Given his prodigious output, King, who says his ideas come like "phone calls from nowhere," must be very comfortable. Since his first book, Carrie: A Novel of a Girl with a Frightening Power (the title was later shortened to Carrie), hit bookstore shelves in 1974, the former English teacher has written more than 40 novels that have sold 100 million-plus copies in 33 languages. His tales have been turned into seven TV movies and 26 feature films, including Misery, The Shawshank Redemption and Stand By Me. (Misery director Rob Reiner tipped his hat to the author by naming his production company Castle Rock, after the fictional Maine town where many King tales are set.)
Books, films and an early stint as an American Express spokesman ("Do you know me?") have made King frighteningly wealthy. By the late '80s he was taking in some $20 million a year and now cooks along at an estimated $40 million annually. If the likes of Michael Crichton make a few bucks more these days, King remains—critics and competitors be damned—one of the world's bestselling novelists. (Agatha Christie, who died in 1976, holds the all-time record; British romance writer Barbara Cartland is the top living bestseller, according to The Guinness Book of Records.) "Stephen has a deep grasp of how people think," says humor columnist Dave Barry, by way of explaining his friend's success. "You feel like he knows exactly what you are most terrified of happening. He'll think anything, and it's always something we might think but never say aloud. He has no filter on his brain. He's extremely honest."
The Maine-raised King says his mother, Nellie, gave him a love of reading and encouraged him to use his imagination. (His father, a merchant seaman, abandoned the family when King was a child.) He believes that the same peace and prosperity that have made late-20th-century America rich in suburbs and 401 (k)s help give his works a special appeal. "The agents of oblivion are after all of us," he says. "Horror stories are a way of appreciating our health. In our ability to rehearse, we get ready for the times that aren't so good."
The times are mellow in the 25-room Bangor, Maine, Victorian home King shares with Tabitha, his novelist wife of 28 years. Their three children are grown, and obsessed fans—like the one who walked into his kitchen one day—don't show up at the door often anymore. King spends less time at his desk too, hanging out more with his literary rock group, the Rock Bottom Remainders, which includes Barry and novelist Amy Tan. The author is slowing down and feels he's close to the end of his novel writing. "I don't want to be the 'grand ol' man,' " he says. "I don't want to be led up to accept any grand master awards on somebody's arm. I certainly don't want to descend into self-parody." Still, he expects his work to resonate even after he switches off the word processor. "Scary books," he says, "have this long life. They're like vampires themselves. They stick around."
J.D. Reed
Reported by Grace Lim
- Contributors:
- Grace Lim.
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
