A Brief Guide to Stephen King

by Paul Simpson

  Al’s Diner is a very unusual place – not only does it serve fantastic meat, but it also contains a portal to the past, specifically 9 September 1958, at 11.58 a.m. Teacher Jake Epping is told about the portal by Al Templeton when the diner owner realizes that he is not going to be able to carry out his own plan: to prevent the assassination of President John F. Kennedy (JFK) on 22 November 1963. Jake initially tries to change history by preventing a tragedy involving one of his students, but his meddling actually leads to his student’s premature death. When he next returns to 2011, he discovers Al is dead, so decides to carry out his mission. He travels back to 1958, and establishes himself in Texas, falling in love with school librarian Sadie Dunhill. Jake stalks Kennedy’s future assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, in the years leading to 1963, but all nearly goes wrong when he is beaten up because of the way he used his future knowledge. Recovering just in time, he prevents the assassination but Sadie is killed by Oswald instead. Although JFK is grateful, things seem to be going wrong, and when Jake returns to 2011, the world has gone to hell, from both natural disasters and manmade catastrophes. A mysterious man (versions of whom have been near the portal each time Jake travels) begs Jake to set things straight, so he goes back to 1958 once more and this time does nothing. With the future restored, Jake meets Sadie one last time.

  As with Under the Dome, Stephen King had the initial idea for 11/22/63 (or ‘Split Track’ as he thought of it then) many years before he finally got around to writing it. Forty years prior to publication, he was still a teacher and became involved in a discussion about what the world might be like if JFK had lived. However, he didn’t feel he had the writing ability to carry off such a research-heavy project, and also considered that the assassination was still too current to be a viable choice of topic. In January 2007, he brought the idea up again in an editorial in one of Marvel’s Dark Tower comics (reprinted in the hardback edition of the first graphic novel). At that point, the hero would discover that the world was ‘a nuclear slag-heap’ when he returned to current times, and he has absorbed a fatal dose of radiation.

  The final blockbuster novel required a great deal of research, not just into Lee Harvey Oswald but also into many small details about life in the late 1950s, since King was determined not to look back at the period through rose-tinted spectacles. This amount of research (something about which he previously had been sceptical) felt odd to King, ‘like breaking in a new pair of shoes’, and he and his assistant, Russ Dorr, spent time at the scene of the assassination as well as other sites connected to Oswald’s life. In common with many others who have examined the evidence relating to JFK and Oswald, King came to the conclusion that Oswald was not part of a conspiracy theory, and wrote the novel accordingly. He also wrote a strong note to the New York Times around the time of publication defending his stance.

  Setting 11/22/63 in 1958 allowed some considerable crossover with his earlier magnum opus, IT, with Jake interacting with a number of the Losers’ Club during his sojourn in the past. This was also the time that a certain red and white Plymouth Fury was in production, and while the cars may not be Christine herself, their presence never bodes well for characters. Although there is an obvious thematic link with The Dead Zone – reading the two books consecutively provides a fascinating insight into the way King’s outlook on matters of predestination and fate have changed over the past decades – there are no direct connections.

  King’s original ending for the story, which saw Sadie married with a slew of children and grandchildren, can be read on his website. It was changed at the suggestion of King’s son, author Joe Hill.

  The Silence of the Lambs director Jonathan Demne was connected to a film version of 11/22/63 for some time – indeed, he announced that he was working on it on 12 August 2011, three months before publication. However, by December 2012, Demne had withdrawn from the project. ‘I loved certain parts of the book for the film more than Stephen did,’ he explained. ‘We’re friends, and I had a lot of fun working on the script, but we were too apart on what we felt should be in and what should be out of the script.’ J.J. Abrams’ company Bad Robot – which was linked with various different versions of the ‘Dark Tower’ series – then negotiated for the rights to adapt the book as a TV series or miniseries.

  Joyland (Hard Case Crime, June 2013)

  North Carolina, 1973: college junior Devin Jones takes a summer job at the Joyland amusement park, getting to know the carny lingo, and taking his turn inside the swelteringly hot costume for Howie the Happy Hound. There’s a mystery there as well: a murder was committed at the park years earlier, and the ghost of the victim apparently still haunts one of the rides. Devin decides to stay on at the park after the summer ends, and during that time gets to know seriously ill young boy Michael Ross, who has some psychic gifts, and his mother Annie. Devin arranges for Michael to get his dream come true and visit the amusement park, and Annie and Devin get closer. However, the killer isn’t far away, and when he learns that Devin is investigating the murder, and is starting to link it to other crimes, decides he has to rid himself of Devin. A combination of Michael’s abilities and Annie’s own natural talents with a rifle ensure that Devin survives the encounter with the killer. A few months later, Michael dies, and Annie and Devin take his ashes to the spot where he was happiest.

  Stephen King’s second book for Hard Case Crime (with the imprint now published by genre specialists Titan Books) was first mentioned in his interview with fellow writer Neil Gaiman in the Sunday Times on 8 April 2012, with King noting that, as of February, he was still working on the story, but he was sure that were anything to happen to him, his son Joe could complete it. It was officially announced in May 2012, with editor Charles Ardai calling it a ‘breathtaking, beautiful, heartbreaking book’, explaining that ‘It’s a whodunit, it’s a carny novel, it’s a story about growing up and growing old, and about those who don’t get to do either because death comes for them before their time. Even the most hardboiled readers will find themselves moved. When I finished it, I sent a note saying, “Goddamn it, Steve, you made me cry.” ’ In an unusual move, particularly given King’s promotion of e-books previously, the author announced that he ‘loved the paperbacks I grew up with as a kid, and for that reason, we’re going to hold off on e-publishing this one for the time being. Joyland will be coming out in paperback, and folks who want to read it will have to buy the actual book.’

  The central image that inspired the book came to King twenty years earlier. Unlike some of these inspirations, the image did make it to the final story: a boy in a wheelchair flying a kite on a beach. As a child, he loved the county fairs, and their ‘cheesy, exciting feel’. He enjoyed researching the ‘carny’ life and their ‘lingo’ although he was quite happy to employ his usual method where necessary (‘making shit up’): ‘I started to go to websites that had various carny language, some of which I remembered a little: pitchmen called “shy bosses” and their concessions called “shies”, and the little places where they sold tickets and sometimes sat down to rest called “doghouses”, and other stuff I just made up, like calling pretty girls “points”.’

  King’s previous book was an addition to the ‘Dark Tower’ saga; the one that followed was a sequel to one of his classics, The Shining. Indeed, one of the earliest versions of that story – then known as ‘Darkshine’ – featured a boy with psychic powers in an amusement park. It may have taken forty years, but King eventually told his tale.

  For the author, Joyland really took off for me when the old guy who owns the place says, “Never forget, we sell fun.” That’s what we’re supposed to do – writers, film-makers, all of us. That’s why they let us stay in the playground.’

  Doctor Sleep (Scribner, September 2013)

  Danny Torrance may have hoped that his problems with the Overlook Hotel were over after his father’s death and the destruction of the Colorado landmark. But he needs Dick Hallorann’s help to banish the spirits that haunt the hotel when they return a f
ew years later. Other spirits also haunt Danny: he follows his father into alcoholism, reaching rock bottom during the mid-1990s. His life starts to pick up when he finds a job in the town of Frazier, and gains a sponsor for Alcoholics Anonymous (AA).

  As Dan becomes a sober and valued part of the community, gaining the nickname Doctor Sleep for his work at the local hospice, the True Knot – a group of psychic vampires – travel around the United States in camper vans. As they go, they extract a life-giving essence they call the ‘steam’ from those who are psychically gifted, as well as from places experiencing great torment (such as New York on 9/11). And not far from Frazier, a very gifted young girl, Abra, is growing up, sending messages on a blackboard to her imaginary friend, Tony, whose help she is going to need when the True Knot’s leader Rose learns of her existence. The True Knot are facing extinction, and Abra may be able to help them stave off the inevitable end . . .

  Although Stephen King has continued the stories of various characters across assorted novels, Doctor Sleep marks the first time, outside the ‘Dark Tower’ series and the co-written Talisman novels, that he has created a direct sequel to one of his early novels. Doctor Sleep picks up events directly from the last page of The Shining, and although all necessary references are explained within the text of the sequel, readers wanting to get the most from the book are recommended to reread The Shining before embarking on the new story. It’s also important to note that this is a sequel to the novel (the ‘True History of the Torrance Family’, as King describes it), not the Kubrick – or even King’s own – screen adaptation.

  As he explains in his afterword, over the years King was regularly asked about Danny Torrance’s fate, and he used to quip that he married Charlie McGee, the heroine of Firestarter. However, every so often, he would wonder about how the younger Torrance was faring, and when he started to be asked questions about why Jack Torrance had been a dry-drunk – i.e. that he had not sought assistance for his drinking or attended AA – he realized that there was a story waiting to be told, relating Dan’s own problems with alcohol, and the co-dependency between Dan and his mother following events at the Overlook.

  The other key element to the tale was a news story he saw about Oscar, a pet cat at a hospice in Rhode Island, who apparently knew when people were on the verge of death and curled up on the bed with them, providing comfort as they passed. The hospice cat Azzie in Doctor Sleep shares these characteristics.

  There are various small references in Doctor Sleep to King’s earlier work aside from The Shining – both Castle Rock and Jerusalem’s Lot get a mention – but the biggest cross-pollination is with NOS4R2 (NOS4A2 in the US), the horror novel written by his son, Joe Hill, which appeared earlier in 2013. That book’s villain, Charlie Manx, is mentioned in a flashback, and the True Knot were visitors at Christmasland, the place where Manx takes the children he kidnaps. With the references within Hill’s book to Pennywise, it seems as if the worlds of Stephen King are truly becoming a family affair.

  Mister Mercedes (Scribner, 2014)

  Stephen King’s next novel, expected to be published in the 40th anniversary year of Carrie’s arrival, is currently titled Mister Mercedes, although King has noted that he’s not happy with that title. It was inspired by an incident he saw on local news when travelling from Florida to Maine, where a woman was determined to get revenge on another woman whom she had caught in bed with her husband. She learned that her target was applying for a job at McDonalds, so went there, and drove her car into a group of jobseekers amongst whom the woman was hiding; after hitting the adulteress a couple of times, the driver got back in her car and reversed through the people, leaving two dead.

  Mister Mercedes follows a detective at the end of his career who didn’t get time to investigate a similar incident in which a masked man in a Mercedes is responsible for numerous deaths. Six months after retirement, he receives a letter from the perpetrator saying how much he enjoyed doing it – but he knows the detective will never catch him, because he doesn’t intend doing it again. King told USA Today that it also deals with a ‘deranged terrorist with a bomb’, noting its similarities to the Boston Marathon Bombing in April 2013, which he described as ‘too creepily close for comfort’.

  King describes Mister Mercedes to fellow author John Connolly as part of his attempts to ‘write another kind of fiction – detective fiction . . . It forces you to hew the line, plotwise, and there are no supernatural short cuts. It doesn’t entrance me the way a good horror story does, but it’s interesting.’ Speaking to the Guardian, he admitted that ‘As you get older, you lose some of the velocity off your fast ball. Then you resort more to craft: to the curve, to the slider, to the change-up. To things other than that raw force.’

  Revival (Scribner, 2014/2015)

  While promoting the TV version of Under the Dome in June 2013, King revealed that he was halfway through writing a new novel, currently entitled Revival. He has given little away, save that the main character is a ‘kid’ learning to play the guitar, but isn’t very good at it. The first tune he learns to play is ‘Cherry, Cherry’ by Neil Diamond, which, not so coincidentally, is the first tune King himself learned. King calls Revival ‘a horror novel that references one of my idols, Arthur Machen’, who was the inspiration for the story ‘N’ in Just After Sunset.

  3. THE DARK TOWER

  11

  THE QUEST BEGINS: THE GUNSLINGER TO WIZARD AND GLASS

  The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger

  (Donald Grant, June 1982; Viking, 2003)

  ‘The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.’ So begins the epic story of Roland Deschain and his quest for the Dark Tower. Stopping for the night, Roland tells a farmer how he pursued his enemy to the town of Tull, where he had to kill everyone, including his lover, in order to escape. Tracking his quarry, Walter, he arrives at a Way Station where he meets a young boy, Jake Chambers, who was pushed in front of a car and died in our world, waking in Roland’s. They follow the man in black towards the mountains, and along the way Roland learns that he will have to sacrifice Jake to reach his goal.

  In the mountains, they follow an old rail line through a tunnel, but are attacked by slow mutants. Jake becomes convinced that he is going to die, and he’s right: Roland chooses to talk with his opponent rather than save Jake, who falls to his death, after telling Roland to, ‘Go, then. There are other worlds than these.’ Their palaver in a Golgotha on the far side of the mountain shows Roland his future, bound up with a Prisoner, the Lady of Shadows and the Pusher. The man says he is a pawn of Roland’s true enemy, and tries to persuade Roland to give up his quest. Roland falls asleep and wakes ten years later on the edge of the Western Sea, next to a skeleton, thinking about his future.

  Stephen King began writing the ‘Dark Tower’ series in 1970, while a student at the University of Maine, living at the Springer Cabins by the Stillwater River. It was inspired by Robert Browning’s poem ‘Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came’, which he had been given as an assignment two years earlier. The whole poem is reprinted at the end of the seventh book, and can also be found in most of the books and on the websites dedicated to the series. King wanted to write a ‘long romantic novel embodying the feel, if not the exact sense, of the Browning poem’, which could easily end up as the longest popular novel in history. He decided that everyone has their own personal Dark Tower in their heart that they want to find, which might be destructive and cause their end but they need to attain it. By the time he had completed work on the second volume, King knew what it was that Roland was seeking – even if he wasn’t going to tell anyone else yet.

  Other influences included J.R.R. Tolkien’s epic saga, The Lord of the Rings, although King didn’t want to write in the same sort of fantasy world that Tolkien had created, even if he was intrigued by writing in a world where ‘feelings of mysticism and wonder are taken for granted’. Arthurian legend and the Sergio Leone Spaghetti Western film The Good, The Bad and the Ugly, with Clint
Eastwood’s ‘man with no name’ the archetype for Roland Deschain, also played key parts.

  The five stories that were compiled to form the original version of The Gunslinger were published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (F&SF) between October 1978 and November 1981, and the book was first printed by Donald M. Grant in 1982. ‘The Gunslinger’ and ‘The Way Station’ were completed a long time before King returned to Roland’s world: the third story, ‘The Oracle and the Mountains’ was written while he was working on ’Salem’s Lot; ‘The Slow Mutants’ followed completion of The Shining. The final story, ‘The Gunslinger and the Dark Man’ was only finished after the earlier stories had already been published in F&SF.

  According to an interview he gave to Ain’t It Cool News in 2007, it was an accident that the stories ever got published, since King believed that he had lost the original versions of the first two stories. However, after finding them in a box in the cellar of his house in Bridgton, he showed them to his agent, who was able to sell them to F&SF.

  When King came to work on the final three books of the series, he realized that there were numerous parts of The Gunslinger that didn’t tally with later developments – including those which he had yet to write. He also accepted that many of his Constant Readers weren’t following the series, in part because they found the first volume to be inaccessible. Even once the saga was complete, King admitted that the ‘Dark Tower’ was ‘like an acquired taste. It’s like anchovy pizza or something a little bit different’.

  He therefore reworked the manuscript, adding over 9,000 words, and making various changes, such as the nature of both Roland’s lover and the man in black’s deaths, Roland and Jake’s ages, and assorted references to things from our world. The revised book, published in 2003, bears the subtitle ‘Resumption’ which makes little sense on first reading, although, as with many references within the story (such as to the number nineteen), it is much clearer once the reader has experienced the entire seven books of the saga.