by George Beahm
Now that King owns two adjacent homes on West Broadway, there’s even more reason for fans to show up and take pictures.
A home is a man’s castle, but in King’s case, it’s a castle under siege. The Kings bought the first West Broadway house in 1980, and for a while it did double duty as a private residence and offices for Stephen and Tabitha King. Moreover, while the Kings’ three children lived at home, the house was only semiprivate from Monday to Friday because full-time staffers came and went, as did the occasional business visitors. Eventually it became clear that the office space was best moved off-site so that the house could be reclaimed as a private residence for the King family, which was the reason the Kings originally bought it.
King’s staffers now work at an office in an undisclosed location near the Bangor airport, where they can screen visitors before entry by closed circuit TV, because we’re talking about a man whose fame draws some people who are clearly mentally unstable. It’d be wrong to say those are King fans, because they likely have never read his fiction; they probably haven’t even seen movies based on his books. But they know he’s famous, and that’s enough for them to pay an unwelcome and unsolicited visit.
Such is the price of fame.
At King’s office, it’s business as usual, and staffers manning the ramparts must do their best to keep a prying public away, so their boss can do what he does best: write stories for his millions of fans worldwide, and also manage the business aspects of the Stephen King universe.
51
MARSHA DEFILIPPO
AN INTERVIEW BY HANS-ÅKE LILJA
2004
We rarely get a peek at the inner workings at King’s office. One such peek was given in 1991, when Stephen J. Spignesi interviewed Shirley Sonderegger, King’s secretary, and another was given in 2004, when Hans-Åke Lilja interviewed Marsha DeFilippo, who runs King’s office, ably assisted by Julie Eugley.
Lilja: Do you think that Stephen has more male fans than female fans, and if so, why is that do you think?
Marsha DeFilippo: I haven’t noticed a big gender difference in his fans. What I’ve noticed more is a diversity of his fan base and that it includes such a wide range of ages, gender, ethnicity, etc.
Lilja: Tell me a bit about yourself. How did you get (what many would consider the dream job) the job of being Stephen’s assistant?
Marsha DeFilippo: I first worked for Stephen in 1986 on a temporary assignment to type the manuscript for The Eyes of the Dragon. Although it had been published as a limited edition previously, he needed it on computer disks for the Viking publication. It was supposed to take me a month to do, but I was enjoying the story so much that I finished the typing in two weeks. Not very smart for someone on temporary duty! Stephen was impressed with my typing skills, though, so kept me on to type the manuscript for The Tommyknockers. Two years later when his assistant, Stephanie Leonard, decided to return to college, I was contacted to see if I would be interested in a part-time position. The timing was right and the job developed into a full-time position.
Lilja: What [does] the assistant to Stephen King do? Is it a dream job or is it just like all other jobs? Can you describe a typical day at the office?
Marsha DeFilippo: I do a bit of everything as Stephen’s personal assistant—answering phones, fan mail, administering and moderating the web site, making travel arrangements, publicist, working with the various publishers and film/television production companies when Stephen is personally involved, interview/appearance requests, etc. It can become routine but overall it’s the best job I’ve ever had. The longest I’d ever worked at another job was three years and I’ve been here over fifteen (not counting the temp assignment). There’s no such thing as a typical day at the office!
Lilja: What is the most asked question that you have to answer? I guess the questions about The Dark Tower are getting fewer and fewer now.…
Marsha DeFilippo: You’re right, now that the Dark Tower books have been finished, the shift has gone to when will you make a movie of the Dark Tower series. The next most frequently asked question probably is “When will you finish The Plant?”
Lilja: Have the things you do changed over the years? I guess that Stephen has gotten more fans, or at least more fans that contact you since the Internet became [ubiquitous].
Marsha DeFilippo: It does seem that the majority of fan mail is now received through the web site although we do still receive quite a bit at our office. We didn’t have computers or fax machines when I first started so the biggest change, as for most people, has been on the technological side. Because of the technology we now have, there is little impact on what we do at the office even though Stephen and Tabitha do not spend as much time in Bangor since their children have grown up and live elsewhere.
Lilja: I know that there are many fans that contact Stephen by regular mail or e-mail but are there many fans that show up at the office or at his home? How do you handle these incidents?
Marsha DeFilippo: The summer months are when this happens more frequently, as this is the most popular time of year for visitors. It’s not a problem at their home as long as fans respect their privacy and remain on the public street or sidewalk. Unfortunately, there are the ones that ignore the PRIVATE PROPERTY, NO TRESPASSING signs and knock on their front door. They are told politely that this is not okay and asked to leave.
Lilja: Has there ever been any “dangerous” fans showing up? What happened?
Marsha DeFilippo: For the most part, there are no disturbances that require any further intervention but if necessary, the Bangor Police Department can and has been called upon. In at least two instances, arrests have been made.
Lilja: What is the strangest thing a fan has sent to Stephen?
Marsha DeFilippo: Define strange :-)
Lilja: I guess I mean something that Stephen (or you) never expected to get in the mail or delivered, something that made you gasp and caused your chin to fall on the floor.
Marsha DeFilippo: It was before I came to work for Stephen so I didn’t experience it first-hand, but some very disturbed person sent a box with dead kitten bones.1
Lilja: Do you read all the books so you can answer questions from fans or do you ask Stephen?
Marsha DeFilippo: When I first started working for him I had not read any of them and I still have not read all of Stephen’s works. For the most part, I answer the questions either by having read the book or looking in other resources we have to see if I can first find the answer myself and then depending upon his schedule and the question asked, I will sometimes ask Stephen if he can answer it.
Lilja: There has been a list on which you can get to get a signed book by King. I have heard that it doesn’t exist anymore, is that correct? I know that a lot of fans are wondering about it.
Marsha DeFilippo: Stephen recently decided that he will now only sign books at book signings.
Fan Mail
Your mother was right when she told you reading science fiction and fantasy books will make you warped. All fantasy people are warped.
—Stephen King, at the World Fantasy Convention, October 15, 1979
King saves all of his fan mail, and it eventually ends up in the special collections at the University of Maine at Orono’s Fogler Library. Here’s some choice tidbits from King’s fan mail.
A fan who read The Shining and was concerned about reading Carrie and ’Salem’s Lot: “Though I consider myself a strong person, I must think of my own mental health.”
Linda Z., Connecticut: “While reading, it is almost as if I’m right there when everything is going on.”
Peter C., Maine: “All I want is for someone to tell me that I’m a lousy writer who should stop wasting his time, or that I have some potential and should keep trying. PS: If there is nothing you can do, send money.”
Lisa B., North Carolina, written pre-Internet: “Due to the fact that I live in a small town, I have been unable to find enough articles and reviews of The Shining. Therefore, I would appreci
ate it greatly if you would send me your personal analysis and any other articles and reviews you may have.”
Linda N., Iowa: “My husband, who very rarely reads books, could not put [the King novel] down.”
Paul G., Missouri: Do you write just as a money-making job, for literary value, or in hopes it will be sold for a television or movie screenplay?”
Randee T., Michigan: “It’s gotten so that all it takes is the name ‘Stephen King’ on a book, and I know it will be good.”
Tamara J., California: “Pardon the phrase, but you scared the shit out of this twenty-year-old.”
Joyce F., a sixteen-year-old aspiring novelist: “I’ve been working (and I really mean working) on a novel for close to a year, and it is a lot tougher than I thought writing one would be. It’s a pretty good little book but there are so many problems! I really need help! Sometimes I can be writing a very gory blood-and-guts scene that should make a person want to throw up, but when I take the scene from my mind and try to put it down on paper, it just doesn’t seem scary.”
Shelly C., Michigan: “How did you get started in the writing business? Where do you get the ideas for your books? Do you enjoy writing? Do you have any suggestions to a sprouting writer?”
1 In The Shape Under the Sheet: Complete Stephen King Encyclopedia (1991), Spignesi interviewed King’s then secretary, Shirley Sonderegger and asked her, “What’s the most bizarre thing that’s happened to you since you began working for Steve?” She replied, “One of the strangest things that happened occurred … one day [when] I went to the post office and picked up a box addressed to Steve. The return address was from someone in the Bangor area.… I opened it up and it was filled with hay, and in the hay were the bones and hair of several dead kittens. Apparently these people had cleaned out a barn somewhere and found these bones, and who did they think to send them to but Stephen?”
52
IT
1986
It isn’t really about It, or monsters, or anything; it’s about childhood, and it’s about my ideas that you re-experience your own childhood, and are finally able to put it away and become an adult with no regrets, by raising your children.
—STEPHEN KING, INTERVIEW WITH FRANK MULLER, FOR RECORDED BOOKS
In a letter to Michael Collings, Stephen King explained the genesis of It. “The idea came to me in Colorado, while I was writing The Stand.” King said that the transmission to his AMC Matador had dropped out on the street, so he had the car towed to the dealership.
When it was ready to be picked up, King decided to walk there. After crossing a small bridge, he saw a field that made him think of “The Three Billy Goats Gruff,” “and the whole story” of It, he said, “just bounced into my mind on a pogo-stick. Not the characters, but the split time frame, the accelerating bounces that would end with a complete breakdown which might result in a feeling of ‘no-time,’ all the monsters that were one monster … the troll under the bridge, of course.”
King explained, in an essay about the book for a book-of-the-month club brochure:
Sometime in the summer of 1981 I realized that I had to write about the troll under the bridge or leave him—It—forever. Part of me cried to let it go. But part of me cried for the chance; did more than cry; it demanded. I remember sitting on the porch, smoking, asking myself if I had really gotten old enough to be afraid to try, to just jump in and drive fast.
I got up off the porch, went into my study, cranked up some rock ‘n’ roll, and started to write the book. I knew it would be long, but I didn’t know how long. I found myself remembering that part of The Hobbit where Bilbo Baggins marvels at how you may leave your front door and think you are only strolling down your front walk, but at the end of your walk is the street, and you may turn left or you may turn right, but either way there will be another street, another avenue, and roads, and highways, and a whole world.
When he finished It, he said it was a “final summing up of everything I’ve tried to say in the last twelve years on the two central subjects of my fiction,” monsters and children. He told Time magazine: “Wouldn’t it be great to bring on all the monsters one last time? Bring them all on—Dracula, Frankenstein, Jaws, the Werewolf, the Crawling Eye, Rodan, It Came From Outer Space—and call it It.”
Pennywise the Clown from It, illustrated by Glenn Chadbourne.
The book, when published, ran a boggling 1,138 pages. On the last page, King wrote that he had started it in September 1981 and finished it in December 1985.
In The Essential Stephen King: The Complete and Uncut Edition, Stephen J. Spignesi assayed King’s canon and ranked It in the number one position. What follows is why Spignesi feels It deserves the premiere place of honor in his book. This is what he wrote:
Why It belongs in the number 1 spot:
It is more than just a novel.
I know, I know … that sounds like fan hyperbole, but truth be told, It is undeniably a contemporary literature event.
I remember finishing reading It and feeling the way I did when I turned the last page of Dickens’s Great Expectations: unabashed awe at the storytelling talents of the author.
It is not only one of King’s longest works, it is the book I and many other King researchers and fans consider to be his magnum opus. It is the greatest manifestation of his many narrative gifts, and the book that may very well be the definitive, quintessential “Stephen King” novel—if we make the questionable leap that such a thing can ever be defined.
Michael Collings, professor emeritus at Pepperdine University and Stephen King authority, feels that It and The Stand are interchangeable as holders of the number one spot on the list of King’s top 100 works. He told me that he considers both novels “contemporary epics” (and, he specified, “in the true, literary sense of the term, not the facile commercial sense”) and admitted to now and then surrendering to this belief and stating that both novels are his “top pick.”
I decided to grant It the hallowed rank of number one, however, because I believe wholeheartedly that the novel is a literary performance of the highest caliber; yes, even more accomplished than The Stand.
In his gargantuan epic, King juggles multiple characters, parallel and overlapping timelines, a ghoul’s parade of monsters, plus several complex sociological themes. These include childhood and coming of age, child abuse, homophobia, bigotry, the nature of existence, the eternal nature of good and evil, and the power of faith, trust, and love.
Longtime King fans (King calls them his “Constant Readers”) can intuitively sense when Stephen King was in “the zone” (and not the Dead Zone!) while writing a specific work. The story seems to emanate a narrative confidence and flow that seems to transcend the mere words with which it is being told. I have often described this experience as being pulled through the book; being dragged through the story at breakneck speed; the tale being absorbed by the brain almost by osmosis, seemingly without actually reading the words. This is a feeble way of describing a transcendent experience, but I think you Constant Readers have an understanding of this phenomenon. It happens with The Stand, The Shining, ’Salem’s Lot, Misery, The Green Mile, Pet Sematary, and many other works, but never more so than with It.
King was in the aforementioned zone when he wrote It (as I am sure J. R. R. Tolkien was likewise inspired when he wrote The Lord of the Rings) and he has never been better.
The story told in It is truly epic. The haunted town of Derry, Maine has a dark soul. In 1958, seven friends—dubbed The Losers Club—fight an apocalyptic battle with It, a monster from “outside” who has been feeding on Derry’s children in 27-year cycles for centuries. It is gravely wounded in the 1958 battle and returns to its subterranean pit beneath the town to heal. The Losers promise to return to Derry if It ever resurfaces and, in 1985, they must come together to honor their vow and try to defeat and destroy It for the final time.
King confidently interweaves the dual stories of all seven Losers, plus the stories of an array of secondary charac
ters, using only italic typeface to indicate flashbacks to 1958, all the while managing to keep everyone’s story clear in the reader’s mind at all times. It—It—is truly a virtuoso performance.
I do not recommend It to first-time King readers. The novel is daunting and may scare off readers who are not used to novels over 50,000 words, let along 500,000 or so words. It requires effort and concentration, yet it pays off in amazing ways, and thus, It should be “prepared for,” for lack of a better term. I usually suggest newcomers to King begin with something more accessible like The Dead Zone or ’Salem’s Lot; then move on to The Shining and The Stand; then to the stories in Skeleton Crew, and then, finally, to It. They can then go back and fill in the holes in their Stephen King reading list, but by that time they will have experienced a healthy, heaping dose of Stephen King’s imaginative powers and storytelling genius.
Both scholars and fans alike now perceive It as the completion of the “monster” phase of King’s career as a novelist. From It on, for the most part, King has focused on the “monster within” (as opposed to from the outside), in such works as Misery, The Dark Half, Gerald’s Game, Dolores Claiborne, Rose Madder, and other diverse works; in addition to novels that ponder the existence of God and his involvement (or lack thereof) in human events, as in Desperation, The Green Mile, and others. The Mummy, the Werewolf, and the other classic denizens of the horror genre are of less interest to King in his post-It works. It may be his final word on childhood and its mythic hold on the adult. There will be child characters in later works, but It marks a turning point in King’s treatment of childhood: We get the sense that the underlying message at the conclusion of It is that childhood can once again be remembered with nostalgia, rather than fear.
