Lilja's Library

by Hans-Ake Lilja

  Lilja: Yes, I think everyone wants that if they have to choose. I understand that Blaze will be out soon.

  Stephen King: Yeah. I hope so. I mean, that was a funny thing because I have been thinking about that book off and on for a while and every time I would think about it…you know I did the early books as Richard Bachman books and this is going to be a Bachman because it came from the same time. It was written right before Carrie and finally I thought to myself…the reason I’ve never done it was because, in my memory at least, it was a tearjerker of a book, you know? It was kind of sentimental and just kind of…every now and then I think of what Oscar Wilde said about The Little Match Girl. He said that it’s impossible to read about the little match girl without weeping tears of laughter and…you know, something that is so sad it’s actually funny.

  And I felt that way a little bit about this Philip Roth book, Every Man. You know, I’m thinking, “That’s ridiculous, this is so sad it’s really quite funny,” but I’ve got a kind of a black sense of humor too.

  Lilja: Why did you decide to release it as a Bachman book?

  Stephen King: I read it again. And I thought…well, the first thing that I thought was I’ve got to look at this if I can still find it, if anybody can find it, because I’ve got this thing now, this Haven Foundation which is supposed to help freelance artists. You know about the Frank Muller situation?

  Lilja: Yeah…

  Stephen King: He had this horrible motorcycle accident and it turned out he had no money. He had no insurance. He had no backing. He owed the IRS, the Internal Revenue Service. He owed them money for back taxes. He was just a mess and he had this one kid and another kid on the way that he just found out about like three or four days before this accident. And he was never gonna be…I mean, he’s totally fucked up. Pardon my French, but he’s totally screwed up. He’s never gonna work again and there was no money. So, we set up the Wavedancer Foundation for him and we could never really get any traction because the amount of money was so high and I just kept thinking, it drove me crazy, I’m thinking if this has happened to Frank, think of all the other freelancers who are out there who probably don’t have much, they are almost living hand-to-mouth, day-to-day. So we started this thing, The Haven Foundation, at the time of the reading I did with Jo Rowling and John Irving at Radio City Music Hall.

  And the idea was to help writers and artists who were down on their luck and we gotta have some money to start with, we gotta have start-up money so, I’m thinking to myself. I need a book, I need to publish a book and copyright it to The Haven Foundation and all the money can go to this thing because I don’t need any more money, you know? I guess everybody could use it but right now I don’t exactly need it anymore.

  So, Blaze was what occurred to me and I thought, “Well, it’s probably not good enough; why not look at it again and see?” So, I did and I was wrong about it, it’s really a good book. So, I rewrote it and I did it kind of…it was very funny to get the manuscript because it was done on my wife’s old typewriter. Tabby claims that I married her for a typewriter. She had a nice little Olivetti portable typewriter, very sturdy, and I wrote Carrie on it, Blaze and a bunch of other stuff as well. I guess I wrote Shawshank on that typewriter too, on a kitchen table in Boulder…I went ahead and I rewrote it and sent it in. And they like it at Scribner so we’re going to do it.

  Lilja: And you’re going to sell it through The Haven Foundation?

  Stephen King: Yeah, the money will go to Haven. And that way we’ll have a certain amount in that fund to start with and we’ll do some fundraisers. I did a political thing with John Grisham for a senatorial candidate in September because anybody who is against George Bush’s Iraq policy is my friend.

  Lilja: Yeah, I heard you talk about that…you got your wish.

  Stephen King: Yeah, he got elected. He is a good guy. Bush met him and said, “How is your boy?” because Jim Webb’s boy is fighting in Iraq, and Webb said, “That’s between my boy and me.” Kind of spanked his nose. Not his business.

  Lilja: You also wrote a story called “The Fifth Quarter” under the name John Swithen.

  Stephen King: I did.

  Lilja: Have you used other names?

  Stephen King: No.

  Lilja: Would you tell me if you had?

  Stephen King: Actually at this point I would, but I never have. The Swithen thing…at that time I was publishing stories all the time in Cavalier and this story wasn’t like the horror stories. It’s this hardboiled crime thing and I had a story in the previous issue, and it was really like the pulp writers who used to use all different names in the 50s cause they poured that stuff out and that was my time to just pour stuff out, so I used the John Swithen name, but I never used it again. I didn’t really like it. Have you seen the thing that they did of “The Fifth Quarter” for Nightmares & Dreamscapes?

  Lilja: Yes, I have seen it.

  Stephen King: Not bad.

  Lilja: The series was very good. I’m sad to hear that there probably won’t be a second season.

  Stephen King: I don’t know, I don’t think so. I don’t really know. I mean it did pretty well for them. They’re going to do The Talisman.

  Lilja: What are your feelings about them turning The Talisman into a TV series?

  Stephen King: I’m glad somebody’s doing it. I mean, it seems to me that that’s the way to do it, as a miniseries, because nobody could ever make it work as a movie, there was too much stuff in there and you know Spielberg had it for the longest time and those were the only tough movie negotiations that I ever had. Because Spielberg at that time had a boss named Sid Sheinberg at Universal Pictures and Sid Sheinberg kind of inserted himself into things, and he was very rude and very, very hard-nosed because I don’t think he really wanted Spielberg to do that. At that time Spielberg was still young, he was really enthusiastic about all these things and he would buy a lot of things and let them sit. And Sheinberg was afraid that was what would happen to The Talisman and of course it was because it has been there for like twenty years.

  Lilja: Yeah, I read that they even bought it before the book was released.

  Stephen King: Yeah, I think they did…I think they did.

  Lilja: I understand that a lot of fans are worried that it won’t be possible to translate it into a successful movie because it has such a rich story.

  Stephen King: I don’t think it’ll be the same. I have seen some of the scripts and the scripts concentrate pretty much on Jack Sawyer’s relationship with Wolf and there’s a lot more to the book than that, but I think that they’re kind of concentrating on that relationship. I think it will probably look nice and that it will have a story to it. Will it satisfy the fans? And between you and me and between everybody who reads your website, I have my doubts. We’ll see.

  Lilja: Are you concerned about how the movies turn out?

  Stephen King: No…[laughs]

  Lilja: No? You let them go when you…

  Stephen King: No, I’m not concerned about that at all. [laughs] The books are still always there. It’s like what James M. Cain said: the book doesn’t change and the movies…you know…1408 is done and the trailer is terrific and…it looks like The Shining, only hot instead of cold, so maybe it’ll be a great movie and everybody will make money and everybody will be happy. John Cusack’s in it and I love him as an actor, I respect him very much. Samuel L. Jackson is the hotel manager. He looks terrific and the hotel looks terrific so all those things but…so maybe it’s a success and that’s terrific. But suppose it’s junk. Then it’s gone in two weeks. And that’s the end of it. But I’m always just interested. I approach it as a fan and I know that there are writers who, what can I say, they kind of hover over things, the book is their little baby and in some cases I can understand that. It’s like Charles Frazier who wrote…you know…the book and then it became a movie with Nicole Kidman and…Cold Mountain. The guy has only written two books in his career, of course he was concerned, you know? Ross Lockridge on
ly wrote one book and then he killed himself. I don’t know if he killed himself because the movie was so bad…it might have been. Elizabeth Taylor was in it and Montgomery Clift…but you only have that one baby. You get really, really concerned. Did you read Scott Smith’s book, A Simple Plan?

  Lilja: No, I haven’t read that one.

  Stephen King: Did you see the movie that Sam Raimi did out of it?

  Lilja: No.

  Stephen King: Ah, it’s great. It’s a great movie and it’s a great book but the thing is, Scott Smith, who wrote the book, spent six years dicking around with the screenplay because it was his only book. Now, he’s got another book out. It’s a horror novel called The Ruins and that’s a really nice book too. I mean it’s not nice, it’s scarier than hell, but, you know…for me I write a lot of books and I’m always interested in what the movies are gonna be. It’s like the “Dollar Babies”. I do it because I want to see what comes out. I’m like a kid with a chemistry set.

  Lilja: Yeah, there’s been a lot of “Dollar Babies” done lately.

  Stephen King: Yeah, and they’re fun. Some of them are ridiculous and some of them are really terrific.

  Lilja: Yeah, I saw a Russian version of Battleground…I don’t know if you have seen it?

  Stephen King: No, I haven’t.

  Lilja: It’s animated, very funny.

  Stephen King: I’ll have to get Marsha to send me one, but you know there’s also a claymation version of The Sun Dog and it’s a riot.

  Lilja: I’ve heard about that one but never seen it.

  Stephen King: They’ve done an off-Broadway play of Carrie and Carrie is played by a transvestite and it’s…I haven’t seen it yet and it’s closed, but I think it will reopen. It was quite successful. Somebody said to me, “Do you care that they kind of like turned this thing into a, almost like a camp comedy?” and I said, “No.” I really don’t care that it has that element in it and so what. Let’s see what comes.

  Lilja: If you try enough times something good will come from some of them.

  Stephen King: Exactly. I mean, a guy like Frank Darabont comes along and you know, Frank and I have stayed tight over the years. He’s going to start with The Mist in, I think, about six weeks. And that’s exciting.

  Lilja: Are you more excited about some films than others?

  Stephen King: Sure. I’m excited about The Mist, I was always kind of pumped to see what happened with Cujo and, of course, Misery. I was very excited about Misery because it was William Goldman who was doing the script and you know, he’s been an idol of mine most of my life. Dolores Claiborne with Kathy Bates again and Jennifer Jason Leigh. I was very interested to see what would happen.

  Some of them were disappointments, you know…Needful Things, for instance, but some of them are really fun to watch and I’m easy to please.

  Lilja: In some movies you have small cameos. Is that something you enjoy doing?

  Stephen King: Yeah, it’s OK if I’ve got the time to do it. I mean, I’m not a really great actor. I could probably, you know, if I had the right agent and everything I could have a career as a minor character actor sort of like Whit Bissell in the old 50s movies but…I have never been really great at it, but it’s kind of fun to do that. Frank wanted me to actually play a fairly major part in The Mist. But I said, “You know I can’t do that. You’re planning to go and shoot this in some Godawful place like New Zealand and I just can’t uproot my life like that.”

  Lilja: It’s always nice to see you pop up in the movies, though.

  Stephen King: Thank you.

  ****

  Stephen King, Part 2

  Posted: January 17, 2007

  PART 2—Duma Key, Jack Sawyer and The Gingerbread Girl

  “They have this power so that sometimes if he paints things into the world they kind of appear and if he paints things out they disappear, including people.”

  “Of course you have to put him in some sort of situation where he has to come back and then the clock is ticking.”

  Lilja: I understand that you have another book ready called Duma Key?

  Stephen King: Duma Key is done in first draft and it’s kind of a glorious mess right now and needs to be shorter, but it’s a good story. It’s the first of the stories I have written that are set in Florida. We have been coming down here for about eight years and I feel comfortable writing about it. Finally I said to myself, “You write all these books about Maine because it’s comfortable for you and it’s easy, but sometimes good things come from discomfort.” So I tried to do the best that I could. It’s a scary story that’s kind of sweet.

  Lilja: Can you reveal anything about the plot?

  Stephen King: Sure, it’s about a construction worker who is involved in a terrible accident. He lives in the northern part of the United States, Minnesota, and he’s hurt very badly and loses an arm, sustains head injuries and is not expected to live but he does and he comes out of a coma and because of the head injuries he has uncontrollable rages and memory lapses. It’s very difficult and his wife divorces him, so he decides he’s going to move to Florida, but he’s also thinking about suicide just because of his pain and because he doesn’t like being angry all the time and this psychiatrist kind of talks him out of it and one of the things he says is, “Is there anything that you do that you can use as a kind of buffer against this depression? Is there any kind of new life for you besides working on buildings?” and this guy says, “I used to draw. I used to paint a little bit,” and the guy says, “Well, try that.” And he discovers that, after this injury, that he is really a very talented painter and he moves to Florida and he starts to paint these pictures and then strange things start to happen with the pictures. They have this power so that sometimes if he paints things into the world they kind of appear and if he paints things out they disappear, including people. And there is something going on, on this island, this Duma Key, that is actually amping that talent up and making it stronger because there is something wrong there. That’s the real basis of the story.

  Lilja: Do you expect it to be out this year?

  Stephen King: No, I don’t think so. I’ve got to work on it and I kind of like…you know, what happens to me is, I say to myself, “I’ve got to rewrite this book and there’s a lot of work involved because it’s too long,” and I think to myself, “I don’t wanna do that, I’d rather write something new.” So that’s what I’m doing, I’m working on something new.

  Lilja: Can you reveal anything about that?

  Stephen King: Well, it’s a story called “The Gingerbread Girl” and it’s going to be long, I think…I don’t think it’s gonna be a novel but I think it’s gonna be pretty long, probably not as long as “Shawshank” or “The Body” or those things, but probably pretty long.

  It’s one of those stories that falls into a no-man’s land. It’s too long to be a short story and get published in a magazine but it’s too short to be a novel.

  Lilja: Speaking of that, are you planning a new collection soon where it might fit?

  Stephen King: Somebody was asking me about that and I don’t know what I’ve got that hasn’t been published. I’d have to think about it. If I went to Marsha and said, “Find out how many short stories are uncollected,” she could do that but I don’t know how many that is.

  There’s a story in Tinhouse called “Memory,” but that’s really the first chapter of Duma Key all kind of dressed up.

  Lilja: Yeah, I remember reading that, that it was an excerpt from Duma Key. That was a very good story.

  Stephen King: It’s pretty good. It’s about the guy’s accident. And there’s a story called “Lisey and the Madman,” but that’s from Lisey’s Story so those two are out. I don’t wanna do those, but there are a few other ones. There’s a story in Playboy last month called “Willa.”

  Lilja: Is “Willa” something you’d want to expand?

  Stephen King: No, I don’t think so, but I was still sort of under the influence of Lisey’s Story. I
had a wonderful time writing Lisey’s Story. It was kind of magic for me and there seemed to be a little of that magic left over at the end and it went into “Willa.”

  Lilja: Lisey’s Story is a very nice book. One of your best books, if I may say so.

  Stephen King: I think it’s THE best book.

  Lilja: Yeah?

  Stephen King: Yes, I do. Yeah, I think it’s the best one and…you just never know. You sit down to work on a book and then when I was done with it I said to myself, “I don’t really wanna write another book because it won’t be as good.” I mean, it’s like if you read a really good book, you put it on the shelf and you feel sad because you say to yourself, “I’m gonna read another book but I know it won’t be as good as this one.”

  Lilja: Do you feel that when you’re done or do you feel it in the process, that this is about to be something very good?

  Stephen King: You just feel it. You know when it’s going along day by day that it’s really, really good and you don’t know why…you just kind of like…write it and say, “Boy I hope this will stick that way.” But…I never had a book quite like Lisey and it was funny how that worked out because when I wrote most of it I was really sick a lot of the time. I had pneumonia and I picked up one of these hospital infections so that when I got out of the hospital I was just nauseated all the time, I couldn’t keep food down, I felt like crap. The book was just angelic…So that was good, but I actually literally wrote Lisey in between running to the bathroom to vomit what I had eaten last, and finally I shook whatever it was I had. And the book just never really lost that magic for me, and usually you write a book and you usually feel pretty good about it when you’re writing it. I usually feel like, “Goddamn, this is good, this is great,” and then it comes to a point when you have to work on it again and you say, “Oh, what a pile of shit this was, what were you thinking?” You know you always feel a little bit like you fell short but I never felt that way with Lisey. I felt good about that book.