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阅读斯蒂芬·金 Stephen King在小说之家的作品!!! |
斯蒂芬·金斯蒂芬·金-基本资料
斯蒂芬·金
姓名：斯蒂芬·金
出生日：1947年9月21日
星座：处女座
性别：男
血型：未知
地区：美国
出生省：缅因州
出生市：未知
身份：作家
身高：193cm
斯蒂芬·金-个人概述
美国恐怖小说作家中有斯蒂芬·金(StephenKing)，就像中国武侠小说作家中有金庸一样，两者都是峰巅人物，其地位是不可替代的。斯蒂芬·金是当今世界上读者最多、声誉最高、名气最大的美国小说家，在美国及欧洲，他的名字几乎是妇孺皆知。金的每部小说发行量都在100万册以上，在80年代美国最畅销的25本书中，他一人便独占7本。自80年代以来，历年的美国畅销书排行榜小说类上斯蒂芬·金的小说总是名列榜首，久居不下。因此，他被青年一代奉为“恐怖小说之王”。
斯蒂芬·金于1947年9月21日出生于美国缅因州。他两岁时父亲有一天“出去买烟”，从此一去不返，后来听说是到刚果当了雇佣军。总之他母亲成了寡妇，为了养家吃尽了苦头。金从小肥胖异常，姿势可笑，童年时没有留下什么美好的回忆，惟一印象深刻的事情，是他5岁时在铁道边玩耍，眼见一个小伙伴被火车头碾成了肉酱。14岁那年，他在家中阁楼上发现了一个小箱子，里面是他父亲收藏的一些恐怖小说和科幻作品，金在阅读之余便也舞文弄墨起来，在缅因州大学学习英国文学时还在校刊上发表了几篇习作。毕业后他白天在汽车修理站工作，晚上写一些神鬼古怪的恐怖小说。他工资菲薄却嗜酒如命，写出来的东西又没有人要，全家生活拮据，捉襟见肘。为此他通宵难眠，心中的怒火只有在扑向打字机写恐怖故事时才得以宣泄。可是他买不起稿纸，只能把字打在牛奶发票的背面。
1973年他时来运转，受到了出版商的垂青。他的长篇小说《凯莉》的精装本发行了13000册，后来又改编成电影。他的名字上了《纽约时报》，被誉为“现代恐怖大师”。他预支了2500元的稿费，从此闭门写作。在以后的日月里，金平均每两年出版一两部小说，作品的发行量惊人，只有《圣经》可与之相比。到1979年他32岁时，已经成了全世界作家中首屈一指的富翁。他不喜欢听家乡电台的迪斯科乐曲，便干脆把电台买了下来，随心所欲地播放他爱听的摇摆舞曲。
斯蒂芬·金的作品数量之多、想像力之丰富，对读者来说始终是一个谜。
斯蒂芬·金-经历
1973年的春天，妻子妲碧莎从家里的垃圾堆中捡到史蒂芬·金遗弃的一叠旧稿，她觉得故事很不错，于是劝说丈夫润色一下拿到出版社试试。结果这本处女作总共卖出了230万册，从此辞掉中学教师的工作，成为职业作家。这本名为《魔女嘉莉》（Carrie）的小说紧接着被效法希区柯克的大导演布莱恩·德·帕尔玛拍成了电影，这也是史蒂芬·金第一次与影视沾上边。主角嘉莉是一个晚熟、孤僻的女孩，母亲的宗教狂热使她备受邻居与同学的歧视和嘲笑，然而谁也不知道她是一个拥有魔力的孩子。初潮使得嘉莉受到严重惊吓，母亲认定邪恶降临，强迫她认罪，嘉莉的压抑与悲愤在学校舞会上彻底爆发。为了捉弄他，同学与老师特地邀请鼓励她站到舞会皇后的舞台上，却被一盆猪血临头洒下。嘉莉忍无可忍终于魔性大发，将舞会化作火海，所有向那些嘲弄过她的人开始了无情报复。
在史蒂芬·金的故事里，常以受到社会与家庭不公对待的孩子为主人公，这完全来自其本人的经历。史蒂芬三岁时父母离异，与哥哥由母亲抚养成人，而收入仅是母亲在一家智障收容所的工作所得。故此，史蒂芬贫困凄惨的童年在他日后的创作中屡屡出现，也可想见他本人在少年时代对外部世界是怀着一种惊恐与怨恨的心态。1984年，琳达．汉密尔顿出演了由史蒂芬．金的得意之作改编的《玉米田的小孩》（ChildrenoftheCorn），影片里一群邪教的青少年，专门杀害成年人，用他们的血祭奠自己的神。这个故事也来自于未成年者对成人世界的反抗、报复心理。恐怖片大师约翰·卡彭特在1983年执导他的作品《克里斯汀》，同样也是讲述高中生阿尼因呆板懦弱经常被同学欺负，在买下一辆名叫克里斯汀的不祥的老车后，他开始变得暴烈，向以往亏待过他的人实施报复，最终因罪恶走向毁灭。影片成为青春恐怖片的经典之作。
2001年9月，由史蒂芬．金的最新小说《亚特兰蒂斯之心》(HeartsinAtlantis)改编的影片上映。小说原本写了五个萦绕着越战回忆的故事串连起来，背景是令史蒂芬．金本人十分着迷的五六十年代。影片则取材于第一个故事，编剧是曾改编过史蒂芬·金作品《危情十日》的威廉姆．古德曼。同样，11岁小主人公鲍比来自一个单亲家庭，母亲刻薄自私从不满足他小小的心愿。然而他最终从由安东尼．霍普金斯扮演的神秘老人泰德那里找到了属于自己的亲情。在这位具有超能力的老人的帮助下，鲍比拜托了终日欺负他的大孩子，并获得了女孩凯洛尔的好感。尽管影片没有过多悬念，但突出的温情亲切倒正是史蒂芬·金这位“恐怖小说之王”最被人忽略的另一面。
在此主题与风格下的“史蒂芬．金电影”中，《伴我同行》（StandbyMe）无疑是最优秀的。史蒂芬．金本人从不掩饰对这部影片的喜爱，他认为“这是罗伯·雷纳导演的最杰出、最震撼人心的作品。我喜欢它是因为看影片时，能感觉到当初写作时的心情。”这部电影改编自他的小说《尸体》（TheBody），讲述日后成为作家的戈迪在12岁时与三个死党克里斯、泰迪、维恩一起去寻找一具同龄男孩尸体的故事。在两天的长途跋涉中，戈迪终于找回了即将失去的自我。值得注意的是，故事里的四个小孩的家庭都不幸福，他们都受到学校、家庭，以及比自己年长的孩子的忽视或欺辱，这些无疑都是原著作者史蒂芬·金的亲身体验。影片的成功不仅来自风格清新自然，而且剧本改编也极为吸引人，片中五十年代的流行歌曲也适当地烘托了时代气氛。这也是最为特别的一部“史蒂芬·金电影”。
“灵异”无疑是史蒂芬·金中推动情节、渲染气氛的最重要因素，当然在寻常恐怖气氛中，他特别喜欢运用类似古典音乐中“华彩”的出奇片段。他在点评1985年里维斯·提古执导的自己原著的影片《猫眼》（Cat'sEye）时大发牢骚：“原本影片的第一个镜头是茱儿·巴莉摩端着机关枪在房间里追杀她的猫。太精彩了，绝对是神来之笔。可导演坚持把它剪掉！真是个败兴鬼！”的确里维斯．提古没能营造出太好的惊悚气氛，尽管这部三段式影片每段故事都十分出众。比如第一个讲述詹姆斯．伍德与一家戒烟公司签约，这家公司的规矩是一旦签约绝无反悔，以后只要你吸一口烟，全家就会惨遭电击——究竟是这个公司眼线四布，还是有灵异窥视，各种奥妙的确抓人。
1989年玛丽·兰博特导演了史蒂芬·金的《宠物坟场》（PetSematary），史蒂芬回忆说“当时评论家恨透了它。其实它完成了它所有的任务——吓死观众而已。”这确实是一部够下人的影片：克瑞德一家搬到郊区居住，在屋后有一处动物坟场，但没有人愿意谈起。有一天，克瑞德的猫遇到车祸丧生，邻居才告诉他那片坟场有着起死回生的能力。克瑞德一家决定去尝试，果然，他们的猫活着回来了——但，回来不仅仅是一只猫。影片运用“邪灵”的说法，制造恐怖情节，当然其中的寓意就是，人无论如何不能违背自然法则，不如必遭报应。加拿大人大卫．柯能堡是营造恐怖、惊悚效果的高手，而且很少运用刺激的视觉效果。他在1983年拍摄了史蒂芬．金的小说《死亡禁地》（TheDeadZone）。主人公强尼发生车祸，昏睡五年后醒来发现自己拥有了超能力，他可以借助接触别人的手来遇见未来。原本用此来惩善除恶的强尼却发现自己必须独自背负着十字架生活下去。同样一个主题出现在，1999年的《绿里》（theGreenMile）中，在这部长大3小时的影片中，天性善良又洞察世事的黑人，在运用超能力帮助世人之后，最终不堪忍受精神的折磨，自愿选择了死亡这一解脱的方式。而汤姆．汉克斯也因长生不死而忍受着送走一个又一个亲友的痛苦。史蒂芬．金的观点仍然是自然法是无法抗拒的，不然是祸而非福。
《绿里》由于过分“神化”史蒂芬．金的小说，在人物刻划与情节铺垫上机心过重，使得影片拖沓冗长难以忍受。导演法兰克．德拉邦特据说是“史蒂芬．金专业户”，他在1983年的处女作就是改编自史蒂芬．金的小说《房间中的女人》（TheWomanintheRoom）。1994年他拍摄了第二部作品，《肖申克的救赎》（TheShawshankRedemption），又被翻译为《刺激1995》（1995年在香港上映）。史蒂芬．金说：“一切都很完美——我没像传说的在影片结束时嚎啕大哭，但眼眶确实有点潮。”
这的确是一部激动人心的作品，至今仍然是“影迷心中永恒的经典、电影论坛里不过时的话题、影碟店内的畅销货、权威电影网站IMDB上的前三名。”影片关于救赎的论点已经被探讨的差不多了，而就普通影迷来说，《肖申克的救赎》不仅在结尾提供了一个伟大的悬念，而且对人物的刻划、男性友谊的描绘，以及对希望永不磨灭的书写。很多人甚至将堤姆．罗宾斯在广播室播放莫扎特的片段当作讴歌美好人性的最伟大的场景。影片中那个“太平洋上没有回忆的小岛”，也成为人们希望的象征地。就一部通俗剧来说，产生如此之大的影片不仅在导演叙事手法的娴熟煽情，而且史蒂芬．金的确提供了一个出色的模板——一个囚犯在看守极其严密的监狱里，是如何利用一只小凿子，花19年时间挖地道逃出去。
甚至由于《肖申克的救赎》过于轰动，史蒂芬·金曾信誓旦说，为保有美好记录，以后绝不再写监狱小说。然而过了几年，德拉邦特仍然没有影片拍，史蒂芬只得破例并一连写成了六本有关“绿里”死刑狱所的畅销小说。然而影片没有能够取得预期的效果，史蒂芬·金在那一年也遇到了车祸，令他对人生改变了看法，逐渐萌生退意。而德拉邦特也与“史蒂芬·金的监狱”告别，去筹拍《电影人生》了。
1997年，马克·巴维亚这位年轻导演也借助史蒂芬．金的作品，成为引人注目的新锐导演，他改编的是《夜月风高》（NightFlier）。一家小杂志的记者理查为了与同事竞争，决定追踪报道一名利用私人飞机连环杀人的凶手，然后他欲制造耸动效应的心理，促使他越来越怀疑那个凶手是吸血鬼……真相大白后，理查对人说“千万别相信你所写的事实，也千万别写你所见的事实”。其实这是史蒂芬．金作为一个作家（他也曾是小报的撰稿人），对媒体的反讽，更重要的是，你可以看出一个作家面对生活压力，心理的无形恐惧如何逐渐化作来自外部空间的幽灵。“魔由心生”的主题，是史蒂芬．金小说中并最为出色的设计。而主人公的作家身份也常常出现在他的小说以及电影中。
《闪灵》（TheShining），这部最伟大“史蒂芬·金电影”在1980年，被斯坦利．库布利克这位“天才的混蛋”拍竣。但史蒂芬·金甚至从来没有这样承认过这是一部“史蒂芬．金电影”，他认为库布利克完全窜改了他的原作，因为在影片最后，库布利克让主人公作家杰克杀死黑人厨师后，用利斧疯狂砍杀自己的妻儿，却被冻死在迷宫中。而在小说中，杰克并未杀死任何人，留下一个光明的尾巴。史蒂芬·金认为库布利克是在用他的小说“蓄意伤害观众”。无论如何争议， 《闪灵》作为一部艺术恐怖片，无疑是经典的。他拍出了人类在生存压力下、彼此无法沟通下的精神变异，直至毁灭。主人公杰克的身份是业余作者，正在为家庭生活和个人事业而苦恼——这也恰恰是史蒂芬．金曾几何时的真实写照。库布利克在视听语言上的高超运用使得其它“史蒂芬·金电影”显得有些不足道。尤其是用低机位高速摄像机追拍杰克的儿子在诡异无比的地毯上骑车的镜头显足了天才本色。
影片里最显露心理恐怖之处莫过于，妻子乍见杰克日夜打印的小说稿纸上竟然一行行全是“只会工作不会娱乐的杰克很快就要发疯”！观众的凉意怎么不从足底生起，而这恐怕也是史蒂芬·金在未成名前的焦虑、绝望心态的抒发。而影片中与杰克喝酒的幽灵则可以当作是他创作出来的——作家由此受到内心与外界的双重折磨而终究崩溃。与本片可对照观看的是有凯西．贝茨叹为观止的表演的《危情十日》 （Misery）。影片讲述的是作家与读者间的惊悚故事。
在1990年的《危情十日》里，书迷安妮在大雪中救起了她崇拜的作家保罗．希尔顿，并将他带回家修养腿伤。希尔顿为写出真正的小说，让他连载小说的主人公米塞罗死去，安妮勃然大怒，烧毁了手稿，令无法行走的希尔顿重写。当希尔顿发现她与小说中的人物描写有丝丝关联后，安妮更将他的踝关节敲碎！最终希尔顿终于将最后一部分写完，并让米塞罗死而复生。当安妮欣喜若狂时，希尔顿自己将手稿烧毁以示报复……从这个故事里，不难发现史蒂芬．金内心深处于读者的对立，他渴望做一个“真正的作家”，他诅咒读者们的无的束缚，他却也无法接受库布利克式的残忍结局——于是，作家、人物、读者，三者在冥冥中纠缠者，相互伤害，无休无止，对于史蒂芬．金的创作生涯来说，这是“惊悚”最大的心理源泉。
最近有记者问史蒂芬．金：“你认为上帝是好人还是坏人？”他说：“我想他还算可爱。毕竟我们半个世纪多只被原子弹炸过一次。”据说在《闪灵》的拍片期间，库布里克曾经在凌晨三点打电话问史蒂芬．金：“你相信上帝吗？”，那一次没有人知道史蒂芬．金的回答。
斯蒂芬·金-个人作品
内蒙古出版社：
《缅因鬼镇》"'Salem'sLot"novel
《致命游戏》"Gerald'sGame"novel
《恶梦工厂（短篇集）》"Nightmares&Dreamscapes"storycollection
珠海出版社：
《死光（上、下两册）》"It"novel
《杰罗德游戏》"Gerald'sGame"novel
《宠物公墓》"PetSematary"novel
《玫瑰疯狂者》"RoseMadder"novel
《黑暗的另一半》"TheDarkHalf"novel
《神秘火焰》"Firestarter"novel
《死亡区域》"TheDeadZone"novel
《恶兆》"Cujo"novel
《惊鸟》"DoloresClaiborne"novel
《克里斯汀》"Christine"novel
《一号书迷》"Misery"novel
《世事无常（短片集）》"Everything'sEventual"storycollection
《斯蒂芬·金传》"OnWriting:AMemoiroftheCraft"non-fiction
大众文艺出版社：
《闪灵》"TheShining"novel
《撒冷镇》"'Salem'sLot"novel
《末日逼近（上、下两册）》"TheStand(TheCompleteandUncutEdition)"novel
上海译文出版社：
《尸骨袋》"BagofBones"novel
人民文学出版社：
《黑暗塔I：枪侠》"TheDarkTowerI:TheGunslinger"novel
《黑暗塔II：三张牌》"TheDarkTowerII:TheDrawingoftheThree"novel
《黑暗塔III：荒原》"TheDarkTowerIII:TheWasteLands"novel
《肖申克的救赎（中篇集）》"DifferentSeasons"storycollection
哈尔滨出版社：
《克苏鲁神话：恐怖人间〈耶路撒冷领地（短篇）〉》AStoryin"TalesoftheCthulhuMythos"
计划中引进：
人民文学出版社：
《黑暗塔IV：巫师与玻璃球》"TheDarkTowerIV:Wizard&Glass"novel
《黑暗塔V：卡拉之狼》"TheDarkTowerV:WolvesofTheCalla"novel
《黑暗塔VI：苏珊娜之歌》"TheDarkTowerVI:SongofSusannah"novel
《黑暗塔VII：黑暗之塔》"TheDarkTowerVII:TheDarkTower"novel
上海译文出版社：
《手机》"Cell"novel
世纪出版社：
劫梦惊魂"DreamCatcher"
斯蒂芬·金-个人影响
对于史蒂芬．金（StephenKing）这个名字，早已不陌生了。任何一个美国娱乐界影响力榜，或者每一年的文艺界富豪榜上都有他的大名，而且必然名列前茅。年初，这位当今全球最成功的畅销书作家在接受《洛杉矶时报》采访时却表示，在完成手边的写作计划后，年底将正式封笔。这个消息虽然令众多读者泄气，但并不令人震惊，史蒂芬．金欲收山的意图曾不止一次向新闻界透露过。其最大原因是想在颠峰时终止写作生涯，而不是在状态、销量、名声一路下滑时“恶梦般的结束”。当然史蒂芬．金在内心深处仍有无法言说的心事，那就是他十分渴望成为马克·吐温式的大作家，但不管他如何努力，人们总是称他为“恐怖小说家”——无疑，这令他异常沮丧。
史蒂芬·金的离去，我们不仅将读不到他的小说了，而且也将看不到根据他的新作改编的电影了。以往，他的每一部小说几乎都曾搬上过银幕。据说，论原著被改编为影视剧的比率，史蒂芬．金可以排第二，第一则是莎士比亚。的确很多人虽然没读过他的书，却为他的电影痴迷过，其中最著名的是《肖申克的救赎》 ，最伟大的是《闪灵》，还有许许多多……本文将对根据史蒂芬．金小说改编的经典影片，沿着主题的线索做一个巡礼，或许也可当作你观看“惊悚片”和“悬念片”一个藏宝图。
斯蒂芬·金-个人荣誉
2007年获颁爱伦坡大师奖（终身成就奖）(GrandMaster)
斯蒂芬·金-人物评价
斯蒂芬·金-美国著名恐怖小说家，了解他作品的人会发现，他著名作品中或改编成影视作品的小说主人公大多都是一个作家，在生活中他注重细节，善于观察，一只死在垃圾站边上的猫也会让他文思泉涌，他就是这样，将自己与那个我们不了解的世界混为一体。他经历的事情很多很多，婴儿时代父亲的失踪、参加反越南战争，事母至孝捐款抗癌、肺部腿部因车祸重伤，这些的这些让他了解什么是恐惧，人为什么会恐惧。没有鬼，只是心中有恐惧，就会害怕，还想逃避发生的事情，无力去解决它们久而久之就在心理激化．我们害怕的是我们自己给自己下的套。老谋深算的他凭借着细心与敏锐，挥舞着笔墨，创造一个又一个扣人心弦的不朽之作。
King has received many awards, including several Bram Stoker Awards, Locus Awards, and, in 2003, the National Book Foundation awarded him the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.
King and his wife, Tabitha, have three children, Naomi, Joe and Owen. Tabitha, Joe and Owen are also published writers.
Early life and background
King's father, Donald Edwin King, who was born ca. 1913 in Peru, Indiana, was a merchant seaman. King's mother, Nellie Ruth (née Pillsbury; March 13, 1913 - December 28, 1973) was born in Scarborough, Maine. They were married July 23, 1939 in Cumberland County, Maine.
Stephen King was born September 21, 1947 in Portland, Maine. When King was two years old, his father left the family under the pretense of "going to buy a pack of cigarettes," leaving his mother to raise King and his adopted 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 eleven years old, the family returned to Durham, Maine, where Ruth King cared for her parents until their deaths. She then became a caregiver in a local residential facility for the mentally challenged.
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, but King himself has dismissed the idea.
King's primary inspiration for writing horror fiction was related in detail in his 1981 non-fiction Danse Macabre, in a chapter titled "An Annoying Autobiographical Pause". King makes a comparison of his uncle successfully dowsing for water using the bough of an apple branch with the sudden realization of what he wanted to do for a living. While browsing through an attic with his elder brother, King uncovered a paperback version of an H. P. Lovecraft collection of short stories that had belonged to his father. The cover art—an illustration of a yellow-green Demon hiding within the recesses of a Hellish cavern beneath a tombstone—was, he writes,
"The moment of my life when the dowsing rod suddenly went down hard... as far as I was concerned, I was on my way."
Education and early creativity
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 that his brother published with a mimeograph machine and later began selling stories to his friends which were 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", serialized over three published and one unpublished issue 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.
From 1966, King studied English at the University of Maine, graduating in 1970 with a Bachelor of Science in English. That same year his first daughter, Naomi Rachel, was born. He wrote a column for the student newspaper, The Maine Campus, titled "Steve King's Garbage Truck", took part in a writing workshop organized by Burton Hatlen, and took odd jobs to pay for his studies, including one at an industrial laundry. He sold his first professional short story, "The Glass Floor", to Startling Mystery Stories in 1967. The Fogler Library at UMaine now holds many of King's papers.
After leaving the university, King earned a certificate to teach high school but, being unable to find a teaching post immediately, initially supplemented his laboring wage by selling short stories to men's magazines such as Cavalier. Many of these early stories have been published in the collection Night Shift. In 1971, King married Tabitha Spruce, a fellow student at the University of Maine whom he had met at the University's Fogler Library after one of Professor Hatlen's workshops. That fall, King was hired as a teacher at Hampden Academy in Hampden, Maine. He continued to contribute short stories to magazines and worked on ideas for novels. It was during this time that King developed a drinking problem, which stayed with him for more than a decade.
In 1972, Joseph Hillstrom, his second child was born.
Success with Carrie
In 1973, King's novel Carrie was accepted by publishing house Doubleday. King actually threw an early draft of the novel in the trash after becoming discouraged with his progress writing about a teenage girl with psychic powers. His wife retrieved the manuscript and encouraged him to finish it. His advance for Carrie was $2,500, with paperback rights earning $400,000 at a later date. King and his family relocated to southern Maine because of his mother's failing health. At this time, he began writing a book titled Second Coming, later titled Jerusalem's Lot, before finally changing the title to 'Salem's Lot (published 1975). Soon after the release of Carrie in 1974, his mother died of uterine cancer. His Aunt Emrine read the novel to her before she died. King has written of his severe drinking problem at this time, stating that he was drunk delivering the eulogy at his mother's funeral.
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. He has kept his primary residence in Maine ever since.
The Dark Tower books
Main article: The Dark Tower (series)
Stephen King at the Harvard Book Store
In the late 1970s, King began 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, The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger, was first published in five installments by The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction under the editorship of Edward L. Ferman, beginning in 1977 and the last in 1981. The Gunslinger would be continued as a large 7-book epic called The Dark Tower, which would be written and published infrequently over four decades, from the 1970s to the 2000s.
In 1982, the fantasy small-press Donald M. Grant (known for publishing the entire canon of Robert E. Howard) printed these stories for the first time together in hardcover form with color and black-and-white illustrations by then up-and-coming fantasy artist Michael Whelan, as The Gunslinger. Each chapter was named for the story previously published in magazine form. King dedicated the hardcover edition to his editor at F&SF, Ed Ferman, who "took a chance on these stories". The original print-run was only 10,000 copies, which was, by this time, a comparatively low run for a first printing of a King novel in hardcover. His 1980 novel, Firestarter, had an initial print-run in trade hardcover at 100,000 copies, and his 1983 novel, Christine, had a trade hardcover print-run of 250,000 copies, both by the much larger publisher Viking. The Gunslinger's initial release was not highly publicized, and only specialty science-fiction and related bookstores carried it on their shelves. The book was generally not available in the larger chain stores, except by special order. Rumors spread among avid fans that there was a King book out that few readers knew about, let alone had actually read. When the initial 10,000 copies sold out, Grant printed another 10,000 copies in 1984, but these runs were still far short of the growing demand among fans for this book. The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger was the beginning of his magnum opus fantasy epic. Both the first and second printings of The Gunslinger garner premium prices on the collectible book market, notably among avid readers and collectors of Stephen King, horror literature, fantasy literature, and even American western literature. And it is also desirable among avid fans of the artwork of Michael Whelan.
In 1987, King released the second installment, The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three, in which Roland draws three people from 20th-century United States into his world through magical doors. Grant published The Drawing of the Three with illustrations by Phil Hale in a slightly larger run of 30,000 copies, which was still well below King's typical initial hardcover print-run of a new book. (It, published in 1986, had an initial print-run of 1,000,000 copies, King's largest to date.) King had believed that the Dark Tower books would only be of interest to a select group of his fans, and he had resisted releasing it on a larger scale. Finally, in the late 1980s, bowing to pressure from his publishers and fans who were hungry for the books (at this point fewer than 50,000 of his millions of readers would have been able to own any of the Dark Tower books), King agreed to release The Gunslinger and all subsequent Dark Tower books in trade paperback and mass market formats. The series reached seven books, with the final installment called The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower, in 2004.
In the early 2000s King revised the original book, The Gunslinger, because he felt the voice and imagery of the original stories of the late 1970s did not seem to fit the voice of the final installment of 2004. King felt the style of the work had markedly changed during the intervening 27 years. The revised version was published in 2003 by his former hardcover publisher Viking. Grant published its hardcover limited edition of the revised version of The Gunslinger along with a prequel story set in the Dark Tower world called "The Little Sisters of Eluria" (from King's short story collection Everything's Eventual) in 2009.
On November 10, 2009, King announced he was writing a new Dark Tower novel titled The Wind Through the Keyhole. King stated it will take place between the fourth and fifth installments.[dead link]
Adaptations
In October 2005, King signed a deal with Marvel Comics to publish a seven-issue, miniseries spin-off of The Dark Tower series called The Gunslinger Born. The series, which focuses on a young Roland Deschain, is plotted by Robin Furth, with dialogue by Peter David, and illustrated by Eisner Award-winning artist Jae Lee. The first issue was published on February 7, 2007, and King, David, Lee and Marvel Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada appeared at a midnight signing at a Times Square, New York comic book store to promote it. The work had sold over 200,000 copies by March 2007. The success of The Gunslinger Born led to a ongoing series of miniseries published by Marvel, with Furth and David continuing to collaborate, featuring both adapted material from the Dark Tower books and new material approved by King; it also led to a second series of King adaptations in the same format, serializing the events of The Stand.
Although The Hollywood Reporter announced in February 2007 that plans were underway for Lost co-creator J. J. Abrams to do an adaptation of King's epic Dark Tower series, Abrams stated in a November 2009 interview with MTV that he would not be adapting the series.
Akiva Goldsman, Ron Howard and Brian Grazer will produce a feature film trilogy and a television series for Universal Pictures and NBC, based on The Dark Tower series, with Howard slated to direct the first movie, which is scheduled for a May 17, 2013 release. That film will be followed by a TV series that will tie into the second movie.
Richard Bachman
Main article: Richard Bachman
In the late 1970s-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 largely an experiment to measure for himself whether or not he could replicate his own success again, and allay at least part of the notion within his mind that popularity might all be just an accident of fate. An alternate (or additional) explanation was that publishing standards at the time allowed only a single book a year.
Richard Bachman was exposed as being King's pseudonym after a persistent Washington D.C. bookstore clerk, Steve Brown, noticed similarities between the two's works and later located publisher's records at the Library of Congress naming King as the author of one of Bachman's novels. This led to a press release heralding Bachman's "death" — supposedly from "cancer of the pseudonym". 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 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 completely rewrote the 1973 manuscript for its publication.
Car accident and thoughts of retirement
In the summer of 1999, King had finished the memoir section of On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, but had abandoned the book for nearly eighteen months, unsure of how or whether to proceed.
On June 19, at about 4:30 p.m., he was reading a book and walking on the shoulder of Route 5, in Lovell, Maine. Driver Bryan 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 from the pavement of Route 5. According to Oxford County Sheriff deputy Matt Baker, King was struck from behind and some witnesses said the driver was not speeding or reckless.
King was conscious enough to give the deputy phone numbers to contact his family but was in considerable pain. The author was first transported to Northern Cumberland Hospital in Bridgton and then flown by helicopter to Central Maine Medical Center, 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 doctors initially considered amputating it, but stabilized the bones in the leg with an external fixator. After five operations in ten days and physical therapy, King resumed work on On Writing in July, though his hip was still shattered and he could only sit for about forty minutes before the pain became worse. Soon it became nearly unbearable.[citation needed]
King's lawyer and two others purchased Smith's van for $1,500, reportedly to prevent it from appearing on eBay. The van was later crushed at a junkyard, much to King's disappointment, as he dreamed of beating it with a baseball bat. King later mentioned during an interview with Fresh Air's Terry Gross that he wanted to completely destroy the vehicle himself with a pickaxe.
Two years later, King suffered severe pneumonia as a direct result of his lung being punctured in the accident. 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, providing a seed for his novel Lisey's Story.[citation needed]
2000s work
This section requires expansion.
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 that:
"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."
In 2000, King published a serialized novel, The Plant, online, bypassing print publication. At first it was presumed by the public that King had abandoned the project because sales were unsuccessful, but he later stated that he had simply run out of stories. 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."
In August 2003 King began writing a column on pop culture appearing in Entertainment Weekly, usually every third week. The column is called "The Pop of King", a play on the nickname "The King of Pop" commonly given to Michael Jackson.
In 2006, King published an apocalyptic novel Cell.
In 2008, King published both a novel, Duma Key, and a collection, Just After Sunset. The latter featured 13 short stories, including a novella, N., which was later released as a serialized animated series that could be seen for free, or, for a small fee, could be downloaded in a higher quality; 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 Kindle and available only on Amazon.com, and Throttle, a novella co-written with his son Joe Hill, which later was released as an audiobook Road Rage, which included Richard Matheson's short story "Duel".
On November 10, 2009, King novel, Under the Dome, was published. 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 1986's It. It debuted at #1 in The New York Times Bestseller List, and #3 in UK Book Charts.[citation needed]
On February 16, 2010, King announced on his website that his next book will be a collection of four previously unpublished novellas. The book will be called Full Dark, No Stars.
In April 2010, 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. This baseball-related suspense novella is not set to be reprinted in Full Dark, No Stars.
Work
Main articles: Stephen King bibliography and Short fiction by Stephen King
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."
Shortly after his accident, King wrote the first draft of the book Dreamcatcher with a notebook and a Waterman fountain pen, which he called "the world's finest word processor."
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." 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?"
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 and Jack Torrance in The Shining. 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 for Fangoria.
Influences
King has called Richard Matheson "the author who influenced me most as a writer." Both authors casually integrate characters' thoughts into the third person narration, just one of several parallels between their writing styles. 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."
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 creation Necronomicon, 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. In On Writing, King is critical of Lovecraft's dialogue-writing skills, using passages from The Colour Out of Space as particularly poor examples. There are also several examples of King referring to Lovecraftian characters 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. Its related short story "Jerusalem's Lot", is reminiscent of Stoker's The Lair of the White Worm.
King has also referenced 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 is a fan of John 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)."
Robert A. Heinlein's book The Door into Summer is repeatedly mentioned in King's Wolves of the Calla.
In an interview with King, Published in the USA Weekend in March, 2009, the author 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."
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.
Collaborations
King has written two novels with acclaimed horror novelist Peter Straub: The Talisman and a sequel, Black House. 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 time line for its completion.
King also wrote the nonfiction book, Faithful with novelist and fellow Red Sox fanatic Stewart O'Nan.
In 1996 King collaborated with Michael Jackson to create Ghosts, a 40-minute musical video in which the singer portrays a recluse living in a mansion confronting an unwelcoming group of townsfolk initially calling for his exodus from their community.
"Throttle", a novella written in collaboration with his son Joe Hill, appears in the anthology He Is Legend: Celebrating Richard Matheson, (Gauntlet Press, 2009).
The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer: My Life at Rose Red, was a paperback tie-in for the King-penned miniseries Rose Red. The book was published under anonymous authorship, and written by Ridley Pearson. This spin-off is a rare occasion of another author being granted permission to write commercial work using characters and story elements invented by King.
King has written a musical play with John Mellencamp titled Ghost Brothers of Darkland County.
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. None of them claim to have any musical talent. King is a fan of the rock band AC/DC, who did the soundtrack for his 1986 film, Maximum Overdrive. He is also a fan of The Ramones, who wrote the title song for Pet Sematary and appeared in the music video. King referred to the band several times in various novels and stories and The Ramones referenced King on the song "It's Not My Place (In the 9 to 5 World)", which is on 1981's Pleasant Dreams. In addition he wrote the liner notes for their tribute album We're a Happy Family. In 1988, the band Blue Öyster Cult recorded an updated version of their 1974 song "Astronomy". The single released for radio play featured a narrative intro spoken by King.
On Sunday, October 25, 2009 the DC Comics Vertigo blog news feed released that King will team up with short story writer Scott Snyder and artist Rafael Albuquerque in a new monthly comic book series from Vertigo in March 2010 called American Vampire. King is to write the background history of the very first American vampire, Skinner Sweet, in the five issues of the first arc. Scott Snyder will write the story of Pearl. Both stories are to weave together to form the first story arc.
In 2010, King collaborated with musician Shooter Jennings and his band Hierophant, providing the narration for their most recent album, Black Ribbons.
Films and TV
Main article: Media based on Stephen King works
Many of King's novels and short stories have been made into major motion pictures or TV movies and miniseries.
King has stated that his favorite book-to-film adaptations are Stand by Me, The Shawshank Redemption, and The Mist.
King's first film appearance was in George Romero's Knightriders as a buffoonish audience member. His first featured role was in Creepshow, playing Jordy Verrill, a backwoods redneck who, after touching a fallen meteor in hopes of selling it, grows moss all over his body. He has since made cameos in several adaptations of his works. He appeared in Pet Sematary as a minister at a funeral, in Rose 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 and in Sleepwalkers as the cemetery caretaker. He has also appeared in The Golden Years, 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 an ATM that is on the fritz.
King produced and acted in a miniseries, Kingdom Hospital, which is based on the Danish miniseries Riget by Lars von Trier. He also co-wrote The X-Files season 5 episode "Chinga" with the creator of the series Chris Carter.
King has also 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 on the FX series Sons of Anarchy.
In a 2009 episode of Family Guy, "Three Kings", three of King's novels' film adaptations, Stand By Me, Misery, and The Shawshank Redemption, were parodied.
In the 2000 Family Guy episode "Brian In Love", Brian Griffin accidentally hits a man with his pickup truck, initially fearing that he has struck Stephen King, a reference to the real-life incident experienced by King. However, when the man identifies himself as Dean Koontz, Brian backs up over him again.
A season 3 episode of Quantum Leap is a homage to King, at the end when Sam realizes that the character Stevie is a young Stephen King.
The Syfy TV series Haven, is based on King's novella, The Colorado Kid.
Reception
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 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 analysis of post-World War II horror fiction, The Modern Weird Tale (2001), critic S. T. Joshi 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-constructed suspense thrillers, with believable characters.
In 1996, King won an O. Henry Award for his short story "The Man in the Black Suit".
In 2003, King was honored by the National Book Awards with a lifetime achievement award, the Medal of Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, with his work being described thus:
Stephen King’s writing is securely rooted in the great American tradition that glorifies spirit-of-place and the abiding power of narrative. He crafts stylish, mind-bending page-turners that contain profound moral truths–some beautiful, some harrowing–about our inner lives. This Award commemorates Mr. King’s well-earned place of distinction in the wide world of readers and book lovers of all ages.
Some in the literary community expressed disapproval of the award: Richard 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.
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."
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."
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".
Comics
King has done some writing for comic books. In 1985 King wrote a few pages of the benefit X-Men comic book Heroes for Hope Starring the X-Men. The book, whose profits were donated to assist with famine relief 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. The following year, King wrote the introduction to Batman #400, an anniversary issue in which he expressed his preference for that character over Superman.
In 2007, Marvel Comics began publishing comic books based on King's Dark Tower series, followed by adaptations of The Stand in 2008 and The Talisman in 2009.
In 2010, DC Comics premiered American Vampire, a monthly series written by King with short story writer Scott Snyder, and illustrated by Rafael Albuquerque.
Other work
Radio stations
Stephen and his wife Tabitha own The Zone Corporation, a central Maine radio station group consisting of WZON, WZON-FM, and WKIT. The last of the three stations features a Frankenstein-esque character named "Doug E. Graves" as part of the logo and the tagline "Stephen King's Rock 'n' Roll Station."[citation needed]
Philanthropy
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Since becoming commercially successful, King and his wife have donated large amounts of money to causes around their home state of Maine and elsewhere, notably to literacy projects.
The Kings' early '90s donation to the University of Maine Swim Team saved the program from elimination from the school's athletics department. Donations to local YMCA and YWCA programs have allowed renovations and improvements that would otherwise have been impossible. Additionally, King annually sponsors a number of scholarships for high school and college students.
The Kings do not desire recognition for their funding of Bangor-area facilities: they named the Shawn T. Mansfield Stadium for a prominent local little league coach's son who has cerebral palsy, while the Beth Pancoe Aquatic Park memorializes an accomplished swimmer from the region who died of cancer.
On November 6, 2008, King appeared with friend and fellow author Richard Russo to raise money for the Western Massachusetts food bank. The event held by the Odyssey Bookshop in South Hadley at Mount Holyoke College raised over $18,000 and helped to promote his new collection, Just After Sunset, and Russo's Bridge of Sighs.
Stephen and Tabitha King also donate thousands each year to politically progressive organizations, such as the Maine People's Alliance.
Political 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. Although King stated that he had no personal interest in video games as a hobby, he criticized the proposed law, which he sees as an attempt by politicians to scapegoat pop culture, and to act as surrogate parents to others' children, which he asserted is usually "disastrous" and "undemocratic". He also saw the law as inconsistent, as it would forbid a 17-year-old, legally able to see Hostel: Part II, from buying or renting Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, which is violent but less graphic. While conceding that he saw no artistic merit in some violent video games, King also opined that such games reflect the violence that already exists in society, which would not be lessened by such a law, and would be redundant in light of the ratings system that already exists for video games. 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 felt were the more legitimate causes of violence.
A controversy emerged on May 5, 2008, when a conservative blogger posted a clip of King at a Library of Congress reading event. 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." 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. 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 again defended his comment in an interview with the Bangor Daily News on May 8, saying, "I’m not going to apologize for promoting that kids get better education in high school, so they have more options. Those that don’t agree with what I’m saying, I’m not going to change their minds."
King's website states that he is a supporter of the Democratic Party. During the 2008 presidential election, King voiced his support for Democratic candidate Barack Obama.
King was quoted as calling conservative commentator Glenn Beck "Satan's mentally challenged younger brother."
King and his wife own and occupy three different houses, one in Bangor, one in Lovell, Maine, and they regularly winter in their waterfront mansion located off the Gulf of Mexico, in Sarasota, Florida. He and Tabitha have three children and three grandchildren.
Shortly after publication of The Tommyknockers, King's family and friends staged an intervention, dumping evidence of his addictions taken from the trash including beer cans, cigarette butts, grams of cocaine, Xanax, Valium, NyQuil, dextromethorphan (cough medicine) and marijuana, on the rug in front of him. As King related in his memoir, he then sought help and quit all forms of drugs and alcohol in the late 1980s, and has remained sober since.
Tabitha King has published nine of her own novels. Both King's sons are published authors: Owen King published his first collection of stories, We're All in This Together: A Novella and Stories, in 2005; Joseph Hillstrom published an award-winning collection of short stories, 20th Century Ghosts, in 2005, and his first novel, Heart-Shaped Box will be adapted by Irish director Neil Jordan for a 2010 Warner Bros. release.
King's daughter Naomi spent two years as a minister in the Unitarian Universalist Church, in Utica, New York. Naomi now ministers for the Unitarian Universalist Church of River of Grass, in Plantation, Florida with her same-sex partner, Rev. Dr. Thandeka.
King was raised Methodist, while his wife, Tabitha, was raised Catholic.
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 also appears in the collection Nightmares & Dreamscapes. In 1999, King wrote The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, which featured former Red Sox pitcher Tom Gordon as the protagonist's imaginary companion. King recently co-wrote a book titled Faithful: Two Diehard Boston Red Sox Fans Chronicle the Historic 2004 Season with Stewart O'Nan, recounting the authors' roller coaster reaction to the Red Sox's 2004 season, a season culminating in the Sox winning the 2004 American League Championship Series and World Series.[citation needed] 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. He has also devoted one of his columns for Entertainment Weekly on the subject of commercialism in Major League Baseball.[volume & issue needed] He also starred in an ESPN SportsCenter advertisement referencing both his allegiance to the Red Sox and his preferred writing genre (horror fiction).