It feels as though I am always admitting my weakness for one thing or another in this space. Today is no different. I am a sucker for the writing of Stephen King.
I always feel defensive about this admission. I feel it necessary to make some assertion about his skill at creating compelling novels and short stories. And King does. But he has never been exactly the darling of the critics. He will never have the literary cache of David Foster Wallace, Don DeLillo or Thomas Pynchon. He has won relatively few of the top book awards, but he has dozens of bestsellers, and a cottage industry in print and film has risen up around him. It sometimes seems that about every third or fourth film or TV miniseries originated as a Stephen King novel, novella, short story or e-book.
He is, I would argue, the Charles Dickens of our time: a prolific and inspiring storyteller who can draw you into his tale in only a few paragraphs. He is a man who can take familiar ingredients and churn them into a stew you have never sampled before.
Some of his books are higher brow than others. Some have literary pretensions. And others just go for the throat.
I recently read King's e-book, "Mile 81." It focuses on a young boy who finds his way into a shuttered rest stop on the Maine Turnpike. It starts out as a lark and ends as a battle for survival. He doesn't really explain the source of the central villain, but in a few dozen pages, he creates a number of memorable characters. As someone who works with words, I marvel at his ability. Every story is distinct but each also carries some of the hallmarks of King.
Best of all, you never have to wait long to have more King to read. Next up for me is another short e-book called "Throttle" that King wrote with his son, Joe Hill. Hill is off to an impressive start of his own as a writer. "Throttle" is framed as an homage to writer Richard Matheson's "Duel." In "Throttle," a motorcycle gang does battle with a psychopath behind the wheel of a big rig. Any Stephen King fan would be intrigued.
After that, there is book eight of King's giant opus, "The Dark Tower." This book, titled "The Wind Through the Keyhole," is another entry on the amazing exploits of the gunslinger Roland Deschain and his ka-tet. In researching this blog entry, I discovered that King has announced he is working on an entirely new version of "The Dark Tower" series. Consider me awed. "The Dark Tower" is a mind melting agglomeration of elements: magic, time travel, and frequent encounters with characters from King's other books.
Wikipedia tells me that King has published 49 novels, five non-fiction books and nine story collections.
As if all that isn't enough, this human word processor is working on a sequel to one of his best-known novels, "The Shining." The new book will follow a now adult Danny Torrance as he tries to help terminally ill patients, apparently with some interference from a roving band of vampires. Titled "Dr. Sleep," no publication date has been announced for that book.
So what are my favorite King books?
1. "The Dead Zone"
2. "The Stand"
3. "The Shining"
4. "The Dark Tower" series
5. King's memoir "On Writing"
But there are lots more that I love. Recently, the New York Times Review of Books ranked all of King's books. It was intriguing to read a critical assessment of all the books. It made me want to enjoy these tales all over again. Perhaps someday I will.