A Brief Guide to Stephen King (30 page)

For King fans who aren’t baseball fanatics, the story is intriguing enough to hold interest, even if the trappings are less enticing. As with
The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon
or
Blockade Billy
, King’s storytelling power transcends the sports parts of the tale, and while there are echoes of ‘The
New York Times
at Bargain Rates’ and ‘You Know They Got a Hell of a Band’ as well as Dickens’
A Christmas Carol
about the story, it’s got its own unique flavour.

In the Tall Grass
(Gollancz, October 2012)

Cal and Becky DeMuth are inseparable brother and sister, travelling across country after Becky has fallen pregnant. They hear a cry for help from a child coming from the tall grass beside the highway, and go to see if they can assist. But within moments of entering the grass, they find it impossible to find either the boy, or his mother – who has been warning them not to come closer – or indeed each other. Becky meets the boy’s father and discovers that there is a ‘thirsty rock’ in the middle of the field. She fights for her life against the man, who has gone mad and killed his wife. Meanwhile, Cal meets the boy, who is similarly insane, eating crows, although he is able to explain that he and his family were lured into the field by the sound of a little girl, and that the rock helps them to hear the tall grass that ‘knows everything’. Becky gives birth but when Cal comes under the control of the rock, her resistance starts to fade . . . And soon another group hears voices calling for help from the tall grass . . .

The second collaboration between Stephen King and Joe Hill was originally published in two parts by
Esquire
Magazine, part of the publication’s fiction strand, which had been affected by the recession, and felt, to editor-in-chief Dave Granger, like ‘a little bit of a luxury’. However, Granger commissioned some ‘men’s fiction’ – which he described as stories that are ‘plot-driven and exciting, where one thing happens after another. And also at the same time, dealing with passages in a man’s life that seem common’ – from Lee Child, Colum McCann and King & Hill. Interviewed in the magazine, Hill noted: ‘We talked about a high point late in the story to aim at. Considering how the story unfolds, maybe we should talk about it as a low point.’ His father added, ‘Gross is good!’

The Dark Man
(Cemetery Dance, July 2013)

King’s five-verse poem about the Dark Man was written on the back of a placemat while still in college in 1969, after the image came to him suddenly of a denim-wearing man in cowboy boots constantly on the move, hitchhiking at night. Like the third volume of the ‘Dark Tower’ saga, it’s headed with a quote from T.S. Eliot’s
The Waste Land
.

It was first published in
Ubris
in the Fall 1969 edition, and then reprinted in a magazine,
Moth
, the following year. Both times, the poem was credited to ‘Steve’ King. The Cemetery Dance edition contains seventy pages of full-page art by Glenn Chadbourne, which make it clear that the Dark Man is Randall Flagg, the antagonist of
The Stand
and many later books.

Other uncollected short stories

Although there are various short pieces and novels from King’s early career that remain uncollected (for considerable details on this, check out Rocky Wood’s
Stephen King: Uncollected, Unpublished
), there have been a few stories published in magazine or anthology volumes in the last four years which would seem likely to arrive in bound form sooner rather than later, with the e-originals listed above expected to join them. Brief details of these are given below, although it is worth noting that it is likely that there may be changes between the originally published versions and any book collection.

‘Premium Harmony’
appeared in the
New Yorker
on 9 November 2009, and can be read at their website.

It’s told from the point of view of Ray, whose wife Mary suffers a heart attack while shopping in Wal-Mart in the now almost-dead community of Castle Rock. Ray’s self-centred attitude extends to the people who are trying to help him – and even to his Jack Russell, waiting patiently for him in the car in the sweltering heat. Not all the monsters
King writes about are affected by the supernatural, even those living in Castle Rock, which has clearly suffered the brunt of the recession.

‘Herman Wouk is Still Alive’
was first published in
The Atlantic
in May 2011; it too can be read at the magazine’s website.

Brenda and Jasmine’s lives appear without hope, and their children seem doomed to follow in their footsteps. But when Brenda gets a small lottery win, she can afford to hire a van and take her friend and kids on the road. Phil Henreid and Pauline Enslin are septuagenarians still taking pleasure in life and glad to learn that Herman Wouk is still writing aged 94. Their lives are tragically affected when Brenda loses control of the van . . .

In an interview with the magazine the previous month, King revealed that the inspiration was an accident like the one in the story – although alcohol was not involved in that. The title came from his son Owen, after King lost a bet on the NCAA March Madness Tournament.

‘The Little Green God of Agony’
was part of
A Book of Horrors
, edited by Stephen Jones, which was published in September 2011.

Katherine MacDonald is nursing plane-crash survivor Andrew Newsome, the sixth richest person in the world, who doesn’t seem willing to accept the pain that needs to be endured to achieve physical rehabilitation; the latest person summoned to help him is Reverend Rideout, who believes that there is something haunting Newsome, and that’s why he can’t heal. When Rideout starts his exorcism, the truth comes out . . .

A twenty-four page webcomic version of this story, illustrated by Dennis Calero, was published thrice-weekly starting in October 2012; it can be read in its entirety on
stephenking.com
.

‘The Dune’
was published in issue 117, the autumn 2011 edition, of the British literary magazine
Granta
. The magazine can be downloaded to Kindle.

For the last eighty years, ever since he was ten years old, former judge Harvey Beecher has gone out regularly to a small island in the Florida Keys where there is a small sand dune, which somehow has survived all weather conditions. Every so often, a name appears on the dune, as if written with a stick – and a few days later, that person dies. After his most recent visit, he summons his lawyer, keen to set his affairs in order . . .

According to
Granta
editor John Freeman, King headlined their horror issue because he ‘is not only a great short story writer, but simply an important planet in our literary cosmos. In his best work he weaves all these elements of horror – the metaphysical fear, the moral expulsions, and the formal machinery that evokes our fears so that we can exorcise them – into one story. There’s a reason why writers like David Foster Wallace cite him: he makes it look easy.’

‘Batman and Robin Have an Altercation’
appeared in the September 2012 edition of
Harper’s Magazine
. The story is available as a downloadable pdf to subscribers.

It’s about one of King’s more familiar themes in recent years, Alzheimer’s Disease, and sees middle-aged Sanderson bring his father to Applebee’s for a weekly lunch, where they have the same food and the same conversation. But this time, Sanderson is about to be saved by his father . . .

The story, which was King’s first for
Harper’s
, won the author his second National Magazine Award; ‘Rest Stop’ in 2004 was the first.

‘Afterlife’
saw print in
Tinhouse
issue 56 in June 2013, which is available to buy as a back issue from their website.
Investment banker Bill Andrews dies of cancer and finds himself talking to Isaac Harris. He’s faced with some uncomfortable truths about his life and offered a chance to relive his time again – or choose ultimate oblivion . . .

In September 2010, King mentioned the idea of a comic book called
Afterlife
to
USA Today
; he had written the story by May 2012, but told the moderators on his website that ‘I don’t know where it is at as far as doing it as a comic’. He read the completed story to students at the University of Massachusetts-Lowell on 7 December 2012.

‘The Rock and Roll Dead Zone’
was part of a joke contest in
Hard Listening
, the history of the Rock Bottom Remainders, published in June 2013, between King and three of his fellow band members. They all wrote ‘a page of text trying to mimic Steve’s writing . . . Can you out-Steve Steve?’ (King’s reply to the challenge: ‘I do it every day.’) The other three ‘King-esque’ stories are well worth reading – and much closer to the horror with which King is associated!

Author Steve King returns from a tour to find Edward Gooch waiting for him. Gooch always has an idea that he hopes Steve will invest in. And this one’s a doozy: a theme park re-enacting the various deaths in songs . . .

Interestingly, the thematic and stylistic analysis carried out on the texts by the Book Genome Project did not suggest that King was the author of this story at all – perhaps proving once and for all that Stephen King can pretty much write about any subject if he puts his mind to it.

Although Stephen King is best known as a writer of novels and short stories, he has been a creative force in a number of other fields. Although many of his tales have been optioned for the large or small screens over the years, he is not responsible for the screenplays for many of these – Academy Award winner William Goldman adapted
Misery, Dolores Claiborne, Hearts in Atlantis
and
Dreamcatcher
(as well as reworking his
Misery
film script for the stage); Oscar nominee Frank Darabont penned
The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile
and
The Mist
(and came to King’s attention through his short version of ‘The Woman in the Room’. This section looks at the original screenplays King has written – or those based on stories which aren’t yet in regular collections of his work.

Creepshow
(1982, directed by George A. Romero)

Young boy Billy is chastised for reading a horror comic entitled
Creepshow
, since his father doesn’t want him
reading crap like that. Angry at his father who has sent him to his room, Billy hears a sound at the window – it’s the narrator from the comics who has five tales to tell.

Seven years after Nathan Grantham died, murdered by his long-suffering daughter, she spills some whiskey on his grave before heading to a family reunion on ‘Father’s Day’. Grantham is reanimated – and wants a cake for the holiday. After killing the various members of his family, he decides that granddaughter Sylvia’s head will do nicely . . .

‘The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill’ comes after the titular hick farmer finds a meteorite, and becomes infected with a horrible green weed. Bathing only makes it worse, and Jordy has only one course of action.

Cuckolded psychopathic Richard Vickers finds ‘Something to Tide You Over’ for his wife and her lover, burying them in the sand ready for the water to come in and drown them. He doesn’t expect them to make a reappearance, particularly since he’s watched them die – but the desire for revenge won’t be killed off that easily.

There’s a beast inside ‘The Crate’ which has been in store for a very long time – and henpecked Professor Henry Northrup sees it as a way to rid himself of his very annoying wife.

Reclusive billionaire Upson Pratt discovers ‘They’re Creeping Up on You!’ as cockroaches invade his hermetically sealed apartment and get revenge on behalf of all the little people.

Billy’s comic book is in the garbage that’s being collected, but the advertisement for a voodoo doll has been cut out. And Billy is busy using his purchase on his father . . .

‘The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill’ was based on a 1976 short story ‘Weeds’, which has not been collected; ‘The Crate’ derived from a 1979 tale, also not included in any of King’s anthologies. The other three stories were original to the film.

The King family diversified into acting with this film, with mixed results. Billy was played by young Joe King (aka Joe Hill); Jordy Verrill was overacted by King himself, making the segment even funnier than the black humour already in the script (‘the performance owes a lot to the set decorator’, was one of the kinder comments, courtesy of the
New York Times
). Max Von Sydow (later to appear in
Needful Things
) was the original choice for Upson Pratt, but E.G. Marshall took the part, working in the studio with the 22,000 cockroaches needed for the climactic scenes.

King, Romero and producer Richard P. Rubinstein came up with the idea for the film while working on the miniseries of
’Salem’s Lot
, deciding they wanted to scare an audience ‘so badly and so continuously that they will have to almost literally crawl out of the theatre’. The infamous EC comics from the 1950s were the basis for the tales (and the tie-in comic book by Berni Wrightson recreates them beautifully: copies of the hardback French edition are more easily available than the paperback US version, and are well worth seeking out), with King writing the screenplay containing six ‘telegrams of terror’ in a mere two months (‘Mr King wrote them in what appears to have been a hurry’, the
New York Times
commented). He noted a few years later that he was quite surprised how much humour people found in the stories, since at the time, they thought they were shooting ‘this really scary picture’.