says she ‘read this story and said she liked it. Writers almost always write with some ideal reader in
mind, I think, and my wife is mine. We don’t always see eye to eye when it comes to what we each
write (hell, we rarely see eye to eye when we’re shopping together in the supermarket), but when she
says it’s good, it usually is. Because she’s tough, and if I try to cheat or cut a corner, she always sees
it.’
Among those thanked in this piece is King’s personal assistant, Marsha DeFilippo (who has also
been wonderfully helpful to the authors of this book over a number of years), ‘who transcribed a
whole stenographer’s notebook full of my cramped handwriting and never complained. Well... rarely
complained.’
The Importance of Being Bachman—The Bachman Books (1996)
This piece replaced Why I Was Bachman, which had appeared in all previous editions of The
Bachman Books since its release in 1985. Written at King’s Lovell, Maine lake home on 16 April
1996, it has also been reprinted in the three of the four Bachman novels King has allowed to be
republished as stand-alone titles (due to the blight of school shootings King does not allow the
republication of Rage in the United States)— The Long Walk, Roadwork and The Running Man118.
We stated earlier that the original introduction to this collection was lacking—King effectively
confirms this here: ‘My first introduction wasn’t very good; to me it reads like a textbook case of
author obfuscation.’ He puts this down to ‘Bachman’s alter ego (me, in other words)’ being in rather
a bad mood (‘pissed off’) at the revelation Bachman was King, as he’d intended to use the pseudonym
in the long haul.
‘Probably the most important thing I can say about Richard Bachman is that he became real,’
King continues. ‘Not entirely, of course (he said with a nervous smile): I am not writing this in a
delusive state. Except...well...maybe I am. Delusion is, after all, something writers of fiction try to
encourage in their readers, at least during the time that the book or story is open before them....’ King
explains Bachman’s initial role was to provide ‘a sheltered place’ where he could publish early
work but he quickly grew (‘came alive, as the creatures of a writer’s imagination so frequently do’),
adding a wife and life story; ‘…when his cover was blown, Richard Bachman died. I made light of
this in the few interviews I felt required to give...saying that he’d died of cancer of the pseudonym,
but it was actually shock that killed him; the realization that some people just won’t let you alone.’
King continues, explaining the genesis of The Dark Half (‘a novel my wife has always detested’) in
this King/Bachman dichotomy; the grim nature of Bachman and his works; his return with The
Regulators and King’s own role in developing that twinning tale (‘Desperation is about God; The
Regulators is about TV’).
Readers should seek out this piece for its importance as explanation of why King was
Bachman119: ‘The importance of being Bachman was always the importance of finding a good voice
and a valid point of view that were a little different from my own.’ He closes, ‘I wonder if there are
any other good manuscripts, at or near completion, in that box found by the widowed Mrs. Bachman
in the cellar of their New Hampshire farmhouse. / Sometimes I wonder about that a lot.’
Untitled—The Dark Tower IV: An Excerpt from the Upcoming Wizard and Glass: A Gift
from Stephen King (1996)
A promotional booklet was given away in the United States with some purchases of the
hardcover editions of both Desperation and The Regulators—it was used when supplies of the night-
light that originally came with the purchase of both novels ran out. The booklet carried the first two
chapters of Wizard and Glass — Beneath the Demon Moon and The Falls of the Hounds, but not the
Prologue.
King posted at alt.books.stephen-king, an Internet newsgroup about this free booklet (‘there’s
been a fair degree of pissing and moaning’ about it). This post is covered in the Miscellany chapter.
The piece is only four paragraphs long and appears with a facsimile King signature. Noting he is
writing in October 1996 and that Wizard and Glass ‘is still not done’ King says, ‘What follows isn’t
a tease but a signal of good faith: for those of you who have waited’ and that the wait would be over
the next year (indeed, it was). Explaining why it had already been five years since the cliffhanger
ending of The Waste Lands, King says, ‘it is hard to begin. And sometimes scary, too.’
Untitled—Before the Play (April 26 — May 2, 1997)
Before the Play is King’s Prologue to The Shining, excised from the original novel and first
published in Whispers #17/18 (August, 1982). As part of the promotion for the mini-series version of
The Shining King allowed an abridged version to be published in the April 26 — May 2, 1997
edition of TV Guide to promote the mini-series adaptation shown on the US ABC network. These cuts
were partly a matter of self-censorship to suit the sensibilities of that magazine. In this short untitled
piece, King notes he wrote both a Prologue and an Epilogue (After the Play) after finishing the novel.
The Epilogue was ‘strenuously edited’ and included in the novel, and the Prologue was ‘cut out to
keep the book from growing too long.’ King closes, ‘… there was some pretty spooky stuff behind the
opening curtain, and I’m glad to see the best of it restored to print here.’
Introduction—The Green Mile: The Complete Serial Novel (1997)
When a combined edition of The Green Mile was released in 1997 King left the original
Foreword and Afterword in place and added a new Introduction. He relates that during his cycles of
insomnia he spends time working on a story in his ‘mind just as I would on a typewriter or word
processor.’ One of these stories, in 1992 or 1993, was What Tricks Your Eye, in which ‘a man on
death row—a huge black man’ makes ‘himself disappear’. King was unable to make the story work
although some icons, such as a pet mouse and the inmate’s surname, survived to appear in the later
novel.
He expresses satisfaction at the ‘magical acceptance’ the tale received—‘this time even most of
the critics went along for the ride. I think I owe a lot of the book’s popular acceptance to my wife’s
perceptive suggestions....’; speaks of the experience of working under the artificial pressure of the
installment deadlines; and indicates his surprise that the original parts did not carry more errors and
anachronisms. However, he does say this: ‘I did change the moment where Percy Wetmore, bound in
a straightjacket, raises one hand to wipe the sweat from his face’. The original Book Six actually
reads: ‘I reached up, grabbed the end of the runner he’d worked loose, and gave it a hard yank. It
made a loud peeling sound. Brutal winced. Percy yipped with pain and began rubbing his lips. He
tried to speak, realized he couldn’t do it with a hand over his mouth, and lowered it.’ In the combined
edition it is corrected to: ‘I reached up, grabbed the end of the runner he’d worked loose, and gave it
a hard yank. It made a loud peeling sound. Brutal winced. Percy yipped with pain and his eyes
watered.’ While King closes, ‘At some point I’d like to revise it completely....’ this seems most
unlikely, even from that serial (if you’ll excuse the pun) reviser, Stephen Edwin King.
Argument—The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass (1997)
This is the third of the Arguments King uses to set the scene for readers at the beginning of
volumes two to five of the Dark Tower novels (King had also written a brief note for a free booklet
containing the first two chapters of this novel, see Untitled—The Dark Tower IV: An Excerpt from
the Upcoming Wizard and Glass: A Gift from Stephen King earlier in this chapter).
By this point, with three previous novels and a number of story lines to detail, the piece is four
pages long. A reading of this Argument now, with the Dark Tower Cycle completed, shows how
complex the tale had become, yet how easily King is able to summarize it for new readers (and to
refresh the memories of the regulars, the previous ‘episode’ having been published six years earlier).
Afterword—The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass (1997)
King begins this piece dwelling on the ‘weirdness of the Dark Tower experience for me’, saying
he had written one Dark Tower scene in the spring of 1970, and another in the summer of 1996.
‘Although only sixteen hours pass between the two occurrences in the world of the story, twenty-six
years had passed in the life of the story’s teller...I found myself confronting myself across a whore’s
bed [in the afore-mentioned scene]—the unemployed schoolboy with the long black hair and beard on
one side, the successful popular novelist...on the other.’
Getting fully into the swing of admitting the Dark Tower had become his magnum opus he states:
‘Roland’s story is my Jupiter—a planet that dwarves all the others (at least from my own
perspective), a place of strange atmosphere, crazy landscape, and savage gravitational pull...I am
coming to understand that Roland’s world (or worlds) actually contains all the others of my making’;
and that there are places in Mid-World for Randall Flagg (there certainly would be, and how); Ralph
Roberts; the boys from The Eyes of the Dragon; ‘even Father Callahan, the damned priest from
‘Salem’s Lot...who wound up dwelling on the border of a terrible Mid-World land called
Thunderclap.’ King says Mid-World is where all these characters finish up, ‘why not? Mid-World
was here first, before all of them, dreaming under the blue gaze’ of Roland’s eyes.
He explains the reason it had taken six years between Dark Tower episodes was simply, ‘It is
hard to begin’, knowing he ‘was scared to death’ of the story of Roland’s youth and first love. For
King writing of ‘suspense is relatively easy...love is hard.’ He finally began the tale in motel rooms
driving back to Maine from Colorado after filming the mini-series The Shining. Believing he no
longer knew ‘the truth of romantic love’ a voice responded, ‘I will help you with that part.’ Between
hearing the voice and writing this piece King realized whose it was, ‘because I have looked into his
eyes across a whore’s bed in a land that exists very clearly in my imagination. Roland’s love for
Susan Delgado...is what was told to me by the boy who began this story.’
Curiously, King again intimates his own mortality, ‘And I have started to believe that I might
actually live to complete this cycle of stories. (Knock on wood).’ This Afterword was written on 27
October 1996 at King’s lake house in Lovell, Maine. Less than three years later he would leave that
house for the afternoon walk that would nearly terminate his life and which would itself become a
critically important incident in The Dark Tower.
Untitled—in KING etc. (1998)
KING etc. was a free promotional paperback issued in August 1998 by BOOKS, etc in
association with Hodder & Stoughton as part of their FICTION etc. series. It contains excerpts from
twelve of King’s novels with this short introductory note by the author, over 232 pages. This item is
very rare and the reader’s best chance of accessing one would be via specialist King booksellers.
The untitled introduction also appeared as “Letter from King” on Simon & Schuster’s official
web site; and was sent out as an untitled letter to various booksellers as a promotion, both in the Fall
of 1998.
Finally, it was included in a 1998 Hodder & Stoughton trade paperback Advance Reader’s
Copy of Bag of Bones, of which only 200 copies were printed; and Bag of Bones: A Preview, a
promotional ‘limited edition collector’s magazine’ published by Scribner, which also includes a note
from King and an interview. These editions are even rarer than KING etc.
This entire untitled piece is largely a promotional plug for Bag of Bones, which its author
describes as, ‘a haunted love story’. He says, ‘As I began work on Bag of Bones...I looked a few
sheets down the calendar and saw fifty staring me in the face...fifty is a dangerous age, a time when a
writer might have to find a few new pitches if he’s going to continue to be successful.’ Continuing the
baseball analogy King claims he ‘can still throw a pretty good fastball’ but that with this new novel
he’d ‘mixed in a few sliders, a few change-ups, and maybe a midnight curveball or two.’ He claims
he’d wanted to write ‘at least one more good scary story before hitting the big five-oh’ but had also
wanted to combine ‘the romantic suspense of Rebecca120 and that sense of otherworldly terror that
permeates The Haunting and The Uninvited. I also wanted to write about my Maine again. I found
myself lonely for it after spending time in Nevada (Desperation) and the border south (The Green
Mile).’ He succeeded, on all levels.
Author’s Note—Bag of Bones (1998)
This one page note for one of King’s best novels, an erotic ghost story, is signed ‘S.K.’ and
acknowledges the assistance of a number of people, including his Bangor attorney, Warren Silver (for
legal aspects of child custody law in Maine). In July 2005 Silver had to give up his most famous
client when he accepted an appointment as Justice of Maine’s Supreme Judicial Court. King relates,
‘Warren also asked me—rather plaintively—if I could maybe put a “good” lawyer in my book. All I
can say is that I did my best in that regard.’ King also thanks his son Owen and novelist Ridley
Pearson (both ‘for technical support’). Pearson worked with King on the Rose Red project, writing
the book and screenplay for The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer. A final thanks goes to ‘Tabby, who was
there for me again when things got hard. I love you, hon.’
Author’s Note—The Little Sisters of Eluria (1998)
This piece is but one paragraph appearing before the only Dark Tower novella, The Little
Sisters of Eluria. It was first published in Legends: Short Novels by the Masters of Modern
Fantasy, edited by Robert Silverberg and published in 1998; and was subsequently collected in
Everything’s Eventual. There, all but the last sentence of this Author’s Note is reproduced as an
untitled introduction to The Little Sisters of Eluria before the actual story in Everything’s Eventual.
The Note tells us the events of the novella occur before Roland catches up with the ‘magician in
a black robe’ he’d been chasing at the beginning of the Dark Tower books, ‘A knowledge of the
books is therefore not necessary for you to understand—and hopefully enjoy—the story which
follows.’
Screenwriter’s Note—Storm of the Century (1999)
The complete Note to the only one of King’s screenplays to have been published in a stand-alone
form reads, ‘The “reach” is a coastal New England term that refers to the stretch of open water
between an island and the mainland. A bay is open on one end; a reach is open on two. The reach
between Little Tall Island (fictional) and Machias (real) can be supposed to be about two miles
wide.’
Introduction—Storm of the Century (1999)
King returned to Little Tall Island (‘which I sometimes think of as “Dolores Claiborne’s
island”’) as the setting for Storm of the Century. Dolores is mentioned in this script and her dead
husband Joe referenced. Despite living on the island during the time of the Storm, Dolores was
apparently not at the Town Meeting, so may have been on the mainland. The only other mentions of
Little Tall Island in King’s fiction are in Home Delivery and another screenplay, Kingdom Hospital
(both of those stories are set in different realities from ours/that of Dolores Claiborne and Storm of
the Century).
In the course of explaining the genesis of this moral tale (the ‘jailhouse image of a man...sitting
on the bunk of his cell, heels drawn up, arms resting on knees, eyes unblinking. This was not a gentle
man or a good man...this was an extremely evil man. Maybe not a man at all’), King relates the
inspiration for It (‘crossing a wooden bridge, listening to the hollow thump of my bootheels, and
thinking of “The Three Billy Goats Gruff”’), Cujo (‘an actual encounter with an ill-tempered Saint
Bernard’), and Pet Sematary (‘my daughter’s grief when her beloved cat, Smucky, was run over....’).
At thirteen pages this Introduction, written in Bangor on 18 July 1998, is quite lengthy. Among
points made is that King ‘had a chance to say some interesting and provocative things about the very
nature of comm-unity...because there is no community in America as tightly knit as the island
communities off the coast of Maine’; and ‘I write about small towns because I’m a small-town
boy...and most of my small-town tales...owe a debt to Mark Twain (“The Man That Corrupted
Hadleyburg”) and Nathaniel Hawthorne (“Young Goodman Brown”).’ King also covers the tale’s
desire to take a certain form—the screenplay (‘Every image in the story seemed to be a movie image
rather than a book image...I wrote it as a TV script because that’s how the story wanted to be
written’); and his contention that this form is not lesser than prose (‘I would remind you that the man
most students of literature believe to be the greatest of English writers worked in an oral and visual
medium, and not (at least primarily) in the medium of print. I’m not trying to compare myself to
Shakespeare—that would be bizarre—but I think it entirely possible that he would be writing for the
movies or for television...if he were alive today.’)
As is King’s custom he thanks his wife (among others), ‘I’d also like to thank my wife, Tabby,
who has been so supportive over the years. As a writer herself, she understands my foolishness pretty
well.’
Untitled—The New Lieutenant’s Rap (1999)
The New Lieutenant’s Rap was printed as a chapbook, the entire text in King’s handwriting, and
provided to guests at an April 1999 New York City party to celebrate his 25th anniversary in book
publishing. Marsha DeFilippo, King’s assistant, confirmed that guests who did not realize what the
item was left copies at the party! The story has never been published in the mass market and most
likely will not be. It should be regarded as a version of Why We’re In Vietnam, which appeared in
Hearts in Atlantis later that year, as King’s untitled introduction notes, ‘This version, which differs
considerably from the one that will appear in the book (it’s longer, for one thing) is offered as a little
keepsake....’
Original copies of this chapbook are rarely offered for sale. Photocopies circulate in limited
numbers in the King community. As this material is King’s copyright, readers should not pay for
copies or scans, only originals.
Author’s Postscript—The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon (1999)
The first of these author’s notes to be written from the King’s home in Longboat Key, Florida (on
1 February 1999, the day Storm of the Century was released in book form), mostly relates a few
career notes about the real Tom Gordon, a Boston Red Sox pitcher.
Author’s Note—Hearts in Atlantis (1999)
This short piece (again as ‘S.K.’), dated 22 December 1998 notes the setting for the titular tale
in this collection, the University of Maine at Orono, exists; that King attended that very institution
from 1966 to 1970; and that he had taken deliberate ‘chronological liberties’. Yet again, we read: ‘I
also want to thank my wife. Without her, I would never have gotten over’; and he thanks Nan Graham
‘for helping me find the courage to write this book.’
Introduction—Carrie (1999)
Beginning in 1999 Pocket Books introduced a series of King reprints with new introductions by
the author. The first of these was Carrie, released in October, with ‘Salem’s Lot (November 1999),
Pet Sematary (February 2001) and The Shining (September 2001) the only titles to have so far
followed suit.
In this poignant piece, written on February 23, 1999 in Longboat Key, Florida King writes of his
early career (Garbage Truck, Graveyard Shift, I Am the Doorway); meeting future wife Tabitha at
the University of Maine’s Fogler Library (he ‘really got to know her in a series of poetry seminars’;
when she complimented him on one story he was ‘flattered out of my socks...not to mention the rest of
my apparel’); marriage, the lean times with young kids (‘all that flattering each other out of our socks
had inevitable consequences’); and then moves to the genesis of Carrie and inspirations for its lead
character.
King says he got an idea for a short story about a girl with telekinetic powers in the late fall or
early winter of 1972 (‘the idea had actually been kicking around my head since high school, when I
read a Life magazine article about a case of poltergeist activity in a suburban home’). When King first
attempted the tale he found that ‘ghosts of my own began to intrude; the ghosts of two girls, both dead,
who eventually combined to become Carrie White.’ He relates the unfortunate histories of these two
girls—one a student at Durham Elementary with King (the girl was treated badly by other students
because her family was so poor as to afford her only one outfit for school per year—he repeats this
tale in On Writing); and a girl who lived in Durham with her mother (when King visited the house he
was struck by a huge and ‘grisly’ crucifix in their living room; she was regarded as different not only
for the religious beliefs but a feeling of ‘ STRANGE! NOT LIKE US! KEEP AWAY! ’ she gave off). The
first girl committed suicide and the second died alone, of an epileptic seizure; neither survived high
school, and now these ghosts ‘kept insisting that I combine them’ in this tale.
Though frightened as he was of the world of young girls he ‘would have to inhabit...and the level
of cruelty I would have to describe’, the prosaic intervened—he and Tabby needed quick cash for
living expenses—and King threw the ‘half-completed first pages of the story into the wastebasket.../
Tabby asked me what I had been working on. I told her a short story, but it had gone bust...Perhaps
she saw something in my face...All I know is she went into my little writing room, took the pages out
of the wastebasket...read them, and suggested I go on. I did, mostly to please her.’ He closes by
saying he wished that the two dead girls ‘were alive to read it. / Or their daughters.’
Untitled—The Wedding Gig (1999)
King’s crime caper The Wedding Gig was originally published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery
Magazine for December 1980. It was republished in the same magazine for June 2004, with minor
changes in style. The story was revised for its appearance in Skeleton Crew in 1985. It has also
appeared in three anthologies.
Lawrence Block edited one of these, Master’s Choice: Mystery Stories by Today’s Top
Writers and the Masters that Inspired Them121. In a piece headed ‘Stephen King’ but effectively
untitled, King introduces both his tale and Joyce Carol Oates’ Murder-Two. Of the latter he says, ‘Its
very quietness becomes part of its terrible final effect.’ And of the author: ‘...[she] is a fine literary
writer; she is also capable of writing paralyzing stories of horror and suspense.’
The one paragraph about his own story states it isn’t the ‘sort of tale I ordinarily tell, and maybe
that’s why I like it so much.’ The anthology is out of print. However, there are significant numbers
available via online booksellers.
Introduction—Salem’s Lot (1999)
King wrote this new Introduction at Longboat Key on February 24, 1999, for the Pocket Books
edition of ’Salem’s Lot (November 1999). The piece was reprinted as the Afterword to the Centipede
Press edition (2004) and to ’Salem’s Lot: Illustrated Edition (2005). These latter editions included
forty-nine pages of ‘Deleted Scenes’ from the original manuscript; included in a separate section after
the original version, making the examination of the excised material a simple matter, and providing
such interesting information as the original name of the head vampire (‘Sarlinov’). The Illustrated
Edition carried a further new Introduction (covered later in this chapter).
King relates that his mother brought Dracula home from the Stratford Public Library at his
request in around 1957; it ‘was my first encounter with the epistolary novel as well as one of my
earlier forays into adult fiction...I loved the form.’ What King liked most about the novel was ‘the
intrepid band of adventurers’ chasing down the Count and when he later discovered Tolkien’s Rings
trilogy he thought, ‘this is just a slightly sunnier version of Stoker’s Dracula with Frodo playing
Jonathan Harker, Gandalf playing Abraham Van Helsing, and Sauron playing the Count himself.’
Calling it ‘the first fully satisfying novel I ever read’ King is not surprised it ‘marked me so early and
so indelibly.’
He also tells us that his musing, what if Dracula had come to the America of the 1970s had led to
Tabitha King’s query, ‘What if he came here, to Maine?’ and the sudden inspiration that led to his
classic American vampire novel. In a couple of revelatory lines King says, ‘some of my human
characters turned out to be stronger than I had expected. It took a certain amount of courage to allow
them to grow toward each other as they wanted to do, but I found that courage. If I ever won a single
battle as a novelist, that was probably it’; and, the novel ‘is dated in many ways (I have always been
more a writer of the moment than I wanted it to be)’.
Author’s Note (9 November 2000)
King uses this short piece to announce that ‘ The Plant will be going back into hibernation.’ The
author says he needs to continue work on Black House, Dreamcatcher, another novel (From A Buick
8) and the remaining Dark Tower books: ‘Part 6 is the most logical stopping point. In a traditional
print book, it would be the end of the first long section (which I would have probably called “Zenith
Rising”). You will find a climax of sorts, and while not all of your questions will be answered—not
yet, at least—the fates of several characters will be resolved. Nastily. Permanently.’ He also
announces that as a way of thanking the readers who paid for previous parts of the serialization Part 6
will be free.
King updated the Note later to say that he is stopping The Plant due to other commitments; and
that the percentage of readers paying on the honor system had dropped significantly, possibly due to
the fact that the story was going to stop midway.
This piece was posted on King’s official website on November 9, 2000; and also included in the
fifth installment of The Plant, released that month. Later the same month a slightly longer version was
posted on the website. The posts and.PDF of The Plant are no longer accessible, although complete
sets of the electronic version regularly appear for resale (King’s Philtrum Press had released an
earlier version roughly matching parts one to three of the electronic version, in 1982, 1983 and
1985)122.
Untitled—The Old Dude’s Ticker (2000)
The Old Dude’s Ticker was published in the NECON123 XX Commemorative Volume for 2000,
its only appearance to date. The Volume was limited to 333 copies. However, King actually wrote
the story nearly three decades earlier and he explains its genesis in the Introduction: ‘In the two
years after I was married (1971-1972), I sold nearly two dozen stories to various men’s magazines.
Дата добавления: 2015-11-04; просмотров: 31 | Нарушение авторских прав
| <== предыдущая лекция | | | следующая лекция ==> |