Early life
King was born September 21, 1947, in Portland, Maine. His father, Donald Edwin King, was a merchant seaman. Donald was born under the surname Pollock, but as an adult, used the surname King.[9][10][11] King's mother was Nellie Ruth (née 
illsbury).[11]
When Stephen King was two years old, his father left the family. King's mother raised Stephen and his older brother, David, by herself, sometimes under great financial strain. The family moved to De Pere, Wisconsin;Fort Wayne, Indiana; and Stratford, Connecticut. When King was 11, his family returned to Durham, Maine, where his mother cared for her parents until their deaths. She then became a caregiver in a local residential facility for the mentally challenged.[1] King was raised Methodist[12] but lost his belief in organized religion while in high school. While no longer religious, King chooses to believe in the existence of God.[13]
As a child, King apparently witnessed one of his friends being struck and killed by a train, though he has no memory of the event. His family told him that after leaving home to play with the boy, King returned, speechless and seemingly in shock. Only later did the family learn of the friend's death. Some commentators have suggested that this event may have psychologically inspired some of King's darker works,[14] but King makes no mention of it in his memoir On Writing (2000).
King related in detail his primary inspiration for writing horror fiction in his non-fiction Danse Macabre (1981), in a chapter titled "An Annoying Autobiographical Pause." King compares his uncle's dowsing for water using the bough of an apple branch with the sudden realization of what he wanted to do for a living. That inspiration occurred while browsing through an attic with his elder brother, when King uncovered a paperback version of anH. P. Lovecraft collection of short stories he remembers as The Lurker in the Shadows, that had belonged to his father. King told Barnes & Noble Studios during a 2009 interview, "I knew that I'd found home when I read that book."[15]
King attended Durham Elementary School and graduated from Lisbon Falls High School, in Lisbon Falls, Maine. He displayed an early interest in horror as an avid reader of EC's horror comics, including Tales from the Crypt(he later paid tribute to the comics in his screenplay for Creepshow). He began writing for fun while still in school, contributing articles to Dave's Rag, the newspaper his brother published with a mimeograph machine, and later began selling to his friends stories based on movies he had seen (though when discovered by his teachers, he was forced to return the profits). The first of his stories to be independently published was "I Was a Teenage Grave Robber"; it was serialized over four issues (three published and one unpublished) of a fanzine,Comics Review, in 1965. That story was published the following year in a revised form as "In a Half-World of Terror" in another fanzine, Stories of Suspense, edited by Marv Wolfman.[16] As a teen, King also won aScholastic Art and Writing Award.[17]
From 1966, King studied at the University of Maine, graduating in 1970 with a Bachelor of Arts in English. That year, his daughter Naomi Rachel was born. He wrote a column, Steve King's Garbage Truck, for the student newspaper, The Maine Campus, and participated in a writing workshop organized by Burton Hatlen.[18] King held a variety of jobs to pay for his studies, including janitor, gas pump attendant, and worker at an industrial laundry. King met his future wife, fellow student Tabitha Spruce, at the University's Fogler Library after one of Professor Hatlen's workshops; they wed in 1971.[18]
Career
Beginnings
King sold his first professional short story, "The Glass Floor," to Startling Mystery Stories in 1967.[1]
After graduating from the University of Maine, King earned a certificate to teach high school but, unable to find a teaching post immediately, initially supplemented his laboring wage by selling short stories to men's magazinessuch as Cavalier. Many of these early stories have been republished in the collection Night Shift. The short storyThe Raft was published in Adam, a men's magazine. After being arrested for driving over a traffic cone, he was fined $250 and had no money to pay the petty larceny fine. However, payment arrived for the short story The Raft (then entitled The Float), and King was able to pay the fine.[19] In 1971, King was hired as a teacher atHampden Academy in Hampden, Maine. He continued to contribute short stories to magazines and worked on ideas for novels.[1]
Carrie and aftermath
In 1973, King's novel Carrie was accepted by publishing house Doubleday. Carrie was King's fourth novel,[20]but it was the first to be published. It was written on a portable typewriter that belonged to his wife. The novel began as a short story intended for Cavalier magazine, but King tossed the first three pages of his work in the garbage can.[21] Tabitha King fished the pages out of the garbage can and encouraged him to finish the story, saying that she would help him with the female perspective; he followed her advice and expanded it into a novel.[22] King said, "I persisted because I was dry and had no better ideas… my considered opinion was that I had written the world's all-time loser."[23] According to The Guardian, Carrie "is the story of Carrie White, a high-school student with latent—and then, as the novel progresses, developing—telekinetic powers. It's brutal in places, affecting in others (Carrie's relationship with her almost hysterically religious mother being a particularly damaged one), and gory in even more."[24]
When Carrie was chosen for publication, King's phone was out of service. Doubleday editor William Thompson – who would eventually become King's close friend – sent a telegram to King's house in late March or early April 1973[25] which read: "Carrie Officially A Doubleday Book. $2,500 Advance Against Royalties. Congrats, Kid – The Future Lies Ahead, Bill."[26] According to King, he bought a new Ford Pinto with the money from the advance.[25] On May 13, 1973, New American Library bought the paperback rights for $400,000, which—in accordance with King's contract with Doubleday—was split between them.[27][28] Carrie set King's career in motion and became a significant novel in the horror genre.[29]
King's Salem's Lot was published in 1975. In a 1987 issue of The Highway Patrolman magazine, he stated, "The story seems sort of down home to me. I have a special cold spot in my heart for it!"[30] After his mother's death, King and his family moved to Boulder, Colorado, where King wrote The Shining (published 1977). The family returned to western Maine in 1975, where King completed his fourth novel, The Stand (published 1978). In 1977, the family, with the addition of Owen Phillip (his third and last child), traveled briefly to England, returning to Maine that fall, where King began teaching creative writing at the University of Maine.[31]
In 1982, King published Different Seasons, a collection of four novellas with a more serious dramatic bent than the horror fiction for which King is famous.[32] The collection is notable for having had three of its four novellas turned into Hollywood films: Stand by Me (1986) was adapted from the novella The Body,[33] The Shawshank Redemption (1994) was adapted from the novella Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption,[34] and Apt Pupil (1998) was adapted from the novella of the same name.[35][36]
In 1985, King wrote his first work for the comic book medium,[37] writing a few pages of the benefit X-Mencomic book Heroes for Hope Starring the X-Men. The book, whose profits were donated to assist with faminerelief in Africa, was written by a number of different authors in the comic book field, such as Chris Claremont,Stan Lee, and Alan Moore, as well as authors not primarily associated with that industry, such as Harlan Ellison.[38] The following year, King published It (1986), which was the best-selling hard-cover novel in the United States that year,[39] and wrote the introduction to Batman No. 400, an anniversary issue in which he expressed his preference for that character over Superman.[40][41]
The Dark Tower books
In the late 1970s, King began what became a series of interconnected stories about a lone gunslinger, Roland, who pursues the "Man in Black" in an alternate-reality universe that is a cross between J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth and the American Wild West as depicted by Clint Eastwood and Sergio Leone in their spaghetti Westerns. The first of these stories, The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger, was initially published in five installments by The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction under the editorship of Edward L. Ferman, from 1977 to 1981. The Gunslinger was continued as an eight-book epic series called The Dark Tower, whose books King wrote and published infrequently over four decades.
Pseudonyms
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, King published a handful of short novels—Rage (1977), The Long Walk(1979), Roadwork (1981), The Running Man (1982) and Thinner (1984)—under the pseudonym Richard Bachman. The idea behind this was to test whether he could replicate his success again and to allay his fears that his popularity was an accident. An alternate explanation was that publishing standards at the time allowed only a single book a year.[42] He picked up the name from the hard rock band Bachman-Turner Overdrive, of which he is a fan.[43]
Richard Bachman was exposed as King's pseudonym by a persistent Washington, D.C. bookstore clerk, Steve Brown, who noticed similarities between the works and later located publisher's records at the Library of Congress that named King as the author of one of Bachman's novels.[44] This led to a press release heralding Bachman's "death"—supposedly from "cancer of the pseudonym".[45] King dedicated his 1989 book The Dark Half, about a pseudonym turning on a writer, to "the deceased Richard Bachman", and in 1996, when the Stephen King novel Desperation was released, the companion novel The Regulators carried the "Bachman" byline.
In 2006, during a press conference in London, King declared that he had discovered another Bachman novel, titled Blaze. It was published on June 12, 2007. In fact, the original manuscript had been held at King's alma mater, the University of Maine in Orono, for many years and had been covered by numerous King experts. King rewrote the original 1973 manuscript for its publication.[46]
King has used other pseudonyms. The short story "The Fifth Quarter" was published under the pseudonym John Swithen (the name of a character in the novel Carrie), that was published in Cavalier in April 1972.[47] The story was reprinted in King's collection Nightmares & Dreamscapes in 1993 under his own name. In the introduction to the Bachman novel Blaze, King claims, with tongue-in-cheek, that "Bachman" was the person using the Swithen pseudonym.
The "children's book" Charlie the Choo-Choo: From the World of The Dark Tower was published under the pseudonym Beryl Evans, who was portrayed by actress Allison Davies during a book signing at San Diego Comic-Con,[48] and illustrated by Ned Dameron. It is adapted from a fictional book central to the plot of King's previous novel The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands and published in 2016.[49]
Digital era
In 2000, King published online a serialized horror novel, The Plant.[50] At first the public presumed that King had abandoned the project because sales were unsuccessful, but King later stated that he had simply run out of stories.[51] The unfinished epistolary novel is still available from King's official site, now free. Also in 2000, he wrote a digital novella, Riding the Bullet, and has said he sees e-books becoming 50% of the market "probably by 2013 and maybe by 2012". But he also warns: "Here's the thing—people tire of the new toys quickly."[52]
In August 2003, King began writing a column on pop culture appearing inEntertainment Weekly, usually every third week. The column, called The Pop of King (a play on the nickname "The King of Pop" commonly attributed toMichael Jackson).[53]
In 2006, King published an apocalyptic novel, Cell. The book features a sudden force in which every cell phone user turns into a mindless killer. King noted in the book's introduction that he does not use cell phones.
In 2008, King published both a novel, Duma Key, and a collection, Just After Sunset. The latter featured 13 short stories, including a previously unpublished novella, N. Starting July 28, 2008, N. was released as a serialized animated series to lead up to the release of Just After Sunset.[54] The series could be seen for free, or it could be downloaded in a higher quality for a small fee; it then was adopted into a limited comic book series.
In 2009, King published Ur, a novella written exclusively for the launch of the second-generation Amazon Kindleand available only on Amazon.com, and Throttle, a novella co-written with his son Joe Hill and released later as an audiobook titled Road Rage, which included Richard Matheson's short story "Duel". King's novel Under the Dome was published on November 10 of that year; it is a reworking of an unfinished novel he tried writing twice in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and at 1,074 pages, it is the largest novel he has written since It (1986). Under the Dome debuted at No. 1 in The New York Times Bestseller List.[55]
On February 16, 2010, King announced on his Web site that his next book would be a collection of four previously unpublished novellas called Full Dark, No Stars. In April of that year, King published Blockade Billy, an original novella issued first by independent small press Cemetery Dance Publications and later released in mass-market paperback by Simon & Schuster. The following month, DC Comics premiered American Vampire, a monthly comic book series written by King with short-story writer Scott Snyder, and illustrated by Rafael Albuquerque, which represents King's first original comics work.[56][57][58] King wrote the background history of the very first American vampire, Skinner Sweet, in the first five-issues story arc. Scott Snyder wrote the story of Pearl.[59]
King's next novel, 11/22/63, was published November 8, 2011,[60][61] and was nominated for the 2012 World Fantasy Award Best Novel.[62] The eighth Dark Tower volume, The Wind Through the Keyhole, was published in 2012.[63] King's next book was Joyland, a novel about "an amusement-park serial killer", according to an article in The Sunday Times, published on April 8, 2012.[64] It was followed by the sequel to The Shining (1977), titled Doctor Sleep, published in September 2013.
During his Chancellor's Speaker Series talk at University of Massachusetts Lowell on December 7, 2012, King indicated that he was writing a crime novel about a retired policeman being taunted by a murderer. With a working title Mr. Mercedes and inspired by a true event about a woman driving her car into a McDonald's restaurant, it was originally meant to be a short story just a few pages long.[65] In an interview with Parade, published May 26, 2013, King confirmed that the novel was "more or less" completed[66] he published it in June 2013. Later, on June 20, 2013, while doing a video chat with fans as part of promoting the upcoming Under the Dome TV series, King mentioned he was halfway through writing his next novel, Revival,[67] which was released November 11, 2014.[68]
King announced in June 2014 that Mr. Mercedes is part of a trilogy; the second book, Finders Keepers, was released on June 2, 2015. On April 22, 2015, it was revealed that King was working on the third book of the trilogy which name was later revealed to be End of Watch.[70] The book was released on June 7, 2016, and hit the top of the New York Times bestseller list.
On November 3, 2015, King released his tenth collection of short stories, The Bazaar of Bad Dreams. The book was released to critical acclaim and commercial success.
During a tour to promote End of Watch, King revealed that he had collaborated on a novel, set in a women's prison in West Virginia, with his son, Owen King to be titled Sleeping Beauties.[71] When the novel was released in October 2017, it reached the top of the New York Times Best Seller List.
Collaborations
Writings
King has written two novels with horror novelist Peter Straub: The Talisman (1984) and a sequel, Black House(2001). King has indicated that he and Straub will likely write the third and concluding book in this series, the tale of Jack Sawyer, but has set no deadline for its completion.
King produced an artist's book with designer Barbara Kruger, My Pretty Pony (1989), published in a limited edition of 250 by the Library Fellows of the Whitney Museum of American Art. Alfred A. Knopf released it in a general trade edition[72] and the short story was later included in King's collection Nightmares & Dreamscapespublished in 1993.
The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer: My Life at Rose Red (2001) was a paperback tie-in for the King-penned miniseriesRose Red (2002). Published under anonymous authorship, the book was written by Ridley Pearson. The novel is written in the form of a diary by Ellen Rimbauer, and annotated by the fictional professor of paranormal activity, Joyce Reardon. The novel also presents a fictional afterword by Ellen Rimbauer's grandson, Steven. Intended to be a promotional item rather than a stand-alone work, its popularity spawned a 2003 prequel television miniseries to Rose Red, titled The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer. This spin-off is a rare occasion of another author's being granted permission to write commercial work using characters and story elements invented by King. The novel tie-in idea was repeated on Stephen King's next project, the miniseries Kingdom Hospital. Richard Dooling, King's collaborator on Kingdom Hospital and writer of several episodes in the miniseries, published a fictional diary, The Journals of Eleanor Druse, in 2004. Eleanor Druse is a key character in Kingdom Hospital, much as Dr. Joyce Readon and Ellen Rimbauer are key characters in Rose Red.
King also wrote the nonfiction book, Faithful (2004), with novelist and fellow Red Sox fanatic Stewart O'Nan.
Throttle (2009), a novella written in collaboration with his son Joe Hill, appears in the anthology He Is Legend: Celebrating Richard Matheson.[73] Their second novella collaboration, In the Tall Grass (2012), was published in two parts in Esquire.[74][75] It was later released in e-book and audiobook formats, the latter read by Stephen Lang.[76]
Stephen King and Richard Chizmar co-wrote Gwendy's Button Box which was released in May 2017 fromCemetery Dance Publications (in trade hardcover format) and in audiobook from Simon & Schuster Audio (the audiobook has a bonus short story "The Music Room" which was originally published in Playboy).
King and his son Owen King wrote the novel Sleeping Beauties, released in 2017, that is set in a women's prison.[77]
Music
King is a fan of the Ramones, to the extent that he wrote the liner notes for the 2003 Ramones tribute albumWe're a Happy Family.[78] He states that he agreed to write them because he "loved The Ramones from the first time (he) heard them".[79][80] Furthermore, King has referred to the band several times in his writing, both in his fiction and non-fiction.[81] Non-fiction references include a mention in King's book Danse Macabre where he calls the Ramones "an amusing punk-rock band that surfaced some four years ago".[82] He also wrote about them in On Writing, making reference to "dancing to the Ramones—gabba gabba hey" as one of the reasons he has maintained a good marriage.[83]:41 King included further Ramones references in his fictional work. He quotes the lyrics to the Ramones' debut single "Blitzkrieg Bop" in his novel Pet Sematary on numerous occasions, as in the sentence "What is it the Ramones say? Hey-ho, let's go"![84] In The Dark Tower novelWolves of the Calla the Ramones get a further mention by the character Eddie Dean who states that "Roland stage-dives like Joey Ramone".[85] Critics have also noted the Ramones references. Entertainment Weekly, for example, in their review of Black House by King and Peter Straub, note that King's "trademark references" are in evidence, quoting Dee Dee Ramone.[86] In turn, the Ramones have referenced King on their song "It's Not My Place (In the 9 to 5 World)", from their Pleasant Dreams album of 1981 in the line: "Ramones are hangin' out in Kokomo / Roger Corman's on a talk show / With Allan Arkush and Stephen King".[87] Further, Dee Dee Ramone wrote the song "Pet Sematary" in King's basement after King handed him a copy of the novel.[88] The song was eventually featured as the title song for the original Pet Sematary (1989) film, appeared on the Ramones albumBrain Drain (1989), and also played during the credits of the 2019 version of Pet Sematary.[89]
King is also a fan of hard rock such as AC/DC; he arranged for their album Who Made Who to feature as the score for the film he directed in 1986, Maximum Overdrive.[90] King has also stated that he likes heavy metaland has named bands like Anthrax, Judas Priest and Metallica as amongst his favourites to write to.[91] In 1988, the band Blue Öyster Cult recorded an updated version of its 1974 song "Astronomy". The single released for radio play featured a narrative intro spoken by King.[92][93] The Blue Öyster Cult song "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" was also used in the King TV series The Stand.[90]
King collaborated with Michael Jackson to create Ghosts (1996), a 40-minute musical video.[94] King states he was motivated to collaborate as he is "always interested in trying something new, and for (him), writing a minimusical would be new".[95] In 2012 King collaborated with musician Shooter Jennings and his bandHierophant, providing the narration for their album, Black Ribbons.[96] King played guitar for the rock band Rock Bottom Remainders, several of whose members are authors. Other members include Dave Barry, Ridley Pearson, Scott Turow, Amy Tan, James McBride, Mitch Albom, Roy Blount, Jr., Matt Groening, Kathi Kamen Goldmark, Sam Barry, and Greg Iles. King and the other band members collaborated to release an e-book called Hard Listening: The Greatest Rock Band Ever (of Authors) Tells All (June 2013).[97][98] King wrote a musical play Ghost Brothers of Darkland County (2012) with musician John Mellencamp.
Analysis
Writing style
King's formula for learning to write well is: "Read and write four to six hours a day. If you cannot find the time for that, you can't expect to become a good writer." He sets out each day with a quota of 2000 words and will not stop writing until it is met. He also has a simple definition for talent in writing: "If you wrote something for which someone sent you a check, if you cashed the check and it didn't bounce, and if you then paid the light bill with the money, I consider you talented."[99]
Shortly after his accident, King wrote the first draft of the bookDreamcatcher with a notebook and a Waterman fountain pen, which he called "the world's finest word processor".[100]
When asked why he writes, King responds: "The answer to that is fairly simple—there was nothing else I was made to do. I was made to write stories and I love to write stories. That's why I do it. I really can't imagine doing anything else and I can't imagine not doing what I do."[101] He is also often asked why he writes such terrifying stories and he answers with another question: "Why do you assume I have a choice?"[102] King usually begins the story creation process by imagining a "what if" scenario, such as what would happen if a writer is kidnapped by a sadistic nurse in Colorado.[103]
King often uses authors as characters, or includes mention of fictional books in his stories, novellas and novels, such as Paul Sheldon who is the main character in Misery, adult Bill Denbrough in It, Ben Mears in Salem's Lot, and Jack Torrance in The Shining. He has extended this to breaking the fourth wall by including himself as a character in the Dark Tower series from Wolves of the Calla onwards. See also List of fictional books in the works of Stephen King for a complete list. In September 2009 it was announced he would serve as a writer forFangoria.[104]
Influences
King has called Richard Matheson "the author who influenced me most as a writer."[105] In a current edition of Matheson's The Shrinking Man, King is quoted: "A horror story if there ever was one...a great adventure story—it is certainly one of that select handful that I have given to people, envying them the experience of the first reading." Ray Bradbury is another influence, with King himself stating "without Ray Bradbury, there is no Stephen King".[106]
King refers to H. P. Lovecraft several times in Danse Macabre. "Gramma", a short story made into a film in the 1980s anthology horror show The New Twilight Zone, mentions Lovecraft's notorious fictional creationNecronomicon, also borrowing the names of a number of the fictional monsters mentioned therein. "I Know What You Need" from the 1976 collection Night Shift, and 'Salem's Lot also mention the tome. Despite this, inOn Writing, King is critical of Lovecraft's dialogue-writing skills, using passages from "The Colour Out of Space" as particularly poor examples.[83]:143–4 There are also several examples of King's referring to Lovecraftiancharacters and settings in his work, such as Nyarlathotep and Yog-Sothoth.
King acknowledges the influence of Bram Stoker, particularly on his novel Salem's Lot, which he envisioned as a retelling of Dracula.[107] Its related short story "Jerusalem's Lot" is reminiscent of Stoker's The Lair of the White Worm.[citation needed] He also gives Joseph Payne Brennan credit for being one of his inspirations; "Joseph Payne Brennan is one of the most effective writers in the horror genre, and he is certainly one of the writers I have patterned my own career upon; one of the writers whom I studied and with whom I kept school."[108]
King's The Shining is immersed in gothic influences, including "The Masque of the Red Death" by Edgar Allan Poe (which was directly influenced by the first gothic novel, Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto).[109] The Overlook Hotel acts as a replacement for the traditional gothic castle, and Jack Torrance is a tragic villain seeking redemption.[109]
King has also referred to author Shirley Jackson. Salem's Lot opens with a quotation from Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House, and a character in Wolves of the Calla references the Jackson book We Have Always Lived in the Castle. King's book 11/22/63 mentions the Jackson story "The Summer People". King is a fan ofJohn D. MacDonald, and dedicated the novella "Sun Dog" to MacDonald, saying "I miss you, old friend." For his part, MacDonald wrote an admiring preface to Night Shift, and even had his famous character, Travis McGee, reading Cujo in one of the last McGee novels and Pet Sematary in the last McGee novel, The Lonely Silver Rain.
In 1987, King's Philtrum Press published Don Robertson's novel The Ideal, Genuine Man. In his forenote to the novel, King wrote, "Don Robertson was and is one of the three writers who influenced me as a young man who was trying to 'become' a novelist (the other two being Richard Matheson and John D. MacDonald)."[110] Robert A. Heinlein's book The Door into Summer is repeatedly mentioned in King's Wolves of the Calla (2003), as are several other works. Wolves of the Calla is the King work in which The Dark Tower begins to follow a meta-fictional path.
In an interview with King, published in the USA Weekend in March 2009, he stated, "People look on writers that they like as an irreplaceable resource. I do. Elmore Leonard, every day I wake up and—not to be morbid or anything, although morbid is my life to a degree—don't see his obituary in the paper, I think to myself, "Great! He's probably working somewhere. He's gonna produce another book, and I'll have another book to read. Because when he's gone, there's nobody else."[111]
King partly dedicated his book Cell to film director George Romero, and wrote an essay for the Elite DVD version of Night of the Living Dead.
His favorite books are (in order): The Golden Argosy; Adventures of Huckleberry Finn; The Satanic Verses;McTeague; Lord of the Flies; Bleak House; Nineteen Eighty-Four; The Raj Quartet; Light in August; and Blood Meridian.[112]
Critical response
Although critical reaction to King's work has been mostly positive, he has occasionally come under fire from academic writers.
Science fiction editors John Clute and Peter Nichols[113] offer a largely favorable appraisal of King, noting his "pungent prose, sharp ear for dialogue, disarmingly laid-back, frank style, along with his passionately fierce denunciation of human stupidity and cruelty (especially to children) [all of which rank] him among the more distinguished 'popular' writers."
In his book The Philosophy of Horror (1990), Noël Carroll discusses King's work as an exemplar of modern horror fiction. Analyzing both the narrative structure of King's fiction and King's non-fiction ruminations on the art and craft of writing, Carroll writes that for King, "the horror story is always a contest between the normal and the abnormal such that the normal is reinstated and, therefore, affirmed."[114]
In his analysis of post–World War II horror fiction, The Modern Weird Tale (2001), critic S. T. Joshi[115] devotes a chapter to King's work. Joshi argues that King's best-known works (his supernatural novels), are his worst, describing them as mostly bloated, illogical, maudlin and prone to deus ex machina endings. Despite these criticisms, Joshi argues that since Gerald's Game (1993), King has been tempering the worst of his writing faults, producing books that are leaner, more believable and generally better written. Joshi suggests that King's strengths as a writer include the accessible "everyman" quality of his prose, and his unfailingly insightful observations about the pains and joys of adolescence. Joshi cites two early non-supernatural novels—Rage(1977) and The Running Man (1982)—as King's best, suggesting both are riveting and well-constructedsuspense thrillers, with believable characters.
In 1996, King won an O. Henry Award for his short story "The Man in the Black Suit".[116]
In his short story collection A Century of Great Suspense Stories, editor Jeffery Deaver noted that King "singlehandedly made popular fiction grow up. While there were many good best-selling writers before him, King, more than anybody since John D. MacDonald, brought reality to genre novels. He has often remarked that'Salem's Lot was "Peyton Place meets Dracula. And so it was. The rich characterization, the careful and caring social eye, the interplay of story line and character development announced that writers could take worn themes such as vampirism and make them fresh again. Before King, many popular writers found their efforts to make their books serious blue-penciled by their editors. 'Stuff like that gets in the way of the story,' they were told. Well, it's stuff like that that has made King so popular, and helped free the popular name from the shackles of simple genre writing. He is a master of masters."[117]
In 2003, King was honored by the National Book Awards with a lifetime achievement award, the Medal of Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. Some in the literary community expressed disapproval of the award: Richard E. Snyder, the former CEO of Simon & Schuster, described King's work as "non-literature" and critic Harold Bloom denounced the choice:
The decision to give the National Book Foundation's annual award for "distinguished contribution" to Stephen King is extraordinary, another low in the shocking process of dumbing down our cultural life. I've described King in the past as a writer of penny dreadfuls, but perhaps even that is too kind. He shares nothing with Edgar Allan Poe. What he is is an immensely inadequate writer on a sentence-by-sentence, paragraph-by-paragraph, book-by-book basis.[118]
However, others came to King's defense, such as writer Orson Scott Card, who responded:
Let me assure you that King's work most definitely is literature, because it was written to be published and is read with admiration. What Snyder really means is that it is not the literature preferred by the academic-literary elite.[119]
King himself later stated:
[Harold] Bloom never pissed me off because there are critics out there, and he's one of them, who take their ignorance about popular culture as a badge of intellectual prowess. He might be able to say that Mark Twain is a great writer, but it's impossible for him to say that there's a direct line of descent from, say, Nathaniel Hawthorne to Jim Thompson because he doesn't read guys like Thompson. He just thinks, "I never read him, but I know he's terrible."[120]
In Roger Ebert's review of the 2004 movie Secret Window, he stated, "A lot of people were outraged that [King] was honored at the National Book Awards, as if a popular writer could not be taken seriously. But after finding that his book On Writing had more useful and observant things to say about the craft than any book since Strunk and White's The Elements of Style, I have gotten over my own snobbery."[121]
In 2008, King's book On Writing was ranked 21st on Entertainment Weekly list of "The New Classics: The 100 Best Reads from 1983 to 2008".[122]
Appearances and adaptations in other media
King and his wife Tabitha own Zone Radio Corp, a radio station group consisting of WZON/620 AM,[123] WKIT-FM/100.3 & WZLO/103.1.
King has stated that his favorite book-to-film adaptations are Stand by Me, The Shawshank Redemption, andThe Mist.[124]
King's first film appearance was in George Romero's Knightriders as a buffoonish audience member. His first featured role was in Creepshow, in particular the segment "The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill" (King also having written the original story), where he plays the titular character. He has since made cameos in several adaptations of his works. He appeared in Pet Sematary as a minister at a funeral, in Thinner as a pharmacist, inRose Red as a pizza deliveryman, as a news reporter in The Storm of the Century, in The Stand as "Teddy Wieszack," in the Shining miniseries as a band member, in The Langoliers as Tom Holby; in Sleepwalkers as the cemetery caretaker and Golden Years as a bus driver. He has also appeared in Chappelle's Show and, along with fellow author Amy Tan, on The Simpsons as himself. In addition to acting, King tried his hand at directing with Maximum Overdrive, in which he also made a cameo appearance as a man using a malfunctioning ATM.[125] King had also been approached to appear in the 1985 Romero film Day of the Dead as a zombie. Although King declined due to scheduling conflicts, a copy of one of his works makes an appearance being held by the foremost zombie "Bub". King would once again work with Romero in 1993 when his work The Dark Halfwas filmed and directed by George Romero.
King produced and acted in a television series, Kingdom Hospital, which is based on the Danish miniseriesRiget by Lars von Trier.[126] He also co-wrote The X-Files season-5 episode "Chinga" with the creator of the series Chris Carter.
King made an appearance as a contestant on Celebrity Jeopardy! in 1995, playing to benefit the Bangor Public Library.
King provided the voice of Abraham Lincoln in the audiobook version of Assassination Vacation.
In 2010, King appeared in a cameo role as a cleaner named Bachman (a reference to his pen name Richard Bachman) on the FX series Sons of Anarchy.[127]
The Syfy TV series Haven is based on King's novella, The Colorado Kid.[128]
Political views and activism
In April 2008, King spoke out against HB 1423, a bill pending in the Massachusetts state legislature that would restrict or ban the sale of violent video games to anyone under the age of 18. King called the proposed law an attempt by politicians to scapegoat pop culture and to act as surrogate parents to other people's children, which he asserted was usually "disastrous" and "undemocratic". He also saw the law as inconsistent. King argued that such laws allow legislators to ignore the economic divide between the rich and poor and the easy availability of guns, which he believed were the actual causes of violence.[129] Regarding video games, he later stated that he enjoys playing light gun shooter arcade games such as Time Crisis.[130]
A controversy emerged on May 5, 2008 when Noel Sheppard posted a clip of King at a Library of Congressreading event on the Web site NewsBusters. King, talking to high-school students, had said: "If you can read, you can walk into a job later on. If you don't, then you've got the Army, Iraq, I don't know, something like that."[131] The comment was described by the blog as "another in a long line of liberal media members bashing the military," and likened to John Kerry's similar remark from 2006.[132] King responded later that day, saying, "That a right-wing-blog would impugn my patriotism because I said children should learn to read, and could get better jobs by doing so, is beneath contempt...I live in a national guard town, and I support our troops, but I don't support either the war or educational policies that limit the options of young men and women to any one career—military or otherwise." King later expressed regret for the remark, saying that he misspoke. He characterized the comment as originating from a "brain cramp" and the reality of no longer living in the world he grew up in. King added that during the Vietnam War, serving in the military was a great career for some. King added that he does believe that each person should be obligated to some type of government service or altruism.[133]
During the 2008 presidential election, King voiced his support for Democratic candidate Barack Obama.[134]King was quoted as calling conservative commentator Glenn Beck "Satan's mentally challenged younger brother."[135]
On March 8, 2011, King spoke at a political rally in Sarasota aimed against Governor Rick Scott (R-FL), voicing his opposition to the Tea Party movement.[136]
On April 30, 2012, King published an article in The Daily Beast calling for rich Americans, including himself, to pay more taxes, citing it as "a practical necessity and moral imperative that those who have received much should be obligated to pay ... in the same proportion".[137]
On January 25, 2013, King published an essay titled "Guns" via Amazon.com's Kindle single feature, which discusses the gun debate in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. King called for gun owners to support a ban on automatic and semi-automatic weapons, writing, "Autos and semi-autos are weapons of mass destruction...When lunatics want to make war on the unarmed and unprepared, these are the weapons they use."[138][139] The essay became the fifth-bestselling non-fiction title for the Kindle.[140]
King has criticized Donald Trump and Rep. Steve King, deeming them racists.[141][142][143]
In June 2018 King called for the release of the Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov who is jailed in Russia.[144]
Maine politics
King endorsed Shenna Bellows in the 2014 U.S. Senate election for the seat held by Republican Susan Collins.[145]
King publicly criticized Paul LePage during LePage's tenure as Governor of Maine, referring to him as one of the Three Stooges (with then-Florida Governor Rick Scott and then-Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker being the other two).[136] He was critical of LePage for incorrectly suggesting in a 2015 radio address that King avoided paying Maine income taxes by living out of state for part of the year. The statement was later corrected by the Governor's office, but no apology was issued. King said LePage was "full of the stuff that makes the grass grow green"[146] and demanded that LePage "man up and apologize".[147] LePage declined to apologize to King, stating "I never said Stephen King did not pay income taxes. What I said was, Stephen King's not in Maine right now. That's what I said."[148]
The attention garnered by the LePage criticism led to efforts to encourage King to run for Governor of Maine in2018.[149] King stated he would not run or serve.[150] King sent a tweet on June 30, 2015 calling LePage "a terrible embarrassment to the state I live in and love. If he won't govern, he should resign." He later clarified that he was not calling on LePage to resign, but to "go to work or go back home."[151] On August 27, 2016, King called LePage "a bigot, a homophobe, and a racist".[152]
Philanthropy
King has stated that he donates approximately $4 million per year "to libraries, local fire departments that need updated lifesaving equipment (Jaws of Life tools are always a popular request), schools, and a scattering of organisations that underwrite the arts."[137][153]
The Stephen and Tabitha King Foundation, chaired by King and his wife, ranks sixth among Maine charities in terms of average annual giving with over $2.8 million in grants per year, according to The Grantsmanship Center.[154]
In November 2011, the STK Foundation donated $70,000 in matched funding via his radio station to help pay the heating bills for families in need in his home town of Bangor, Maine, during the winter.[155]
Personal life
King married Tabitha Spruce on January 2, 1971.[156] She too is a novelist and philanthropic activist. The couple own and divide their time between three houses: one in Bangor, Maine, one in Lovell, Maine, and for the winter a waterfront mansion located off the Gulf of Mexico in Sarasota, Florida. The Kings have three children, a daughter and two sons, and four grandchildren.[1] Their daughter Naomi is a Unitarian Universalist Church minister in Plantation, Florida, with her lesbian partner, Rev. Dr. Thandeka.[157] Both of the Kings' sons are authors: Owen King published his first collection of stories, We're All in This Together: A Novella and Stories, in 2005.Joseph Hillstrom King, who writes as Joe Hill, published a collection of short stories, 20th Century Ghosts, in 2005. His debut novel, Heart-Shaped Box (2007), was optioned by Warners Bros.[158]
In the early 1970s, King developed a drinking problem which would plague him for more than a decade.[159]Soon after Carrie's release in 1974, King's mother died of uterine cancer; King has written of his severe drinking problem at this time, stating that he was drunk while delivering the eulogy at his mother's funeral.[83]:69 King's addictions to alcohol and other drugs were so serious during the 1980s that, as he acknowledged in On Writingin 2000, he can barely remember writing Cujo.[83]:73 Shortly after the novel's publication, King's family and friends staged an intervention, dumping on the rug in front of him evidence of his addictions taken from his office including beer cans, cigarette butts, grams of cocaine, Xanax, Valium, NyQuil, dextromethorphan (cough medicine) and marijuana. As King related in his memoir, he then sought help, quit all drugs (including alcohol) in the late 1980s, and has remained sober since.[83]:72 The first novel he wrote after becoming sober was Needful Things.[160]
King is a fan of baseball, and of the Boston Red Sox in particular; he frequently attends the team's home and away games, and occasionally mentions the team in his novels and stories. He helped coach his son Owen's Bangor West team to the Maine Little League Championship in 1989. He recounts this experience in the New Yorker essay "Head Down", which appears also in the collection Nightmares & Dreamscapes. In 1999, King wrote The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, featuring former Red Sox pitcher Tom Gordon as the protagonist's imaginary companion. In 2004, King co-wrote a book titled Faithful: Two Diehard Boston Red Sox Fans Chronicle the Historic 2004 Season with Stewart O'Nan, recounting his reaction to the Red Sox's 2004 season, a season culminating in the Sox winning the 2004 American League Championship Series and World Series.[161]In the 2005 film Fever Pitch, about an obsessive Boston Red Sox fan, King tosses out the first pitch of the Sox's opening-day game.
Car accident and aftermath
On June 19, 1999, at about 4:30 p.m., King was walking on the shoulder of Maine State Route 5, in Lovell, Maine. Driver Bryan Edwin Smith, distracted by an unrestrained dog moving in the back of his minivan, struck King, who landed in a depression in the ground about 14 feet (four meters) from the pavement of Route 5.[83]:206 According to Oxford County Sheriff deputy Matt Baker, King was hit from behind and some witnesses said the driver was not speeding, reckless, or drinking.[162] In his book On Writing, King states he was heading north, walking against the traffic. Shortly before the accident took place, a woman in a car, also northbound, passed King first and then the light-blue Dodge van. The van was looping from one side of the road to the other, and the woman told her passenger she hoped "that guy in the van doesn't hit him."[83]:206
King was conscious enough to give the deputy phone numbers to contact his family, but was in considerable pain. He was transported to Northern Cumberland Hospital in Bridgton and then flown by air ambulance to Central Maine Medical Center (CMMC) in Lewiston. His injuries—a collapsed right lung, multiple fractures of his right leg, scalp laceration and a broken hip—kept him at CMMC until July 9. His leg bones were so shattered that doctors initially considered amputating his leg, but stabilized the bones in the leg with an external fixator.[163]After five operations in 10 days and physical therapy, King resumed work on On Writing in July, though his hip was still shattered and he could sit for only about 40 minutes before the pain became unbearable.[83]:216
King's lawyer and two others purchased Smith's van for $1,500, reportedly to prevent it from appearing oneBay. The van was later crushed at a junkyard, to King's disappointment, as he had fantasized about smashing it up. King later mentioned during an interview with Fresh Air's Terry Gross that he wanted the vehicle destroyed at a charity event in which individuals would donate money for an opportunity to smash it with a sledgehammer.[164][165]
During this time, Tabitha King was inspired to redesign his studio. King visited the space while his books and belongings were packed away. What he saw was an image of what his studio would look like if he died, inspiring his novel Lisey's Story (2006).[166]
In 2002, King announced he would stop writing, apparently motivated in part by frustration with his injuries, which had made sitting uncomfortable and reduced his stamina. He has since resumed writing, but states on his website:
I'm writing but I'm writing at a much slower pace than previously and I think that if I come up with something really, really good, I would be perfectly willing to publish it because that still feels like the final act of the creative process, publishing it so people can read it and you can get feedback and people can talk about it with each other and with you, the writer, but the force of my invention has slowed down a lot over the years and that's as it should be.[167]
Awards
Bibliography
Audiobooks
