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Haunted Heart: The Life and Times of Stephen King

Page 33

by Lisa Rogak


  1990 October: Graveyard Shift movie released

  1991 August: The Dark Tower III: The Wastelands published

  1991 October: Needful Things published

  1992 May: Gerald’s Game published

  1993 January: Dolores Claiborne published

  1993 October: Nightmares and Dreamscapes published

  1994 April: Insomnia published

  1994 May: The Stand TV miniseries debuts on ABC

  1994 September: The Shawshank Redemption movie released

  1994 October: “The Man in the Black Suit” is published in the New Yorker

  1995 July: Rose Madder published

  1996: King receives O. Henry Award for “The Man in the Black Suit”

  1996: March through August: The Green Mile is published monthly in six installments

  1996 October 1: Desperation and The Regulators are published on the same day

  1997 November: The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass published

  1998 September: Bag of Bones published

  1999 February: Storm of the Century TV miniseries debuts on ABC

  1999 April: The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon published

  1999 June 19: King is seriously injured when he’s hit by a van while walking

  1999 September: Hearts in Atlantis published

  1999 December 10: The Green Mile movie released; Steve and Tabby show up at the premiere

  2000 March: Riding the Bullet e-book released

  2000 July: The Plant e-book released

  2000 October: On Writing published

  2001 March: Dreamcatcher published

  2001 September: Black House, written with Peter Straub, published

  2002 March: Everything’s Eventual published

  2002 September: From a Buick 8 published

  2003 June: The Dark Tower books I–IV reissued

  2003 November: The Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla published

  2003 November 19: King receives National Book Foundation award

  2003 November 23: King hospitalized with pneumonia

  2004 March: Kingdom Hospital miniseries debuts on ABC

  2004 April 7: King finishes writing The Dark Tower series

  2004 June: The Dark Tower VI: Song of Susannah published

  2004 September 21: The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower published, King’s fifty-seventh birthday

  2004 October 27: The Boston Red Sox win the World Series

  2004 December: Faithful: Two Diehard Boston Red Sox Fans Chronicle the Historic 2004 Season published, written with Stewart O’Nan

  2005 October: The Colorado Kid published

  2006 January: Cell published

  2006 October: Lisey’s Story published

  2007 February–August: The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born comic books published

  2007 June: Blaze, a Richard Bachman book, published

  2007 October: Best American Short Stories 2007 published, King as editor

  2007 November: The Mist movie released

  2008 January: Duma Key published

  2008 November: Just After Sunset: Stories published

  NOTES

  INTRODUCTION

  1 “I’m afraid of everything”: The Mist press conference, November 13, 2007.

  1 “I’ll just keep on typing till I get to a safe number”: Bare Bones, p. 37.

  1 “the sums of these numbers add up to thirteen”: Castle Rock, September 1987.

  2 “I can only get it so small”: Dennis Miller Live, April 3, 1998.

  2 “the fact that I’m not doing it nags at me”: Paris Review, Fall 2006.

  3 “gathered at your fence snapping pictures”: Castle Rock, February 1989.

  3 “who wants to be the best at what he does”: New York Times, August 13, 2000.

  4 “because their fathers are gone”: Dream Makers, 2: 279.

  4 “Writers don’t outgrow it”: Weekly Reader Writing magazine, October 2006.

  4 “all of this makes him wonderful company”: Tenebres.com, 2000.

  5 “get on with the work”: Bare Bones, p. 70.

  CHAPTER ONE: APT PUPIL

  10 “trouble came easy to him”: Bare Bones, p. 35.

  12 “some years after the fact”: Danse Macabre, p. 116.

  12 “ ‘My, that’s crisp!’ ”: Bare Bones, p. 41.

  13 “Write one of your own”: On Writing, p. 28.

  14 “beyond anything I have ever felt”: Ibid., p. 24.

  14 “about what my name is!”: Fresh Air, October 10, 2000.

  14 “he was an unperson”: Guardian, September 14, 2000.

  15 “Tell them he’s in the navy”: Entertainment Weekly, September 27, 2002.

  15 “her other sisters kept their husbands”: Ibid.

  15 “bulging out as the bat hits it”: Bare Bones, p. 210.

  16 “I’m going to write this junk”: Ibid.

  16 “in a frame like a movie screen”: Bare Bones, p. 128.

  16 “you can go insane quite easily”: Ibid.

  16 “worried about my sanity a lot”: 60 Minutes, February 16, 1997.

  16 “you were in pain or frightened or sad”: Fresh Air, October 10, 2000.

  16 “you were supposed to behave”: Faces of Fear, p. 241.

  17 “young and very credulous age”: Fresh Air, October 10, 2000.

  17 “a figure of happiness and fun being evil”: Weekly Reader Writing magazine, October 2006.

  17 “I’d get pneumonia and die”: Bare Bones, p. 39.

  18 “into orbit around Earth called Sputnik”: Ibid.

  18 “and it went away”: Faces of Fear, p. 243.

  18 “I spent a lot of miserable hours”: Boston Globe, April 15, 1990.

  18 “by a terrible old lady in black”: Bare Bones, p. 40.

  18 “the corpse opened its eyes and looked at me”: Complete Stephen King Encyclopedia, p. 19.

  19 “as clearly now as when it happened”: Writers Dreaming, p. 135.

  20 “bends your mind a little”: Ibid.

  20 “and all juvenile fiction for me”: Paris Review, Fall 2006.

  21 “total senile dementia and was incontinent”: New Yorker, September 7, 1998.

  21 “Good God, you’re warped”: Bare Bones, p. 61.

  22 “these people are not”: Hollywood’s Stephen King, p. 6.

  22 “and get out of his way”: Feast of Fear, p. 245.

  22 “it was in a lot of people”: 60 Minutes, February 16, 1997.

  22 “ ‘here’s the starting line, GO!’ ”: Stephen King: Master of the Macabre, TLC/BBC documentary, 1999.

  22 “tough even if you weren’t”: Bare Bones, p. 115.

  22 “sort of work it out for myself”: Ibid., 33, 34.

  23 “streaming with sweat”: Complete Stephen King Encyclopedia, p. 52.

  23 “it affected him deeply”: Ibid., p. 58.

  24 “he was more isolated than we were”: Ibid.

  24 “a great big Cadillac!”: Ibid.

  24 “I’d be in another world”: Bare Bones, p. 25.

  CHAPTER TWO: HEAD DOWN

  26 “He hit the sidewalk and splattered”: Nightline, November 15, 2007.

  26 “before she finally drowned”: Ibid.

  27 “you’d always be pregnant”: I Want to Be Typhoid Stevie.

  27 “got in your clothes, your hair”: New York Times, October 26, 1988.

  28 “disembodied vaginas and things that have teeth”: Salon, September 24, 1998.

  29 “nobody wanted to see her change the mold”: Feast of Fear, p. 11.

  30 “never really did very much”: Weekly Reader Writing magazine, October 2006.

  30 “That’s why he left the marriage”: Ibid.

  31 “one of them was retarded”: Feast of Fear, p. 254.

  31 “something awful will happen”: The Mist press conference, November 13, 2007.

  31 “somebody to haul off on me”: Feast of Fear, p. 90.

  32 “jump out at him or scare him”: Weekend Edition, May 10, 2003.

>   32 “were taunters instead of tauntees”: Keynote address, annual meeting, Vermont Library Conference, May 26, 1999.

  32 “which is fine by me”: Weekend Edition, May 10, 2003.

  33 “robots reading my work”: Castle Rock, March 1987.

  34 “making out like crazy in the backseat”: Ben Rawortit interview.

  35 “with her on his lap”: Stephen King Country, p. 40.

  36 “pissed off and confused”: MidLife Confidential, p. 30.

  36 “possibly smoke?”: Ibid., p. 31.

  37 “Don’t ever forget it”: Writer’s Digest, October 1977.

  40 “sit right up and beg for it like dogs”: Stephen King from A to Z, p. 87.

  40 “It was very unsettling”: Bare Bones, p. 66.

  CHAPTER THREE: THE GUNSLINGER

  41 “already formed even back then”: UMO Alumni Magazine, Fall 1989.

  41 “He created his own world”: Ibid.

  43 “a place for us at the table”: Bangor Daily News, January 23, 2008.

  44 “my teachers at college”: Dream Makers, 2: 27.

  45 “can be seriously damaged emotionally”: Bare Bones, p. 43.

  46 “these kids just weren’t prepared for it”: Highway Patrolman, July 1987.

  47 “really dangerous in a lot of ways”: A Good Read, Maine Public Television, August 2004.

  47 “for a number of different stories I’ve written”: Salon, September 24, 1998.

  47 “you’re going to find in a garbage truck”: UMO Alumni Magazine, Fall 1999.

  48 “occasionally disappear into our own realm”: Maine Campus, December 18, 1969.

  48 “with a filthy mouth and a vapid mind”: Maine Campus, November 13, 1969.

  48 “a serious decision about birth control”: Maine Campus, August 1, 1969.

  49 “but with no control”: Ibid.

  49 “would write more than horror stories”: UMO Alumni Magazine, Fall 1999.

  50 “a version of himself that rang true”: Ibid.

  50 “yet public in a loud way”: Ibid.

  51 “the part of a very wild man”: Ibid.

  52 “a lot of bullshit like that”: Amazon.com, September 1998.

  52 “he got a letter into the paper before I did”: New Hampshire Sunday News, June 27, 1993.

  52 “because he couldn’t afford shoes”: Biography: Stephen King, 2000.

  52 “even more incredible that he didn’t care”: Guardian, September 18, 2004.

  52 “He also was hot for my boobs”: Boston Globe, June 4, 2006.

  52 “as a tough broad”: Time, October 6, 1986.

  53 “from part of the store”: New Hampshire Sunday News, June 27, 1993.

  53 “they couldn’t harm me”: Castle Rock, December 1987.

  54 “that didn’t get me anywhere either”: Bangor Daily News, March 4, 1997.

  54 “if she likes something”: Powells.com, October 2006.

  55 “a couple of hundred willing young virgins”: Castle Rock, June 1985.

  56 “how long it took to tell the tales”: Amazon.com, March 2003.

  CHAPTER FOUR: DESPERATION

  57 “in a display of righteous anger”: New Yorker, April 22, 2002.

  57 “would have been talking grand larceny”: Ibid.

  58 “the forgetful pump jockey”: Ibid.

  60 “for an extraordinarily long time”: Feast of Fear, p. 236.

  61 “Who the fuck are you?” Ibid.

  61 “It used to make me crazy”: Ibid.

  61 “a Nazi-salute kind of typeface”: BBC, An Audience with Stephen King, November 12, 2006.

  61 “not being in that Saturday evening”: Stephen King Country, p. 224.

  62 “look a doughnut in the face ever since”: Bare Bones, p. 30.

  62 “not seeing each other, it wasn’t good”: Writer’s Digest, June 2007.

  62 “this traditional family home life”: Boston Globe, April 15, 1990.

  62 “when I was in the laundry”: New Yorker, September 7, 1998.

  63 “an opinion on Willy Loman’s depression”: Castle Rock, February 1986.

  63 “twins having sex in a birdbath”: Feast of Fear, p. 247.

  64 “I better slap one together”: Bare Bones, p. 46.

  64 “I didn’t really like it”: Lilja’s Library, January 16, 2007.

  65 “don’t sell too well to Cosmopolitan”: Bare Bones, p. 85.

  65 “the better you can do it”: Ibid.

  66 “Girls are even more mysterious”: Nightline, November 15, 2007.

  66 “when you’re badly hurt”: Bare Bones, p. 94.

  66 “I’ll help you”: Nightline, November 15, 2007.

  66 “a few different ways to fix it”: NPR Morning Edition, November 19, 2003.

  67 “electrical equipment from the rock band”: Bare Bones, p. 86.

  67 “from behind the desk”: Ibid., p. 16.

  67 “I felt depressed and really down”: Ibid., p. 73.

  68 “he always took the time to write”: Stephen King from A to Z, p. 93.

  68 “a pretty good sense of humor”: Ibid.

  69 “ ‘we wrote our way out’ ”: A Good Read, Maine Public Television, August 2004.

  69 “ ‘Why don’t you get an actual job?’ ”: National Book Foundation acceptance speech, November 19, 2003.

  69 “you can’t take it”: Ibid.

  69 “pissed away half the food budget for that week”: Bare Bones, p. 31.

  69 “why anyone wants to be a social drinker”: Guardian, September 14, 2000.

  70 “by teaching a creative-writing course”: Bare Bones, p. 32.

  70 “to occasional outright hate”: Ibid.

  70 “she told me she understood”: Ibid.

  70 “burning of money that drove me nuts”: Biography: Stephen King, 2000.

  70 “underwear had holes in it in those days”: Bare Bones, p. 83.

  70 “we’ve got to pay as we go”: Bankrate.com, October 31, 2006.

  70 “channeled into about a dozen stories”: National Book Foundation acceptance speech, November 19, 2003.

  71 “it’s depressing, and it’s fantasy”: Bare Bones, p. 94.

  72 “if Doubleday didn’t accept Carrie”: Ibid., p. 33.

  73 “I scuttled across those streets, looking both ways”: Faces of Fear, p. 246.

  74 “someone opened a prison door”: Yale Bulletin & Calendar, May 2, 2003.

  74 “we were out of that trap for good”: Bare Bones, p. 33.

  74 “to live with my brother in Mexico, Maine”: New Yorker, September 7, 1998.

  74 “She got very exasperated with me”: Faces of Fear, p. 246.

  75 “but that’s okay, let ’em! I’ll be writing”: Dream Makers, 2: 278.

  75 “all sorts of things within that framework”: Paris Review, Fall 2006.

  75 “it’s vampires from the first”: Bare Bones, p. 102.

  76 “they don’t read Weird Tales”: Ibid.

  76 “that just wasn’t the same”: Bare Bones, p. 51.

  76 “by God, he is too old”: Feast of Fear, p. 77.

  76 “forced out the obstruction”: Bare Bones, p. 42.

  CHAPTER FIVE: RIDING THE BULLET

  78 “That could be a snake”: Yale Bulletin & Calendar, May 2, 2003.

  78 “it was so deep”: Bare Bones, p. 67.

  78 “I had the whole book in my mind”: The Province, Dienstag, April 1997.

  78 “because of my brutal impulses”: Ibid.

  79 “the realities of fatherhood”: Ibid.

  79 “about my kids that I never expected”: Nightline, November 15, 2007.

  79 “I could kill him”: Ibid.

  79 “I’m trying to keep the hex off”: Times of London podcast, January 28, 2007.

  79 “when I finished with the scene, it was gone”: Yankee, March 1979.

  79 “I was writing about myself”: Guardian, September 18, 2004.

  80 “performing a kind of self-psychoanalysis”: Nightline, November 15, 2007.


  80 “was to lie about it”: Feast of Fear, p. 94.

  80 “this guy has just written my book”: Ibid., p. 98.

  80 “and stanch the flow, I’d just die”: Ibid.

  80 “You carry your place with you wherever you go”: A Good Read, Maine Public Television, August 2004.

  81 “as many books and stories as he could churn out: Castle Rock, May 1986.

  81 “You don’t have to do things you don’t want to do”: Writer’s Digest, 1976.

  82 “a Sturm and Drang quality that’s absent from the film”: Bare Bones, p. 28.

  82 “and they’d step back”: Fresh Air, November 21, 2003.

  83 “ ‘Thank you for saying that, for articulating that thought’ ”: Ibid.

  83 “like having a Swiss bank account”: Kingdom of Fear, p. 127.

  84 “what people don’t want them to know”: Feast of Fear, p. 253.

  85 “because he wouldn’t shut up”: Ibid., p. 181.

  85 “It pops up again, and again, and again”: Bare Bones, p. 105.

  86 “you’re entertaining yourself too, you know”: Publishers Weekly, January 17, 1977.

  87 “we feared for both Owen’s death and his life”: Castle Rock, August 1987.

  87 “have to introduce him all over again”: Biography: Stephen King, 2000.

  88 “begin to see the light at the end of the tunnel”: Yankee, March 1979.

  88 “ugly and unpleasant most of the time”: Bare Bones, p. 16.

  88 “That’s the mad-bomber side of my character, I suppose”: Ibid., p. 30.

  88 “as though I’d invented it myself”: Creepshows, p. 89.

  89 “we’ll kill the messenger that brought the bad news”: Bare Bones, p. 129.

  90 “put them in school for a year abroad”: BBC, An Audience with Stephen King, November 12, 2006.

  90 “It was like my umbilical cord had been cut”: Times of London podcast, January 28, 2007.

  90 “I swear to you, they don’t like being warm”: Letter from Susie Straub.

  91 “you feel like a freak”: Castle Rock, March 1987.

 

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