephen King first published in the 1982 horror anthology Shadows 4, edited by Charles L. Grant

Charles L. Grant

Charles Lewis Grant was a novelist and short story writer specializing in what he called "dark fantasy" and "quiet horror." He also wrote under the pseudonyms of Geoffrey Marsh, Lionel Fenn, Simon Lake, Felicia Andrews, and Deborah Lewis.Grant won a World Fantasy Award for his novella collection...

, and collected in Skeleton Crew

Skeleton Crew

Skeleton Crew is the second collection of short fiction by Stephen King. The first collection, Night Shift, was published seven years prior in 1978. Different Seasons, a collection of four novellas, was published between the two in 1982. Skeleton Crew was originally published in hardcover form by...

in 1985.

Like the novella "The Breathing Method

The Breathing Method

The Breathing Method is a novella by Stephen King which was released as part of his Different Seasons collection in 1982, and is currently the only story in the collection not to have been made into a movie. It is placed in the section entitled "A Winter's Tale".-Plot:David, the narrator of the...

" from King's collection Different Seasons

Different Seasons

Different Seasons is a collection of four Stephen King novellas with a more serious bent than the horror fiction for which King is famous:-Afterword:At the ending of the book, there is also a brief afterword, which King wrote on January 4, 1982...

, the story takes the form of a nested narrative

Story within a story

A story within a story, also rendered story-within-a-story, is a literary device in which one narrative is presented during the action of another narrative. Mise en abyme is the French term for a similar literary device...

told in a strange 'club' in Manhattan.

Plot summary

It entails an aged, wealthy man recounting a card game he played in many years ago where he met an odd man who refused to touch anyone, recoiling from contact in fear. After the odd man wins the game, a young player leaps up and shakes his hand enthusiastically. The odd man screams and bolts from the room. The narrator then makes it his mission to find him and give him his winnings. It is revealed shortly thereafter that the young player who shook the odd man's hand died of a brain aneurysm. The narrator speaks with an old associate of the man, who tells him the title character was cursed by an Indian shaman after an unfortunate accident where the "Shake Hands Man" accidentally caused the death of a boy. The man is cursed to cause the death of any person he touches. The narrator then finds that the odd man died in a seedy inn, one hand firmly clasping the other.

Film, TV or theatrical adaptations

'The Man Who Would Not Shake Hands' has been adapted into a film shown at the Cedar Rapids Film Festival on 3rd April 2009. The screenplay was adapted from the Stephen King short story by Kevin Erhard.