My Stephen King Origin Story
Just in time for Spooky Season
I started reading when I was 5 years old, and by the time I was about 10, I was reading just about everything and anything I could get my eyes on. Cereal boxes, newspaper comics, and books that were definitely above my grade level included.
My parents didn’t censor what I was reading in any way. For the most part, even though I was reading well above my grade level from the get go, I wasn’t reading inappropriate matter. I was a big fan of Nancy Drew mysteries, Madeleine L’Engle fantasies, and (courtesy of my best friend Nikki) the goings on at Sweet Valley High.
One day when I was about 12, my dad came home with a novel that had been recommended by a co-worker. My parents were big readers; my dad’s tastes ran toward historical fiction and true crime. I distinctly recall James Michener’s Chesapeake sitting on our bookshelves. (I’m a little embarrassed to admit that I don’t know what my mom’s taste in books was when I was 12.)
The novel was Firestarter, by Stephen King. I saw it lying around, and was taken in by its cover, which in 1981 was flames superimposed over facial features (eyes, nose, and mouth). I asked my dad if I could read it, and he said, “Sure.”
I don’t know if my dad ever finished reading that novel, but I did. Finished it, then went back to the beginning to read it again. I was hooked.
I was also rather amazed. This wasn’t a book about teenage girls solving mysteries, or teenage girls in high school agonizing over lip gloss and boys (and sometimes solving mysteries), or a teenage girl caught up in a multi-dimensional quest to save her brother and dad (and the universe) from IT. (A different IT than Pennywise.)
This was about… a girl with the power to incinerate things with her mind, on the run with her dad who could “push” people to influence them, both of them on the lam from The Shop, a shady government agency. (If you watched Stranger Things, some of this should sound vaguely familiar. The Duffer Brothers are clearly King fans.) It was the story of a weirdly psychotic killer who worked for The Shop, and what could go wrong when a “push” turned into a ricochet in someone’s brain. (I still have a lot of trouble even with mere the idea of putting my hand down a drain with a garbage disposal.) The plot was gripping, the imagery gory, the story implausible…. And yet somehow realistic at the same time. King can capture the way a father can love his kid — fiercely, protectively — and at the same time, reveal horrors hidden in a person’s mind.
Still Going Strong
If you don’t know, King is wildly prolific. He’s written 70 novels, six short story collections, and five collections of novellas. He’s had about 45 movie and TV adaptions of his work produced, including a dozen miniseries. And he’s still writing, publishing, and producing. His first novel, Carrie, came out in 1974, and he’s published five novels since 2020 alone. Two of his most recent, Fairy Tale and Holly, in my opinion, are among his best work.
Is every single King work an untouchable work of genius? Absolutely not. As far as film and TV, he’s arguably had more strikes than homeruns (although the homeruns are amazing), and, frankly, Tommyknockers and Dreamcatcher are terrible. (I didn’t bother with the screen adaptations.) All things being subjective, I wasn’t a big fan of From a Buick 8, Insomnia, or Lisey’s Story either, and I hate Revival.
But ’tis the season for spooky stories, and King is known as the Master of Horror for a reason. If you need a good, scary read, here are (again IMO) his scariest works.
1. Pet Sematary
2. ‘Salem’s Lot
3. Short stories “The Boogeyman”* and “The Jaunt”
4. Misery
5. IT
My favorite Stephen King book is The Stand, but it’s not his scariest — unless you read it for the first time during world-wide pandemic. And Holly is amazingly creepy, but you need to read the Bill Hodges trilogy, plus The Outsider to understand Holly Gibney, who is a wonderful King character.
And if you like podcasts and King, I cannot recommend The Kingcast highly enough. I lifted the title of this post from a question they ask each of their guests.
*To this very day, all closet doors in my house need to be closed when I go to bed.
Tell me your favorite horror author! And if it’s King, tell me your favorite book.
