by Rocky Wood
Sometimes the story appears to be for story’s sake (My Pretty Pony, the original version of Blind Willie, The Death of Jack Hamilton, Hearts in Atlantis, It Grows on You). On the other hand King has said if he cannot scare the reader he is not above the gross-out. He used zombies and worms in Home Delivery, the self-amputating Survivor Type, a creature sucking its victim through the boards of The Raft and pie disgorging in The Revenge of Lardass Hogan to make this point.
King’s characterisations and ability to get the reader to empathise with the heroes (Stu Redman, Nick Andros, Dolores Claiborne, Rose Daniels/McClendon, Danny Torrance, The Losers’ Club); the victims (Tad Trenton, The Trashcan Man, Sara Tidwell, Mr. Jingles, Louis Creed); and even many of the apparent villains (Cujo, Sara Tidwell again) are superb.
At times, King ties us so deeply to a character that the reader also suffers the loss when they die (King has often pointed out that he does not kill characters, the story does). Mattie Devore in Bag of Bones, Susan Norton of ‘Salem’s Lot, Tad Trenton in Cujo, Nick Andros in The Stand, Susan Delgado (The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass), Henry Leyden of Black House, Wolf in The Talisman, Duddits Cavell in Dreamcatcher, and Eddie Dean, Jake Chambers and Oy of The Dark Tower serve as tear-inducing examples.
King’s shorter works often provide his most haunting, memorable or unique characters. Think Gary and his tormentor in The Man in the Black Suit; Gary Paulson in It Grows on You; the eponymous Mrs. Todd; Stella Godlin of The Reach; the maitre d’ at the Gotham Café; or Jordy Verrill’s lonesome death in Weeds.
It is also the lesser characters in novels that are sometimes among the most memorable. Duddits Cavell in Dreamcatcher, Mr. Jingles or indeed Delacroix in The Green Mile, Rhea of the Coos (The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass), The Trashcan Man and Tom Cullen (The Stand) are all unique creations and stand in one’s memory long after the story is laid aside.
The ranks of the villains King has created are either original (Pennywise/It, Andre Linoge, the Overlook Hotel, Randall Flagg, the Crimson King) or at least provide a powerful addition to the ranks of the derivative villain (Leland Gaunt, Kurt Barlow, Max Devore, Charles Burnside, Sunlight Gardener). Few if any could be described as single dimensional or lacking in, if you will excuse the pun, character.
Of course, there are also those we can pretty much have outright dislike for – Percy Wetmore (The Green Mile), Ace Merrill (The Body, Nona and Needful Things), Pop Merrill (The Sun Dog), Joe St. George, Sr. (Dolores Claiborne) and Roland LeBay (Christine) are all nasty examples of humanity but at the same time all too believable. Where a reader may not really believe a vampire, werewolf or supernatural monster exists, it is easy to accept the existence of these human monsters. We probably all know one or two ourselves.
In review it is astounding how many of King’s characters are original and memorable and time is likely to show that many will join the ranks of the legendary fictional characters created by Twain, Dickens, Hugo, Stevenson, Tolkien or Shakespeare. Among those that may achieve such longevity are Roland Deschain, Randall Flagg, Jack Torrance, John Coffey and Carrie White.
King’s ability to create an entire World (Roland’s, for instance, or The Territories) or the magnificently painted lives of small towns and cities (Derry, Castle Rock, Jerusalem’s Lot) and their residents is close to legendary.
Castle Rock is so comfortable to King readers that it feels like pulling on an old jumper when we delve back into its doings. Derry, a larger town, is less comfortable but it takes only a few words early in Dreamcatcher to bring it back into focus for seasoned readers. As the years went by we learned more of Roland’s World, a creation that rivals that of Tolkien’s Middle Earth. The Territories were well sketched in The Talisman and we received another glance at the end of Black House. Undoubtedly, when King and Straub choose to complete the story of Jack Sawyer, we will receive a much deeper description of that strange agrarian realm.
Stephen King’s Maine is now legend. Apart from Castle Rock and Derry dozens of small towns have grabbed our imaginations or stirred our nightmares. Jerusalem’s Lot is synonymous with the modern American vampire. Maine has a huge number of islands and a lengthy coastline and King has used these to effect in creating Little Tall Island, Goat Island and Gennesault Island, among others. Harlow is well developed as Castle Rock’s neighbor; Willow visited but once by readers and the Grahams alike; the Lakes District – Dark Score, Kashwakamak, Long Lake; Gates Falls, the history of which King has been revealing to us as long as any town; Haven, destroyed by forces both external and internal; Chamberlain, the site of the Black Prom; and scores of others both real and imagined – Ogunquit, Tarker’s Mills, Lewiston/Auburn, Bridgton, Pownal, Chester’s Mill, Ludlow (and its dangerous road) and the wilds of the Jefferson Tract, have all taken their place in the myth that is Stephen King’s Maine.
But it is not simply the geography of Maine that King paints so superbly. The people, the lifestyle, the self-reliant and closely held Yankee culture, and the community all shine through. The benefits and of course the downsides of small-town, rural and hard scrabble areas of Maine life are delivered to the reader, warts and all in story after story. It is this grounding in absolute reality that is one of the great attractors of King’s fiction and will be one of the keys to its standing the test of time with a readership for many decades to come.
It takes a lot of skill, dedication and not a little respect for both the geographies King creates and his readers, for him to deliver on the promise of creating a full-blown town or world. In many ways it would have been easier for King to set each story in a new town or anonymous location without having to concern himself with relevant back-story. It is telling, perhaps, that the key locations (in our world at least) that recur are in Maine. That same feeling of connection between the author and his geographical subject only really seems to occur otherwise in the case of Roland’s World or Colorado (The Stand, Misery, The Shining, Before the Play). While other locations are generally well described the depth and instant familiarity seem to be missing.
That is not to say that some memorable towns have not been created outside Maine – Desperation, Nevada; Rock and Roll Heaven, Oregon; many of the devastated small towns of The Stand such as Arnette and Shoyo; and Gatlin, Nebraska. But few seem to reach the level of “reality” that marks King’s Maine creations.
King often despairs of the lack of interest in the skills and art of fiction writing that exists today. The media is but interested in surface matters (where do you get your ideas?) and rarely is this prominent exponent of his art asked; how his skills developed and how he views the practice of creative writing. Fortunately, he has provided a number of dissertations on the matter in articles, interviews and in two non-fiction books, On Writing and Danse Macabre. We recommend those interested take the time to discover these contributions, which go a long way to explaining why King is so successful. Apart from brilliant story ideas and the ability to create characters and backgrounds to suit them, King is a craftsman, dedicated, as are all good craftsmen, to delivering the best product he can.
Let’s look then at King’s skills inside the two major delivery methods – the written word and the world of film and television.
The Literary Arts
Unlike many authors, King seems at home in virtually all forms of writing. While he has indulged in relatively little poetry, his efforts there are judged well by those who understand the form. His short stories range from the bizarre (Battleground) to the sublime (That Feeling, You Can Only Say What It Is in French). The relatively unusual form of the novella is well represented in King’s credits; think of The Mist or The Body. Of course, King certainly knows how to write a novel, some of truly epic length (It, The Stand) and has also been able to create a highly successful and satisfying series (The Dark Tower cycle) as well as the most successful serialized novel of modern times (The Green Mile), which once held six of the ten top positions on best-seller lists!
He has been equally successful with scre
enplays. Although they are of mixed quality, the motivation and timing of each should be taken into account. Balance, for instance, the schlock of Maximum Overdrive (which appears to have achieved pretty much exactly what King intended) with Storm of the Century, a very powerful and disturbing tale.
As the years have passed, King has progressed in literary opinion and has begun to receive at least some acknowledgement for the high quality of his writing as well as the sheer power of his stories. Even the august magazine The New Yorker regularly publishes his tales. Until recently awards came mainly from within the Horror, Science Fiction and Fantasy literary communities. Recognition from one’s own peers is likely to have brought King a certain degree of satisfaction, considering his early roots as a hard-core fan and consumer of these genres.
The Bram Stoker Awards have been awarded since 1987 by members of the Horror Writers Association. King has won Best Novel for Misery (in a tie with McCammon’s epic, Swan Song), The Green Mile, Bag of Bones, Lisey’s Story and Duma Key; Best Fiction Collection for Four Past Midnight and Just After Sunset; Best Long Fiction for Lunch at the Gotham Café; and Best Non-Fiction for On Writing. Through 2009 he has been nominated a further 18 times. In 2003 he received the HWA’s Lifetime Achievement Award.
The World Fantasy Awards are nominated by members of the World Fantasy Convention and selected by a panel of judges to acknowledge excellence in fantasy writing and art. King has won the Convention Award and the Short Fiction Award, for The Man in the Black Suit. In 2007, King received the Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America. The Grand Master Award recognizes important contributions to the mystery genre over time, as well as a significant output of consistently high quality.
The British Fantasy Society has awarded King the August Derleth Award for Best Novel in 1983 (Cujo), 1987 (It), 1999 (Bag of Bones) and 2005 (The Dark Tower); Best Short Story for The Breathing Method in 1983; and a Special Award in 1981.
Stepping outside genre to more mainstream awards King (and Stewart O’Nan) won a Quill Award in 2005 for Faithful and King was nominated for Cell in the 2006 Awards. The O. Henry Awards are an annual collection of the year’s best stories published in American and Canadian magazines and written by American or Canadian authors. King won first prize (in other words judged to have been the best story written by a North American and published in a North American magazine) in 1996 for The Man in the Black Suit. In doing so he joined William Faulkner, Irwin Shaw, Truman Capote, John Cheever, John Updike, Joyce Carol Oates, Bernard Malamud, Saul Bellow and Alice Walker as winners of the year’s best stand-alone story.
Even greater recognition was accorded King in September 2003, when the National Book Foundation announced it would award him its 2003 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters at the National Book Awards Ceremony and Benefit Dinner on 19 November that year. The Medal was presented to King, who then delivered the keynote address to some 1000 authors, editors, publishers and friends of the book industry. Previous recipients of the Medal include Saul Bellow, Studs Terkel, John Updike, Ray Bradbury, Arthur Miller and Philip Roth.
In giving the award the Foundation said, “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 booklovers of all ages.” King stated, “This is probably the most exciting thing to happen to me in my career as a writer since the sale of my first book in 1973.” Amusingly enough, King and John Grisham once purchased their own tickets to the annual National Book Awards presentation by the Foundation, King telling The New York Times somewhat tongue-in-cheek, “…that was the only way we were going to get in the door.”
There is no doubt King has been responsible for a revival in reading generally and is actually responsible for many teenagers and young people taking up reading as a pleasure for the first time in their lives.
It is known that King is somewhat uncomfortable about being compared with other writers but it is also true that, as the years have passed, more and more critics, academics and others have found themselves drawn to pass comment upon King’s position in the pantheon.
King’s output will stand the test of time as both popular fiction and as the subject of academic study. Courses teach King works across the high schools and colleges of America. Teachers and professors have come to the understanding that they can offer King stories that not only help teach the art of creative writing but actually engage their students.
King is rapidly becoming the Dickens of our times – popular with readers, although initially unpopular with certain critics. As time passed many of Dickens’ works became the standard fare of entertainment. Characters such as Scrooge, Nicholas Nickleby and Oliver Twist, and stories such as A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations are now embedded in our culture. Dickens, as does King, expressed the characteristic concerns of his time.
There is also much of the Mark Twain about Stephen King. Twain was a master of writing characters who were young and creating new twists on old themes. He helped bring a new “American” style of writing to English literature. His body of work is now standard study throughout the American education system. King has all these attributes, being the most visible and popular of writers delivering the mainstream American culture of the last forty years.
Nathaniel Hawthorne, whose portrayals of New England are still among the richest ever written, was also prominent in establishing a truly American literary voice. There is no doubt King has continued Hawthorne’s tradition. With his roots clearly in the American horror tradition, King stands well beside predecessors such as Shirley Jackson, H.P. Lovecraft (another New Englander who expressed well the topography and culture of the area, and was the creator of an imaginary town, Arkham) and Edgar Allen Poe (about whom no more need be said).
Perhaps Dr. Michael Collings, noted King critic and former Professor of English at Pepperdine University in California, writing in Stephen J. Spignesi’s The Essential Stephen King, put it the most succinctly, “William Shakespeare was the Stephen King of his generation.”
When King critics and observers such as Douglas Winter, Tyson Blue, Spignesi, Michael Collings and George Beahm, among others, offered similar views a quarter century ago they were not welcomed by the mainstream of literary critics or academia. Today, there are still those who resist but they are in the minority and lack credibility. It will be interesting to see an assessment in another quarter century but it does not take one of the crystal balls from the Wizard’s Rainbow to predict that King will become codified as one of the great American writers.
The Visual Arts
King’s stories have been adapted to the big and small screen in near record numbers, with varying degrees of success. For every Carrie or The Green Mile there has been an unfortunate Sometimes They Come Back or Dreamcatcher. However, film and television are arguably the key influencers of world culture and have been for a half-century or more. This has exposed King’s work to every corner of the earth. Along with the Americanization of world culture one could argue a lesser but still influential King-isation (the man himself would surely be horrified by the very concept).
Almost any Western adult will have heard of a girl called Carrie. Anyone interested in movies will have seen, or been exposed to the opinions of, Kubrick’s The Shining. The name of one dog, Cujo, now needs no explanation. The Shawshank Redemption is one of the most widely loved movies of all time. Stand by Me is regarded as one of the leading “coming of age” films ever made. The Green Mile brought audiences to tears wherever it was shown. King television series and mini-series such as The Dead Zone, The Stand, Storm of the Century and Rose Red were prime-time successes not just in the United States but wherever they are shown.
King adaptations have served for some pow
erful performances (think of Ian McKellen in Apt Pupil, Jack Nicholson in The Shining, Kathy Bates in Misery) and there is a rapidly evolving shortage of actors and actresses who have not, in fact, appeared in a King movie, television production or read an audiobook. Despite the snobbery aimed at horror, science fiction and fantasy (finally shattered in 2004 by Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King) even the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has had to deliver Oscars to productions of King’s work. Today, King movies and mini-series fill the world’s DVD shops.
King as a World Phenomenon
One should not make the mistake of thinking of King as a purely North American phenomenon (his sales in the UK or Australia on a per capita basis are just as impressive) or even as limited to the English language. His books have been translated into dozens of languages and there are huge fan bases in countries such as Germany, Italy, France and Holland. As economic and literary freedoms have reached Eastern Europe so have King books, with a growing fan base and publications in the local languages of the former Soviet bloc. Riding the Bullet was first published in text form in Japan, where King books and movies have an enormous following. Similarly, King has had widespread influence in Latin America, South Africa, India and South-East Asia. Perhaps only China and the Arab world have resisted the wave, but for how long?
