Stephen King Redux

My younger grandson (12–just starting 7th grade and a Big Reader) is into Stephen King. He’s been reading It.

I can relate to his dawning obsession. I was once fully in its sway, as well.

I didn’t read the early King novels (like Carrie).  But in 1990 I was out in the Sonoma Valley taking a workshop on Jack London’s work (another obsession that was in Full Go position).

I drove out there from our home in northeastern Ohio (love the drive into the West) and had taken along with me the first King novel I would ever read—The Dark Half. It would not be the last—not for a long while.

The seminar, sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities, was for six weeks at Sonoma State University, not far from Jack London’s ranch, which at the time was a state park.

At night, after I’d done my homework (yes, homework), I lay in my dorm room bed and read King. Pretty soon I wished I’d brought with me a night light.

The novel scared the bejesus out of me. But what surprised me most? How well it was written. King impressed me.

After that I bought and read each of his new novels as it appeared—for decades. And, later, when I was a freelance book reviewer for the Cleveland Plain Dealer, I wrote about a couple of them. I remember one: Under the Dome—a LONG one ...

I read even The Green Mile (about life on death row), which came out in six paperback installments, which I then collected in a little boxed set. The day each installment appeared, I was waiting for it at one of our local bookstores. I remember reading an interview with King, who said something like this about the serializaion, about how he’d never do it again: “Why did I give the critics six chances to kick my ass about the same book?”

I told my eighth graders about King, about his new books, and some of those kids became addicts, too. Some of them already were.

Then—a few years ago, for some reason I can’t fathom—I lost interest, quit buying his books. I have no idea why. I haven’t read a King in, oh, a decade? I don’t feel superior or anything; I just don’t feel like reading them.

As many of you know, King (born in 1947, only three years younger than I) is astonishingly prolific (the Joyce Carol Oates of horror fiction). He has published about 80 books, including some under a pseudonym, Richard Bachman. Most are novels but he also dives into other genre now and then.

Occasionally, he tries “serious” fiction; it’s not bad but not as good as his horror, his supernatural.

As his career has gone along, by the way, he’s been taken more and more seriously—he writes now and then for the New York Times. It must be very satisfying for him. And every year (or less), here comes a new book. (The latest is Billy Summers.)

I’m not sure how long our grandson will continue with his King Quest, but right now he’s enjoying it—enjoying thinking about all the King he hasn’t read, thinking about how much lies before him. I remember standing on that same promontory, looking far off into the King Horizon.

But we wish him well ... and hope he doesn’t need a night light.