Stephen King's Next Book Features Portals and JFK.

(Source: Charles McGrath of the NYT)

In early 2002, Stephen King said he was written out and was thinking of retiring. Some retirement. He has since published at least four novels, a couple of story collections and has collaborated on a monthly comic book. On Wednesday, Scribner, his publisher, announced that in the fall it will bring out yet another King novel, called 11/23/63/

The new book is 1,000 pages long—enormous by most standards, but cruising length for Mr. King—and is apparently a “counterfactual,” a novel that imagines what would have happened had history turned out differently. It’s the story of a Maine high school teacher named Jake Epping who discovers a portal back to 1958 in a storeroom at a local diner. He travels back there and, while enjoying some sex and rock n’ roll, finds himself with a chance to thwart the assassination of JFK.

Mr. King is no stranger to parallel or alternate universes, but for him this is a rare foray into alternate history. In American fiction, perhaps the groundbreaking instance of this genre is Philip K. Dick’s 1962 novel “The Man in the High Castle,” which imagines that the Axis had won World War II. More recent examples are Philip’s Roth’s novel “The Plot Against America” (2004), in which Charles Lindbergh beats FDR in the 1940 presidential election, ushering in an era of American fascism and anti-Semitism, and the just published collection of novellas “Then Everything Changed,” by Jeff Greenfield, which actually upends Mr. King’s premise. It has Kennedy being assassinated three years earlier, not in Dallas but in Palm Beach, Fla.

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My Word: I WANT THIS BOOK.

Review: 'Salem's Lot by Stephen King

Wiki Summary

'Salem's Lot is a 1975 horror fiction novel written by the American author Stephen King. It was his second novel to be published. The story involves a writer named Ben Mears who returns to the town he was born in (Jerusalem's Lot, or 'Salem's Lot for short) in Maine, New England, to discover that the residents are all becoming vampires.

First Impressions

I first read 'Salem's Lot when I was twelve years old. It was the second Stephen King novel I had ever read, checked out from the library the day after I finished Pet Sematary. It would be a understatement to say that the novel had an impact on my life; it not only fueled my own writerly ambitions, it also served as a stepping stone to gothic literature, music and a lifestyle that I have yet to shake off.

Nearly twelve years later I decided to re-read the book in order to refresh my memory and to provide a more critical review, less influenced by my nostalgia.

'Salems' Lot opens with Ben Mears, a semi-successful novelist who has returned to his small, childhood town of Jersaulem's Lot in preparation of his newest book. Driving Ben's return is his desire to overcome his fear of the Marsten House--a sinister and abandoned piece of architecture that sits atop a hill overlooking the town. Its owner, Hubert Marsten, was a man of ill-repute in the early 20th century, involved in numerous forms of criminal activity. His reputation was forever solidified to the town's residents when he carried out a murder suicide, killing his wife and taking his own life by hanging, towards the end of the 1930's.

As a child Ben Mears had entered the Marsten house on a dare and nervously made his way to the upstairs bedroom where he had a vision of Hubert Marsten hanging from a rope before opening his eyes and looking directly at Ben. It was a nightmare that would stay with him for the rest of his life. Coupled with news that the Marsten house had once again found a pair of residents, rumors begin to fly about just what sort of character would take up residence in a place with such a sordid history...

I hate to derail my own review, but as a sliver of trivia, Ben's dream was actually taken from one of Stephen King's recurring childhood nightmares. In King's dream, he had seen a corpse hanging atop a hill, decaying and picked apart by animals. When little Stevie got a good look at the corpse he saw that it was himself, and he woke up screaming. A decade and a half later he drew on this for the novel.

(back to the review...) 

'Salem's Lot builds slowly and methodically, with King establishing numerous threads within the novel that threatens to unravel or even entangle its characters. Many readers will quickly note that this book is unlike the majority of vampires novels today, due to its drawn out anticipation. This is not a drawback, as the slow build is still incredibly engaging and gives way to a satisfying reveal, rewarding the reader with unrelenting horror as the remaining two thirds of the novel document the town's quick spiral into a vampire frenzy.

This was King's second novel to be published and in many ways sets up a familiar theme found in many of his greatest works.While the creatures that go bump in the night are especially frightening, King has always been a master at exposing the secret brutality and monstrous nature that humankind is capable of; and unlike the vampire which must feed in order to sustain itself, humans possess an almost innate need to bring about misery to themselves and to each other for no apparent reason. This interpersonal "evil" is not isolated to the large urban sprawls of New York and L.A., it can be found in even the smallest of New England towns, lying dormant in the heart of each of its residents.

Final Thoughts

'Salem's Lot is necessary reading for any connoisseur of vampire fiction and serves as a modern example of powerful storytelling and compelling characters. If you willfully choose to neglect this book I am liable to judge you with disapproving brown eyes.

Review: Under the Dome by Stephen King

Product Summary

On an entirely normal, beautiful fall day in Chester's Mill, Maine, the town is inexplicably and suddenly sealed off from the rest of the world by an invisible force field. Planes crash into it and fall from the sky in flaming wreckage, a gardener's hand is severed as "the dome" comes down on it, people running errands in the neighboring town are divided from their families, and cars explode on impact. No one can fathom what this barrier is, where it came from, and when -- or if -- it will go away.

Dale Barbara, Iraq vet and now a short-order cook, finds himself teamed with a few intrepid citizens -- town newspaper owner Julia Shumway, a physician's assistant at the hospital, a select-woman, and three brave kids. Against them stands Big Jim Rennie, a politician who will stop at nothing -- even murder -- to hold the reins of power, and his son, who is keeping a horrible secret in a dark pantry. But their main adversary is the Dome itself. Because time isn't just short. It's running out.

First Impressions

The premise for Under the Dome is deceptively simple, as if the idea was borrowed from a 1950's sci-fi flick--have the small rural town of Chester's Mill entrapped by a dome of unknown origin. Cue mayhem. Now sit back and watch what unfolds.

One of King's darkest portrayals of human frailty, Under the Dome is rife with trouble: substance abuse, personal grudges, mental illness, rape, broken families, drug manufacturing, violent acts of aggression, vicious opportunists, political manipulation and herd mentality all mix together in a town governed by a quasi fascist police force consisting of young goons recently hired by will of the first selectman and his own questionable motives.

While I've never thought of King as a pessimist, he most certainly treads the line very carefully in this novel. Although the main cast is a good example of solidarity in the midst of a major crisis, they are clearly in the minority. Some readers may regard this as a pessimistic outlook, but I suspect that this was a conscious effort in writing the grim reality of our history when faced with seemingly insurmountable disaster.

As with all of King's classics, the novel is chalk full of distinct, believable characters. While the cast is comprised of half a dozen major characters, more than two dozen minor characters and a host of small players, there is no question that each personality is unique. Not since The Stand have readers of Stephen King been treated to such a complex social network within a single book.

The only qualm I have with Under the Dome is that all of the fun of the book was in the question. I never wanted the answer. After countless pages of buildup, the source of the dome is revealed, thus ending the mystery and leaving me with the disappointment of knowing the source of the past thousand pages of anguish. However (un)creative the source of the dome is, I think King handled it wonderfully.

Finally, while I typically ignore the thoughts of other reviewers, I find it necessary to comment on the small handful of particularly snarky reviews that I've come across. Some have called Stephen King out on this novel, accusing him of going through the motions and phoning it in. I've found these arguments to be hypercritical; being both jejune and without substance. But don't take their or my word for it. Read Under the Dome for yourself and see what you think.

Final Thoughts

Under the Dome will appeal to the majority of Stephen King fans, as well to anyone with a vested interest in the consequence of heavy external influences upon an isolated group of people. Readers will be rewarded with greater insight into the plot and its characters with each subsequent reading, due to its multifaceted structure.

Under the Dome is not just one of Stephen King's great modern works, it is one of his great works, period.

Review: Bag of Bones by Stephen King

Publisher's Weekly Summary:

...It opens quietly as narrator Mike Noonan, 40, bestselling author of romantic suspense potboilers (and latest in a line of King novelist-heroes, cf. Misery and The Dark Half) describes the death of his wife four years back and his consequent grief and writer's block. Mike has kept the block hidden from the publishing world by annually pulling one of his own, unpublished mss. from a safe-deposit box. Now that he's out of old novels to submit, he resolves to work through his troubles at Sara Laughs, his country house in backwoods Maine. 

Arriving there, Mike nearly drives over a three-year-old girl. She is Kyra, granddaughter by way of beautiful young widow Mattie of mad computer mogul Max Devore, who is hellbent on snatching the girl from her mother. Taking up Kyra's cause, falling in love with Mattie, Mike gears up for a custody battle. Invigorated, he breaks through his writer's block; but great danger, psychological and physical, awaits, from Max Devore but especially from the spirits, mostly malevolent, that haunt Sara Laughs due to hideous crimes committed by Devore's ancestor a century earlier. 

Violence, natural and supernatural, ensues as past and present mix, culminating in a torrent of climaxes that bind and illuminate the novel's many mysteries. From his mint-fresh etching of spooky rural Maine to his masterful pacing and deft handling of numerous themes, particularly of the fragility of our constructs about reality and of love's ability to mend rifts in those constructs, this is one of King's most accomplished novels. It is his most personal as well, revealing through Mike's broodings the intimacies of the creative writing process: a passionate gift from a veteran author to all who care about the art and craft of storytelling... 

First Impressions

Bag of Bones is a fine example of ghost story. Mike Noonan, a successful novelist, finds himself losing the war against writer's block in the years following the traumatic loss of his wife. In order to satisfy his agent's lust for new material, Noonan submits an unread manuscript each year. But once the unpublished works run dry, Mike finds himself questioning whether he still has what it takes to produce anything of merit, or whether he should just retire once and for all.

Unfortunately, writer's block is not the only thing afflicting him. Mike is also the victim of recurring nightmares, all of which feature his summer home--Sara Laughs--that he and his deceased wife used to frequent. In an effort to purge himself of this fear, Mike resolves to return to the summer house and confront whatever it is that is holding him back: regrets, suspicions, and the nausea he feels whenever he attempts to face the blank page.

Since this is a ghost story, it is unsurprising that the summer home is teeming with the supernatural. Some spirits lash out in Mike's dreams as hellish nightmares, others try to warn him of impending danger, and some write messages on his typewriter or rearrange the magnetic alphabet letters that Mike has cleverly placed on the fridge in order to communicate with them. 

The main character, as in many of King's books, is a novelist. As an aspiring author, I found this served as an added benefit, as there were numerous sprinkles of literary wisdom in the early chapters that I found to be quite insightful. 

Furthermore, I commend King on his main antagonist, Max Devore. Max is proof that you can create an intimidating figure that isn't physically imposing. Hell, Max isn't even ambulatory! But dammit, he's rich, and he has a bitchin' wheelchair, and that seems to suffice. Somehow Stephen manages to make this old man a threat to anyone who gets in his way--kudos for that, Mr. King.

Apart from the haunting, the plot also details a rather ruthless battle over the custody of a child (not Mike's) that quickly escalates into violence. The horror Max Devore creates easily matches the horror of the supernatural in this novel, and, as Max presents a human face for the horror, it is both believable and frightening. 

On a side note, Bag of Bones also features a lawyer that is not a soulless agent of satan. Said benevolent lawyer was the only thing that caused me to question the reality of King's world. Haha. 

Final Thoughts

King weaves a tale that is horific, inspiring, and heartfelt. His characters (both human and supernatural) are presented in a convincing manner.

Like many other fans of Stephen King, I had somehow missed this novel until recently. It is my hope that this review will encourage at least a few of you to pick up this book and judge it for yourself. I think you'll find it to be quite engaging--a King classic, if you will.

If you've missed this buried gem all these years, it's time to unearth it. 

Stephen King - "Novelists Have Got the Best Gig in the Creative Arts"

The voice of Stephen King, as channeled through his novelist Mike Noonan in Bag of Bones. Stick around, because later tonight I'll be reviewing the novel in full; in the meantime, I just wanted to share a passage that is likely relevant to anyone reading this blog:

From my admittedly prejudiced standpoint, successful novelists--even modestly successful novelists--have got the best gig in the creative arts. It's true that people buy more CDs than books, go to more movies, and watch a lot more TV. But the arc of productivity is longer for novelists, perhaps because readers are a little brighter than fans of the non-written arts, and thus have marginally longer memories. David Soul of Starsky and Hutch is God knows where, same with that peculiar white rapper Vanilla Ice, but in 1994, Herman Wouk, James Michener, and Norman Mailer were all still around; talk about when dinosaurs walked the earth.

Arthur Hailey was writing a new book (that was the rumor, anyways, and it turned out to be true), Thomas Harris could take seven years between Lecters and still produce bestsellers, and although not heard from in almost forty years, J.D. Salinger was still a hot topic in English classes and informal coffee-house literary groups. Readers have a loyalty that cannot be matched anywhere else in the creative arts, which explains why so many writers who have run out of gas can keep coasting anyway, propelled onto the bestseller lists by the magic words AUTHOR OF on the covers of their books.

The News (As I See It) pt. 2 - Tabloid Edition

According to tech blog GDGT, at a September 1st, 2010 press conference, Steve Jobs announced that iTunes has sold over 35 million books. Impressive--Is anyone aware of Amazon's figures? I want to know how much they trump them by.

The estate of Stephen King suffered damages that could reach approximately $100,000 after a driver crashed into his custom made black iron security fence, interwoven with intricate designs of gargoyles, spiders, and other ghoulish images. The fence adorned with fluffy white kittens, unicorns, and marshmallows came away unscathed, thank god. 

In other news, Dan Brown was given the questionable honour of being the "most unwanted author" by Europe's biggest street retailer of secondhand books, Oxfam. Is being a heavily donated author a good thing, or a bad thing? What do you think?

And I confess, the news I'm most excited to share...

Ever wonder what Sarah Palin would look like as a steampunk superhero?  Me neither, but Antarctic press certainly has. Evidently Sarah Palin's special power is her ability to fight the oil spill with steam power. Really. Don't believe me? Then fix your eyes upon this.

Mile High Comics provides us with a summary:

Energy catastrophe has struck worldwide! Massive oil spills, nuclear meltdowns and more leave us desperate for viable energy sources to rebuild global society and technology. Inspired by a little tea party, Sarah Palin hits upon the answer: steam power! She begins the 'Steam Initiative', touting geothermal energy as the cure for what ails ya. The heads of Big Oil and Nuclear Power are less than happy with this trend, and they send their agents to do in the Rogue Republican. Luckily, she comes prepared with a set of steam-powered armor! (Standard equipment, don'cha know.)

For the love of all that's good in the world, I hope that this is satire. If not, I just threw up a little. 

Stephen King: Advice to Aspiring Authors & Writing as an Act of Telepathy

Today I'd like to share an excerpt from Stephen King's On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft that takes you through an act of telepathy, followed by some solid advice for all of us aspiring authors.This is well worth a read:

And here we go—actual telepathy in action. You'll notice I have nothing up my sleeves and that my lips never move. Neither, most likely, do yours.

Look—here's a table covered with a red cloth. On it is a cage the size of a small fish aquarium. In the cage is a white rabbit with a pink nose and pink-rimmed eyes. In its front paws is a carrot-stub upon which it is contentedly munching. On its back, clearly marked in blue ink, is the numeral 8.

Do we see the same thing? We'd have to get together and compare notes to make absolutely sure, but I think we do. There will be necessary variations, of course: some receivers will see a cloth which is turkey red, some will see one that's scarlet, while others may see still other shades. (To color-blind receivers, the red tablecloth is the dark gray of cigar ashes.) Some may see scalloped edges, some may see straight ones. Decorative souls may add a little lace, and welcome—my tablecloth is your tablecloth, knock yourself out.

Likewise, the matter of the cafe leaves quite a lot of room for individual interpretation. For one thing, it is described in terms of rough comparison, which is useful only if you and I see the world and measure the things in it with similar eyes. It's easy to become careless when making rough comparisons, but the alternative is a prissy attention to detail that takes all the fun out of writing. What am I going to say, “on the table is a cage three feet, six inches in length, two feet in width, and fourteen inches high”? That's not prose, that's an instruction manual. The paragraph also doesn't tell us what sort of material the cafe is made of—wire mesh? steel rods? glass?-- but does it really matter? We all understand the cage is a see-through medium; beyond that, we don't care. The most interesting thing here isn't even the carrot-munching rabbit in the cage, but the number on its back. Not a six, not a four, not nineteen-point-five. It's an eight. This is what we're looking at, and we all see it. I didn't tell you. You didn't ask me. I never opened my mouth and you never opened yours. We're not even in the same year together, yet alone the same room...except we are together. We're close.

We're having a meeting of the minds.

I sent you a table with a red cloth on it, a cage, a rabbit, and the number eight in blue ink. You got them all, especially that blue eight. We've engaged in an act of telepathy. No mythy-mountain shit; real telepathy. I'm not going to belabor the point, but before we go any further you have to understand that I'm not trying to be cute; there is a point to be made.

You can approach the act of writing with nervousness, excitement, hopefulness, or even despair—the sense that you can never completely put on the page what's in your mind and heart. You can come to the act with your fists clenched and your eyes narrowed, ready to kick ass and take down names. You can come to it because you want a girl to marry you or because you want to change the world. Come to it any way but lightly. Let me say it again: you must not come lightly to the blank page.

I'm not asking you to come reverently or unquestioningly; I'm not asking you to be politically correct or cast aside your sense of humor (please God you have one). This isn't a popularity contest, it's not the moral Olympics, and it's not church. But it's writing, damn it, not washing the car or putting on eyeliner. If you can take it seriously, we can do business. If you can't or won't, it's time for you to close the book and do something else.

Wash the car, maybe.

I highly encourage those who haven't already purchased On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King to do so. If you're broke (or cheap) walk down to your local library. If they don't stock it, request it-- you always have options.

“You must not come lightly to the blank page”. Good advice for everyone. I'm off to write my daily quota. You should too.