Stephen King

Stephen Edwin King (pronounced: /ˈstiːvən ˈɛdwɪn ˈkɪŋ/) (Portland, Maine, September 21, 1947), better known as Stephen King and occasionally by his The pseudonym Richard Bachman is an American writer of horror, supernatural fiction, mystery, science fiction, and fantasy novels. His books have sold more than 500 million copies, and most of them have been adapted for film and television. He has published 64 novels, eleven collections of short stories and novellas, and seven non-fiction books, as well as a film script, among other works.

Scorned by critics and literary scholars as a "commercial" author, his work has garnered increased attention since the 1990s, though some of those circles continue to reject his books. He is regularly criticized for his style, allegedly " non-literary" and for the excessive length of some of his novels. On the contrary, his sense of storytelling, his lively and colorful characters, and his ability to play on readers' fears have been praised. Although in several of his stories he uses the resource of terror, he also regularly addresses themes such as childhood, racism and war, providing a very realistic social portrait of the United States.

Her novella "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption" was the basis for the film The Shawshank Redemption, the highest rated on IMDb and voted Best Ever by Empire Magazine in their survey The 201 Greatest Movies of All Time in March 2006. Other film adaptations of her works that have achieved critical and commercial success include Carrie, directed by Brian De Palma in 1976; The Shining, directed by Stanley Kubrick in 1980; Count On Me and Misery, directed by Rob Reiner in 1986 and 1990, the latter winning an Oscar and a Golden Globe thanks to the performance of Kathy Bates as lead actress; The Green Mile (1999); and The Mist (2007). King himself has occasionally dabbled as a writer, producer and actor in a few TV series and movies, and also directed the feature film Maximum Overdrive.

King has won numerous literary awards, including the Bram Stoker Award thirteen times, the British Fantasy Award seven times, the Locus Awards five times, the World Fantasy Award four times, the Edgar Award twice, and the Hugo and O. Henry at one point. Being a native of Maine, many of his stories take place in that state. His use of fictional cities located in Maine, such as Castle Rock, Jerusalem's Lot, and Derry, is also frequent. He has been the husband of the writer and activist Tabitha King since 1971, with whom he has three children: Naomi Rachel (1970), Joe (1972) and Owen (1977).

Biography

Early Years

Maine General Hospital in Portland, Stephen King's birthplace.

Stephen King was born in Portland, Maine, the second son of Donald King and Nellie Ruth Pillsbury. When King was two years old, his father abandoned the family, his mother raised him with his older brother David at her own expense, sometimes under great financial trouble. After living in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and Stratford, Connecticut, the family moved to Durham, Ruth's hometown. King studied at Durham Elementary School and then at Lisbon Falls High School.

As a child, King witnessed a horrific accident, one of his friends caught on rails and hit by a train. Although this event could have inspired King's dark creations, the writer himself has dismissed the idea.

He began writing at an early age, while drawing from recently seen movies and comics. While in college he began selling his classmates stories, which were copied on the same machine his brother used to publish his newspaper Dave's Rag >. However, the activity was not well received by his teachers, who forced him to return the money earned.

The movie The Pit and the Pendulum 1961 made a big impression on a young Stephen King.

At about thirteen years old, he discovered an old box with his father's books in his aunt's house, mostly horror and science fiction. Among these books was The Lurking Fear by H.P. Lovecraft, who would later become one of his main influences. The 1961 film Pit and the Pendulum, based on Edgar Allan Poe's short story of the same name, made a great impression on the young King. Since then he began to send his work to different magazines, without receiving a positive response. His first published story was included in Mike Garrett's Comics Review in 1965. The original title was I Was a Teenage Grave Robber, but this was changed by the publisher to In a Half-World of Terror.

Between 1966 and 1971, he studied English at the University of Maine in Orono, struggling economically because of his mother's poverty, and wrote a column titled King's Garbage Truck in his magazine. King met his future wife, the writer Tabitha King, in the university library and they were married in 1971. The writer worked part-time jobs to pay for his studies, including working at a laundromat. He used the lived experience to write the stories of La crusador ( The Mangler ) and Carretera maldita ( Roadwork ).

After completing his undergraduate studies with a BA in English and earning a certificate to teach high school, King taught English at Hampden Academy. During this period, he and his family lived in a trailer. He wrote short stories (mostly published in men's magazines) in order to meet the needs of his family. During this period King began to have problems with alcoholism that he maintained for a decade.These problems will be reflected in his third novel, The Shining, in the person of his main character, the writer alcoholic Jack Torrance.

Career as a Writer

1970s: Carrie, The Shining and Consolidation

In the early 1970s, King began writing a large number of novels. One of his first ideas was for a young woman with psychic powers. However, he was discouraged and threw it away. Tabitha rescued the work and encouraged him to finish it.After finishing the novel, he titled it Carrie, he sent it to the Doubleday publishing company and eventually forgot about it. He later received an offer to buy for $2,500 up front (not a huge down payment for a novel, even at that time). Shortly thereafter, the value of Carrie with the rights to the manuscript were sold for $400,000 ($200,000 of which the publisher received). After the release, his mother died of lung cancer, and therefore he would not see the edition of the novel.

King, determined to dedicate himself exclusively to writing, moved to the city of Bangor, Maine with his family. There he began writing the novel The Mystery of Salem's Lot, a vampire story based on the classic Dracula by Bram Stoker and the novel Peyton Place by Grace Metalious. Meanwhile, the novel Carrie was published in paperback, selling over a million copies in less than a year. On October 17, 1975, Doubleday publishing house published The Mystery of Salem's Lot, selling more than two million copies in its paperback edition in less than six months.

The Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado, inspired the novel The glow of 1977.

During a trip through Colorado, the King family visited the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park. Based on his experience at the hotel, King began writing his third novel, The Shining. At the same time, he saw the need to hire a literary agent when he felt dissatisfied with the low percentage received for the copyright of his two works, so he contacted Kirby McCauley, who got him a literary contract with Viking Press for three books. and two and a half million dollars. The Shining was published on January 28, 1977. The novel tells the story of a family that spends the winter isolated in a hotel and is tormented by an evil presence that wants to take over young Danny, gifted of telepathic power. Considered one of King's best works, The Shining delves into the disintegration of the family unit through isolation, insanity and alcoholism, the latter factor unconsciously reflecting King's recent problems with drink.

King created the pseudonym Richard Bachman because publishing standards at the time did not allow an author to publish more than one book a year, and also to relieve himself of the pressure his growing fame was putting on him. A novel published under this pseudonym was Rage, a controversial story in which a student murders some teachers and takes his classmates hostage.

Also in 1977, King moved to England with his family, which now included a third son, Owen, born in February, with the goal of staying for a year and writing a novel there. However, this attempt failed, and the King family decided to return to Maine three months later. During his brief stay in England, King met the writer Peter Straub and entertained the idea of a future collaboration with the American novelist.

In 1978, two new books by King were published by Doubleday. In February, the collection of twenty short stories El umbral de la noche was launched on the market, most of which had already been published in various magazines. In September the novel La Dance of Death, a post-apocalyptic story in which a virus created in an American laboratory accidentally spreads and wipes out almost the entire population of the planet. The few survivors of the pandemic are drawn by two opposing powers to replicate the eternal struggle between good and evil. The Dance of Death is one of King's most ambitious works and is considered one of his best novels. Due to its length, King had to make significant cuts, removing around 250,000 words. Sales of the novel were similar to those obtained with The Shining.

The Long March, King's second novel published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman, was published in paperback in July 1979. This novel, written ten years before its publication, ranks in a dystopian future in which an annual spectacle known as the long march takes place, in which hundreds of young people must walk without stopping at the risk of being killed. Finally, the young man who manages to remain standing will win a fortune, and therefore will become the sole survivor of the contest. The Long March is often considered the best work by the author using the Bachman name. A month later, Stephen King's follow-up novel, The Dead Zone, was published., which became the author's first book published by the Viking publishing house. The novel, far from the supernatural terror present in the author's previous works, tells the story of John Smith, a teacher who wakes up from a long coma with the strange ability to see the past or future of the people he touches. This ability gradually becomes a nightmare for Smith and creates a moral dilemma when he discovers that a politician will be responsible for a global tragedy. The Dead Zone sold nearly 175,000 copies in its first year and became King's first novel to reach the top spot on The Dead Zone's bestseller list. New York Times.

1980s: Beginning of The Dark Tower, It, Misery and worldwide fame

William Arnold's house, owned by Stephen King in 1980.

Stephen King continued to write at a frantic pace, and his next novel, Eyes of Fire, was published in August 1980. In this story, Andrew McGee and his daughter Charlie, endowed with the power of pyrokinesis, are persecuted by a secret government agency that wants to study and take advantage of the girl's magnificent gift. With this novel, King has established himself as one of the most trusted names in the publishing industry, again appearing at the top of the bestseller list of The New York Times. That same year the author bought the house of William Arnold, a Victorian house located in Bangor, Maine, made up of a total of 23 rooms.

The year 1981 saw the publication of three works by the author. Cursed Road , a novel published under the pseudonym Bachman, explores the obsession of a man who refuses to leave his home, which must be demolished to allow the construction of a road. A month later, the essay Danse Macabre was published, in which the author examines the influence of horror fiction in the written and audiovisual media. This essay, written in his usual narrative style, won Hugo and Locus awards. Finally, in the novel Cujo, published in August, the author tells the story of a Saint Bernard dog who contracts the rages and becomes a formidable killing machine. The novel sold nearly 350,000 copies in its first year and won the British Fantasy Award.

The high rate of three annual publications was maintained in 1982. As in 1981, King published a novel under Bachman's pseudonym, The Fugitive, again setting himself in a dystopian future that brings a deadly public spectacle, an idea similar to that used in The Long March of 1979. In June the author published a limited edition of 10,000 copies of the short novel The Gunslinger, which would become the initial volume of the extensive saga of The Dark Tower. The novel tells the epic story of Roland Deschain, a gunslinger who desperately seeks to reach the Dark Tower, a legendary building where all universes converge. For his creation, King was based on two classic works, the poem Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came by Robert Browning and The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien., The Four Seasons, published in August, is a collection of four stories that eschews almost entirely the supernatural elements. Despite its unusual format, the book was a commercial success, again reaching the top spot on the New York newspaper's bestseller list.

A 1958 Plymouth Fury is the main antagonist in the novel Christine 1983.

In 1983, three works by the Maine author were published again. Christine, released in April, tells the story of a failed teenager who becomes deathly obsessed with an old 1958 Plymouth Fury car inhabited by an evil spirit. At the end of the year, The Wolf Man Cycle, a story about lycanthropy released in a limited edition with illustrations by Bernie Wrightson, and Animal Cemetery, a horror novel in the which recounts the life of a family that lives in the vicinity of an old Micmac cemetery that has the ability to restore life to any living thing that is placed there. Pet Graveyard became King's biggest commercial success at the time, selling 657,000 copies in its first year of publication.

In 1984, the author tackled the fantasy genre with the release of two novels, The Eyes of the Dragon and The Talisman. Eyes of the Dragon was written as a special dedication to his daughter Naomi Rachel, after realizing that she had never read any of his books because she was not a fan of horror stories. The Talisman, King's first collaboration with his friend Peter Straub, is the realization of a project that both had been discussing for several years. Mixing fantasy and horror, the novel chronicles the search for young Jack Sawyer, who travels across the United States and into a parallel universe where magic has replaced science to find the only talisman that can save his mother's life. Promoted heavily by Viking Press, the novel, published on November 8, sold 880,000 copies in less than two months and was among the best-selling science fiction books in the United States in 1984.

The Curse, the fifth novel published by Richard Bachman, was released a few days after The Talisman. This novella, in which a man is cursed by a gypsy and begins to lose weight resoundingly, was Bachman's first hardcover book with any supernatural element to his story. The similarities between The Curse and King's work attracted the attention of some specialists. Steve Brown, a library clerk in Washington, discovered the hoax while examining a document in the Library of Congress listing King as the author of one of Bachman's novels. Brown contacted King, who advised him to write an article telling the whole truth. When Bachman's true identity was revealed, sales of the novel The Haunting skyrocketed, going from 28,000 copies sold to 280,000 in a few weeks.

Skeleton Crew, a new collection of short stories by Stephen King, was published on June 21, 1985. The collection won the World Fantasy Award and held the No. 1 list for nine weeks. New York Times bestsellers, unprecedented for a collection of short stories. Due to enormous public demand, the first four Richard Bachman novels were published in October in a volume entitled The Bachman Books. At that time King's popularity was at its highest peak, making him a media phenomenon. Between November 17 and 24, 1985, the author set a new record by placing five of his books on the list of bestseller.

Cosplay Pennywise, an evil creature that becomes the deepest fears of its victims and the main antagonist in the novel It 1986.

It, King's next novel, was published on September 15, 1986, confirming the writer's good form. The novel, a massive bestseller, once again mixes the misadventures of childhood with the presence of a supernatural entity, in this case turned into an evil entity that takes the form of its victims' deepest fears. King's largest work to date, It follows a non-linear narrative structure that alternates between two main time periods and between the different perspectives of the characters. Considered one of the Maine author's masterpieces, It was the number one best-seller for fiction in the United States in 1986 and won the British Fantasy Award. Slightly modified version of Dragon's Eyes by Viking publishing house. This novel, far from the author's usual style, managed to sell more than 500,000 copies in the first year.

Three new King novels were published in 1987. In The Dark Tower II: The Coming of the Three, the second volume of The Dark Tower, Roland Deschain moves to New York City on three different occasions to bring back his mission partner. Misery, a novel published in June, tells the story of a writer who is rescued from a terrible car accident by a fan of her work, who ends up kidnapping him and forcing him to write a novel for her. King began writing the story for this novel in 1984 and had in mind to publish it as a Richard Bachman novel, but after the discovery of his identity he had to rule out this possibility. Misery won the first edition of the Bram Stoker Award in the category of best novel. Finally, the novel The Tommyknockers was published in November. In it, the author mixes horror and science fiction, telling the story of a small town and the effect of an alien ship on its inhabitants. King attributed some influence to H. P. Lovecraft's short story The Color of Outer Space at the time of the novel's creation.

Written between 1984 and 1986, Misery and The Tommyknockers are a metaphor for the writer's addictions at the time. In addition to his usual addiction to alcohol, King included a strong addiction to cocaine and other types of drugs. After the publication of Los Tommyknockers, his family and friends decided to make an intervention, in which they showed him the residues of his study so that he would realize the degree of addiction reached: beer cans, cigarettes, bags of cocaine and containers of xanax and valium were some of the substances found. The writer sought help and gave up all forms of alcohol and drugs towards the end of that decade. As a result of this detoxification process, his creative activity was interrupted and it was difficult for him to recover his rhythm, since he suffered writer's block for almost a year before publishing the story The Rainy Season in 1989.

As a direct consequence of this creative block, no work by the author was published in 1988, with the exception of Nightmares in the Sky, a book of gargoyle photographs with a lengthy introduction by King. His first published novel after The Tommyknockers was The Dark Half, released October 20, 1989. Inspired by King's experience with his literary double, Richard Bachman, the novel tells the story of a writer who is harassed for his pseudonym.

1990s: Apocalypse, The Green Mile, Car Accident, and a New Recovery

In the novel The Dance of Death and in its extended version RevelationThere's a nuclear explosion.

After lengthy negotiations with Doubleday, King is finally free to publish an extended version of the novel The Dance of Death, titled Apocalypse. At approximately 150,000 additional words, making it King's longest novel to date, Apocalypse is a political and cultural update of The Dance of Death. . These additions introduce more variations of rhythm, enrich the psychology of the characters, integrate two long passages deleted in 1978 due to censorship, and solidify the novel's conclusion. Apocalypse was published on April 23, 1990. A new collection of stories, titled Four After Midnight, was released in September. The collection, made up of four stories, differs from The Four Seasons because on this occasion the theme is related to terror. The book won the Bram Stoker Award in the category of best collection.

Having regained his writing rhythm, King published two new novels in 1991, the third volume of The Dark Tower, titled The Wastes, and The store, in which the author tells the story of Leland Gaunt, the owner of a strange variety store in the fictional town of Castle Rock. In 1992 the author published two feminist novels, Gerald's Game, which recounts the terrible experience of a woman who is accidentally handcuffed on a bed in a country house, and Dolores Claiborne< /i>, the story of a woman who is the prime suspect in the death of her employer. Despite lacking any supernatural elements, both novels topped the New York Bestseller list. Times that same year, proving that King's fans still remained true to his style.

After the publication of Nightmares and Hallucinations, a collection of stories that came to light on September 29, 1993, King once again surprised his readers with the publication of his novel Insomnia< /i>, a slow-paced play whose main character is an old man who suffers from insomnia and begins to experience what he initially assumes to be hallucinations. In June 1995, she completed her so-called "feminist trilogy" with the release of the novel The Portrait of Rose Madder , the story of a woman who suffers constant physical and psychological aggression from her husband. The fantastic element is introduced in the middle of the story through a painting that becomes a kind of portal to a parallel universe. Although these latest novels continue to enjoy good numbers, they do not experience the commercial success achieved by King's earlier works, with some outlets pointing out that the writer's popularity was on the wane.

The electric chair is an important element in the history of The green mile, novel published by KIng in 1996.

However, the author demonstrated his potential in 1996 with the publication of two works, the story The Man in the Black Suit, winner of the World Fantasy Award in the category of best short fiction story, and the novel The Green Mile, published in six volumes between March and August. The story, which takes place in 1932, tells the story of Paul Edgecomb, a prison official who meets John Coffey, a death row inmate who possesses supernatural powers. The Green Mile won the Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel that same year. In 1997 it was nominated in the same category for the British Fantasy and Locus Awards.

His next two novels, Despair and Possession, the latter published under the name Richard Bachman, were released simultaneously on September 24, 1996. The two works present characters with the same names and facing the same adversary, an evil entity called Tak, but in completely different situations. Desperation received better reviews and ranked third on the bestseller list, compared to Possession fifth on the same list.

Wizard and Crystal, the fourth installment of The Dark Tower, was released on November 24, 1997. At the same time, King changed publishers for the second time in his career and signed a contract with Charles Scribner's Sons after twenty years of collaboration with Viking. The Maine author's first novel published by Scribner on September 22, 1998 was A Bag of Bones. The novel, which tells the story of a widowed writer who must confront supernatural forces plaguing his home, became King's first work to win three major awards, the Bram Stoker, the British Fantasy and the Locus Award, ranking third place on the list of best-selling fiction books in the United States in 1998.

In Hearts in Atlantis (1999), King analyzes the peaceful opposition of some students from the University of Maine to the Vietnam War.

A year later King published two new books, the novel The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon and the collection Hearts in Atlantis. The novel tells the story of a girl who gets lost in the Maine woods and finds solace by remembering the image of Tom Gordon, a player for the Boston Red Sox. The collection is quite peculiar, with five narratives linked by the character of Carol Gerber, which serves as a common thread. With this collection, King returns to the 1960s and the Vietnam War, a theme that the author wanted to evoke for a long time. time, and integrates the only fantastic element through the psychic power of Ted Brautigan's character, who will reappear in the last volume of The Dark Tower. Hearts in Atlantis and The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, two books with little horror content, respectively ranked sixth and eighth best-selling fiction books in the United States in 1999.

In the summer of 1999, King was working on an essay titled As I Write. He had finished the memoir section and abandoned the book for eighteen months, unsure how to proceed or whether it would upset others. The author later acknowledged that it was the first book he had to abandon since he wrote The Dance of Death decades ago. Once he had made the decision to continue with the book, on June 17 he wrote a list of questions he had been asked frequently about his writing, along with others he wished he had been asked.. On June 18 he wrote four pages of this section.

At about 4:30 p.m. on June 19, King was walking on the right shoulder of Route 5 in Lovell. A driver named Bryan Smith, distracted by an uncontrolled Rottweiler moving in the back of his 1985 Dodge Caravan, struck King, who landed in a ditch about twelve feet deep from the pavement of the highway of the route 5.

Oxford County Deputy Sheriff Matt Baker recorded witnesses saying the driver was not speeding or reckless. Baker also reported that King was struck from behind. The author was conscious enough to give his family's phone numbers to the deputy sheriff so they could be contacted, even though he was in considerable pain. The writer was first taken to Northern Cumberland Hospital before being airlifted from there by helicopter to Maine Central Hospital. His injuries — a collapsed right lung, multiple fractures in his right leg, laceration of the scalp, and a fractured hip — kept him in the medical center until July 9, almost three weeks in hospital.

After five operations in ten days and physical therapy, he resumed work in July where he had left off in the essay While I write, although his hip still hurt and he could only sit for about forty minutes. before the pain became intolerable. As a result of this accident, the author bought a house in Sarasota, Florida, in order to spend the winter in a climate more favorable to his health and recovery.

2000s: The Story of Lisey, The Dome, and Completion of The Dark Tower

Stephen King began the 2000s as one of the first writers to explore the digital book market. In March 2000 he published in this format the short novel Riding the bullet , written during his convalescence. With close to 400,000 downloads on its first day of release, the novel became the first digital best seller. Encouraged by this success, the writer provided the opportunity to download the first chapter of the novel < i>The Plant from their website for one dollar. The first three chapters of The Plant were written between 1982 and 1985 and distributed by King to those close to him, before the author gave up on continuing the story after realizing it had too many similarities to the story. 1986 film Little Shop of Horrors. Between July and December 2000 he wrote another six chapters of the story, but the number of readers gradually dwindled and the writer eventually left the project.

In 2001, King collaborated again with author Peter Straub (in the image) to publish the novel Black House.

As I Write, the autobiography King was working on before his accident, was finally published on October 3, 2000, winning the Bram Stoker Award and the Locus Award in its respective category. In 2001 the author published two novels. The Dreamcatcher, launched in March, takes up the alien theme, addressed by the author in the novel Los Tommyknockers from 1987. Black House, Published in September, it is King's second collaboration with Peter Straub and recounts the adventures of the main character of the novel The Talisman, twenty years after the events of the latter work. Both novels ranked fourth and sixth respectively on the list of best-selling fiction books in the United States in 2001.

In 2002 the author announced that he would retire from writing after completing the Dark Tower cycle due to the aftermath of his accident. He eventually decided to continue writing, but slowed down. Two of King's books were published that year. Everything Is Eventual, published in March, is a collection of fourteen short stories, the vast majority written in the second half of the 1990s. Buick 8: A Wicked Car, Published in September, it is the story of a strange vehicle stored in a hangar by police officers from a small town. The seemingly harmless car is a kind of portal from which all kinds of strange beings emerge. This novel, whose first draft was written by King before his accident, did not have the same reception as his previous publications. Despite occupying first place on the New York Times best seller list for a week, it did not achieve the expected sales in the medium term and was not well received by the specialized critic.

Starting in July 2003, the author began sharing his views on popular culture in an Entertainment Weekly column called The Pop of King (reference a The King of Pop, a nickname given to singer Michael Jackson), which was published until January 2011. In November he received the National Book Award, a prestigious award from the National Book Foundation, for his outstanding contribution to American literature, causing quite a stir in academic circles. Critic and literary theorist Harold Bloom was a staunch critic of King's award. Around the same time, the author suffered from pneumonia, a disease caused indirectly by the accident that weakened his lungs and from which he took several months to recover.

King, committed to completing The Dark Tower, began this work by rewriting the first volume, The Gunslinger, to make it more consistent with later works. Wolves of the Calla, published November 2003, was accompanied by the final two volumes, Song of Susannah, published June 8, 2004, and The Tower Dark, published in September. The latter work won the British Fantasy Award.

The American writer changed genre completely with the publication of Colorado Kid, a crime novel in which two old journalists tell two young apprentices the most mysterious case of their long career. This short novel was directly published in a pocket edition on October 4, 2005. The following year the writer returned to the horror genre with Cell, published in January 2006, and in which a signal transmitted through cell phones it contaminates people and turns them into a kind of zombie. This novel is both a tribute to zombie movies and a direct attack against the excessive use of mobile phones. Lisey's Story, a novel published in October 2006, presents a more dramatic and thoughtful Inspired by the author's pneumonia in 2003, this novel tells the story of a writer's widow who follows a postmortem trail established by her late husband, who suffered from a strange family curse. Lisey's Story and Cell ranked sixth and eighth respectively on the 2006 US fiction best-seller list. Lisey's Story received a World Fantasy Award nomination in 2007 and won the Bram Stoker Award the year it was published.

The story of Duma Key (2008) develops on a fictitious island on the coast of Florida.

On April 26, 2007, the author received the Grand Prize awarded by the Mystery Writers Association of the United States. In June he published the novel Blaze , again using the pseudonym Richard Bachman. Written in the early 1970s, the novel is a clear homage to John Steinbeck's novel Of Mice and Men. King reviewed the story and made changes before publishing it in 2007. His next novel, Duma Key, set in Florida, was released on January 22, 2008. It tells the story of a man who He buys a house in a Florida Key after a serious accident that leaves him with only one arm and he devotes himself to painting paintings that end up becoming real events. A few months later, in November, the author published After Dark, a new collection of stories. Both Duma Key and the aforementioned collection won the Bram Stoker Award in their respective categories.

In February 2009, the author returns to the digital format with Ur, a short novel available with the purchase of an Amazon Kindle. On November 10 of the same year, The Dome was published, King's third largest work after Apocalypse and It. In this fictional novel, a fictional small town in Maine is abruptly cut off from the rest of the world by a transparent, impassable dome, unleashing all sorts of problems and misunderstandings within it and forcing the townspeople to try to live in the midst of it. of such misfortune, without the possibility of receiving help from abroad.

2010s: 11/22/63, Bill Hodges trilogy and present day

The novel 22/11/63 owes his name to the date of the murder of John Fitzgerald Kennedy in Dallas, on November 22, 1963.

In November 2010, the collection All Dark, No Stars was published, winner of the Bram Stoker Award in the category of best collection. Composed of four short novels, the collection presents a variety of genres, being 1922 the only supernatural horror work included. 11/22/63, the author's next novel, appeared on November 8, 2011. In this suspenseful work, a teacher travels back in time through a portal that leads to the year 1958. to try to prevent the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy. The novel, a bestseller and critical success, spent four weeks at the top of the New York Times bestseller list and was ranked second on the fiction rankings in the United States. United States in 2011, with more than 900,000 copies sold.

In February 2012, the novel The wind through the lock was published, part of the saga of The Dark Tower, whose story is located between volumes four and five. Between June and August, a new work by the author was published in the magazine Esquire , In the tall grass , this time co-authored by his son Joe. the author published two new novels. He returned to the whodunit and mystery with Joyland, published straight-to-paperback June 4. The novel features a young amusement park employee who sets out on the trail of a serial killer. In September he published Doctor Sueño, the sequel to The Shining of 1977, in which he recounts the adult life of Danny Torrance and his fight against a group of immortals who feed on the energy of children endowed with the gift of radiance. To promote this work, the American writer traveled to France and Germany, where he gave several interviews and conferences, as well as a signing session in Paris. Doctor Sleep won the Bram Stoker Award and ranked second on the list of best-selling fiction books in the United States in 2013 with more than 900,000 copies sold.

His next book, released June 3, 2014, is another whodunit, titled Mr. Mercedes , in which a criminal who killed several people with his car outsmarts the retired police officer in charge of the case and prepares a new, even deadlier attack. This Edgar Award-winning novel became the first in a trilogy centered on the character of Bill Hodges, a retired police officer. The second volume, titled Whoever Loses Pays, was released on June 2, 2015. Between these two works, King published Revival, a novel in which a man Ordinary meets a former pastor fascinated by electricity who has denied the existence of God as a result of a terrible family drama, and becomes his assistant for a supreme experience. In this novel, King addresses the theme of religious fanaticism, a recurring theme in other novels by the author such as The Fog and Carrie.

King reading a fragment of his novel Doctor Dream at Ramstein Air Base, 2013.

On September 10, 2015, King was received at the White House, where he was awarded the National Medal of Arts, the highest honor awarded by the United States government to exponents of the arts. His new A collection of short stories, entitled The Bazaar of Bad Dreams and made up of twenty stories, was released on November 3, 2015. Later on, the writer finished his trilogy on Bill Hodges by again confronting the ex-policeman with the murderer of Mr. Mercedes in End of guard duty, published on June 7, 2016.

2017 was a year marked by collaborations. King co-wrote the novel Gwendy's Button Box with Richard Chizmar, published in May. With his son, Owen wrote the novel Sleeping Beauties , released in September. In this novel, a strange epidemic plunges all the women of the world into a deep sleep. On May 22, 2018, the author published The Visitor, a detective novel with a supernatural antagonist featuring Holly Gibney, one of the main characters in the Bill Hodges trilogy. The novella < i>Elevation, published at the end of October 2018, takes place in the city of Castle Rock and is considered by the author as a kind of sequel to Gwendy's Button Box.

On January 31, 2019, the author's official website announced the launch of a new novel, entitled The Institute, scheduled to be released on September 10 of the same year. On the page this new novel is described as follows: «as psychically terrifying as Fire Eyes and with the spectacular childlike power of It, The Institute< /i> is a harrowing Stephen King story of good and evil, in a world where the good guys don't always win."

Adaptations of his work and appearances in other media

Her novels and short stories have been adapted into various media, including movies, TV series, and comics. According to the writer himself, his favorite adaptations are Count on Me , The Shawshank Redemption and The Mist .

His first film appearance occurred in his friend George Romero's film Knightriders as an audience member. His first prominent role occurred in the film Creepshow , particularly in the segment & # 34; The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill & # 34;, where he plays the main character. Since then he has made a few cameos in productions based on his works. He appeared in Pet Sematary as a priest at Gage's funeral, in Thinner as a pharmacist, in Rose Red as a pizza delivery man, in The Storm of the Century as a reporter, in the miniseries Apocalypse as Teddy Wieszack, in The Shining as a musician, in The Langoliers as Tom Holby; in Sleepwalkers as the graveyard guardian, in Golden Years as a bus driver and in It Chapter Two as a vendor. He could also be seen on the comedy series Chappelle's Show and, alongside writer Amy Tan, in the episode "Insane Clown Poppy"; from The Simpsons. In addition to acting, King made his directorial debut in the film Maximum Overdrive , in which he also made a cameo appearance as a guy having trouble with an ATM teller.

The author produced and starred in the television series Kingdom Hospital, based on the miniseries Riget by Lars von Trier. He was also one of the episode writers for the fifth season of The X-Files "Chinga" along with series creator Chris Carter. In 2010 he made a cameo playing a murderer named Bachman (in reference to his pseudonym Richard Bachman ) in the series Sons of Anarchy .

Personal shot

King in 2011.

The author lives in Bangor, Maine with his wife Tabitha Spruce, who is also a novelist. They have another home in the Western Lakes District of Maine. King spends the winter at his oceanfront mansion in Sarasota, Florida. He recently built another house in Connecticut. His three children, Naomi Rachel, Joe Hill, and Owen Phillip, have all come of age and live on their own. In 2005, Owen published his first collection of stories entitled We're All in This Together: A Novella and Stories, and Joe Hill is the author of 20th Century Ghosts, a series of short stories, and several novels, including The Dead Man's Suit and Horns.

King enjoys baseball and is a fan of the professional Boston Red Sox team, a fact that can be seen in much of his work, especially in the novel The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, in the who makes constant references to pitcher Tom Gordon. The writer is also passionate about Harley Davidson motorcycles. In the fall of 1994 he went on a promotional tour for the novel Insomnia aboard his Harley, stopping in various US cities for bookstore promotion.

A fan of rock, the author was part of the Rock Bottom Remainders group, made up of other writers and editors such as Dave Barry, Ridley Pearson, Matt Groening and Amy Tan, among others. expressed on more than one occasion that his favorite rock bands are The Ramones and AC/DC. The Ramones contributed the song "Pet Sematary" for the soundtrack of the film Pet Sematary Animals from 1989, based on King's novel of the same name. Australian band AC/DC provided the entire soundtrack for the 1986 film Maximum Overdrive, directed by King himself and based on his short story Trucks.

Style

Stephen King in 2007.

In his book As I Write, King describes his writing style at great length and depth. He believes that for good stories it's best to create a small "seed" and let the story grow and unfold from there. He usually starts his stories without knowing how they will end.

He is known for his quality of detail, continuity, and internal referencing; many of his stories are tied together by minor characters, fictional towns, or events from past books, much in the H.P. Lovecraft.

Her books contain references to the history and culture of the United States, particularly the darker and more chilling parts of the culture. The references are embodied in stories of the characters in which his fears are explained. Some references include crime, wars (especially the Vietnam War), and racism.

King uses a rather informal storytelling style while referring to his fans as "consistent readers" or "friends and neighbors." This style contrasts with the dark themes of his stories.

Stephen King has a simple formula for writing well: “Read and write four to six hours a day. If you don't find the time to do it, you won't be able to become a good writer."

The characters in his books have evolved over the years:

• His first works (Carrie., The glow, The Dance of Death), showed working-class families who had to fight financial problems.
• At the end of the 1980s, their work presented middle-class people as teachers or authors.
• In the late 1990s, the characters were pilots of airplanes, writers or other similar work.
• In the early 2000s, his writings presented images very related to the car accident he suffered in 1999.

Worldview

King's horror and suspense novels are built on a consistent world view, most clearly described in Insomnia, Hearts in Atlantis and The Dark Tower. In this vision he describes existence metaphorically as a dark tower located in a landscape of red roses in the End World. In this tower there are several levels with entities on each one (and it is humans who inhabit the lowest level). Some are hostile (King Crimson, Randall Flagg, John Farson or Pennywise), others benevolent (Roland Deschain or Clotho and Lachesis, also known as "the short bald doctors"). Many of his novels take place in this fictional multiverse, and some characters relate to events in other stories.

After the existence of the world in which said tower presides, a vital and elemental force called Ka coexists. Its most common manifestation is present in the destiny that each being in the multiverse meets (it can also refer to a particular place to which one is forced to go).

On politics, he has repeatedly spoken out against Donald Trump.

Reliable sources reveal that Donald Trump is actually Cthulhu. The absurd hairstyle is not absurd at all. Hide the tentacles.

Stephen King, September 2016.

Influence and collaborations

Howard Phillips Lovecraft, American writer of terror and science fiction, is one of Stephen King's greatest influences.

King is a great admirer of the writer H. P. Lovecraft and has incorporated several of his techniques (such as connecting stories in his books, using newspaper clippings, test transcripts, other documentation materials, and using fictional towns such as Castle Rock and Derry) in his novels, but differs from him in extensive characterization, effective dialogue, and stories with positive endings, all of which are absent from Lovecraft's stories.

He has also declared himself an admirer of the Harry Potter book series by author J.K. Rowling, whom, as he has mentioned on several occasions, he considers a great writer.

Edgar Allan Poe, one of the fathers of the contemporary horror genre, has been a major influence on King's stories. A good example is the novel The Shining. The text extracted from it, «...and the red death dominated over all the others...» (in English «...and the red death held sway over all...») is reminiscent of the original, «...and darkness and decay and the Red Death held unlimited dominion over all..." contained in the work The Masque of the Red Death by Poe. King's novel is analogous to Poe's little story in a fairly precise way. The two writers share the use of the Doppelgänger, although the theme is present in most horror works and no single author can be specified. In addition, the plot of the short story Dolan's Cadillac is in comparison almost identical to Poe's short story The Cadillac. barrel of Amontillado (in English The Cask of Amontillado), even paraphrasing Fortunato's famous plea, "For the love of God, Montresor!"

King declared his admiration for another less prolific author, Shirley Jackson. The novel The Mystery of Salem's Lot begins with a quote from the book The Haunting of Hill House by Jackson. Tony, an imaginary friend who appears in the novel The Shining has a certain relationship with another imaginary friend, also named Tony, from Jackson's book Hangsaman. There are some other similarities between the characters Carrie from Carrie and Eleanor from The Haunting of Hill House. King stated that Carrie is based on two victims of school bullying that she knew. A pivotal scene in The Storm of the Century is based on Jackson's book The Lottery.

Another of his influences is John D. MacDonald. King has been a huge MacDonald fan throughout his life and the debt he owes the old writer seems clear. Just as King is a master of the horror genre, MacDonald is quite popular in the crime genre. King learned a lot from the art of penetrating the minds of characters, used by MacDonald. The way both writers describe the characters, although in different styles, are quite similar. King and MacDonald show great dedication to their work and practice many hours each day. King dedicated the novel Sun Dog to MacDonald, writing the line "Miss you, old friend".

Due to his widespread popularity, King is often compared to Dean Koontz, and some fans want to read a book written between the two. Both writers declared the project impossible, the main reason being King's habit of having characters lead miserable lives, and Koontz having a habit of writing happy endings to most of his books.

He wrote two novels in collaboration with Peter Straub, The Talisman and Black House. King commented that they had plans to write the third and final in the series but no date has been proposed. He also wrote the essay World Champions at Last! with novelist Stewart O'Nan.

Works

Novels

• 1974 - Carrie.
• 1975 - The mystery of Salem's Lot (Salem's Lot)
• 1977 - The glow (The Shining)
• 1977 - Rabia (Rage) like Richard Bachman
• 1978 - The Dance of Death (The Stand). In 1990, a version without cuts and modifications appeared: Revelation (The Stand: The Complete & Uncut Edition).
• 1979 - The long march (The Long Walk) like Richard Bachman
• 1979 - The dead area (The Dead Zone)
• 1980 - Eyes of fire (Firestarter)
• 1981 - Fucking road (Roadwork) like Richard Bachman
• 1981 - Cube
• 1982 - The fugitive (The Running Man) like Richard Bachman
• 1982 - The Dark Tower I: The grass of the devil (The Gunslinger(Reissued in 2003 as The gunman)
• 1983 - Christine
• 1983 - Animal cemetery (Pet Sematary)
• 1983 - The cycle of the werewolf (Cycle of the Werewolf)
• 1984 - The talisman (The Talisman)with Peter Straub
• 1984 - The eyes of the dragon (The Eyes of the Dragon)
• 1984 - Suitcase (Thinner) like Richard Bachman
• 1986 - That's it. (It)
• 1987 - The Dark Tower II: The Invocation (The Drawing of the Three(Reissued in 2003 as The arrival of the three)
• 1987 - Misery
• 1987 - The Tommyknockers (The Tommyknockers)
• 1989 - Dark half (The Dark Half)
• 1991 - The Dark Tower III: The Baldlands (The Wastelands)
• 1991 - The store (Needful Things)
• 1992 - The game of Gerald (Gerald's Game)
• 1993 - Dolores Claiborne
• 1994 - Insomnia
• 1995 - The portrait of Rose Madder (Rose Madder)
• 1996 - The green mile (The Green Mile(Originally published in six periodic deliveries; in Spain, with the title of The Aisle of Death)
• 1996 - Desperation (Desperation)
• 1996 - Position (The Regulators) like Richard Bachman
• 1997 - The Dark Tower IV: The Crystal Ball (Wizard and Glass(Reedited as Magic and Crystal)
• 1998 - A sack of bones (Bag of bones)
• 1999 - The girl that loved Tom Gordon (The girl who loved Tom Gordon)
• 2001 - The Dream Hunter (Dreamcatcher)
• 2001 - Black House (Black Housewith Peter Straub
• 2002 - Buick 8: a perverse car (From a Buick 8)
• 2003 - The Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla (Wolves of the Calla)
• 2004 - The Dark Tower VI: Song of SusannahSong of Susannah)
• 2004 - The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower (The Dark Tower)
• 2005 - Colorado Kid
• 2006 - Cell
• 2006 - The story of Lisey (Lisey Story)
• 2007 - Blazelike Richard Bachman
• 2008 - Duma Key
• 2009 - The Dome (Under The Dome)
• 2011 - 22/11/63
• 2012 - The Dark Tower: The wind through the lock (The Wind Through the Keyhole; as part of the Dark Tower series, it is the eighth book, but chronologically it is located between volumes four and five)
• 2013 - Joyland
• 2013 - Doctor sleep (Doctor Sleep)
• 2014 - Mr. Mercedes (First book of Bill Hodges trilogy)
• 2014 - Revival
• 2015 - Who loses pay (Finders Keepers(second book of trilogy Bill Hodges)
• 2016 - End of guard (End of Watch(third book of Bill Hodges trilogy)
• 2017 - The Gwendy button box (Gwendy's Button Box, with Richard Chizmar)
• 2017 - Sleeping beauty (Sleeping Beautieswith Owen King
• 2018 - The visitor (The Outsider)
• 2018 - Elevation (Elevation)
• 2019 - The high school (The Institute)
• 2021 - Later. (Later)
• 2021 - Billy Summers
• 2022 - The last mission of Gwendy (Gwendy’s Final Task, with Richard Chizmar)
• 2022 - Fairytale (Fairy Tale)
• 2023 Holly.
• TBA - Rattlesnakes

Collections of short stories and novels

• 1978 - The threshold of the night (Night Shift)
• 1982 - The four stations (Different Seasons(published in Spanish in two volumes: The four I stations and The four stations II)
• 1985 - Skeleton Crew (published in Spanish in four tomos: The fog, The expedition, Fantastic stories and Two stories not to sleep. In recent editions, the stories Two stories to not sleep integration The expedition).
• 1990 - Four after midnight (Four Past Midnight(published in Spanish in two volumes: Two after midnight and Four after midnight)
• 1993 - Nightmares and hallucinations (Nightmares & Dreamscapes(published in Spanish in two volumes: Pesadillas and hallucinations I and Nightmares and hallucinations II)
• 1999 - Hearts in Atlantis (Hearts in Atlantis)
• 2003 - Everything is eventual. 14 dark stories (Everything's eventual: 14 Dark Tales)
• 2008 - After dark (Just After Sunset)
• 2010 - All dark, no stars (Full Dark, No Stars)
• 2015 - The bazaar of bad dreams (The Bazaar of Bad Dreams)
• 2020 - Blood sends (If It Bleeds)

Nonfiction

• 1981 - Macabra dance (Danse Macabre)
• 1988 - Nightmares in the Sky: Gargoyles and Grotesques (not edited in Spanish)
• 2000 - While I write (On Writing)
• 2000 - Secret Windows: Essays and Fiction on the Craft of Writing (not edited in Spanish)
• 2005 - World Champions at last!: How the Red Media managed to win the 2004 series (Faithful: Two Diehard Boston Red Sox Fans Chronicle the Historic 2004 Season) with Stewart O'Nan
• 2013 - Guns (assay, not edited in Spanish)
• 2016 - Hearts in Suspension (collection of trials with other authors, not edited in Spanish)

Scripts

• 1982 - Creepshow
• 1985 - Cat's Eye
• 1985 - Silver Bullet
• 1986 - Maximum Overdrive
• 1987 - Tales from the Darkside (Episode: "Sorry, Right Number")
• 1989 - Pet Sematary
• 1991 - Golden Years
• 1992 - Sleepwalkers
• 1994 - The Stand
• 1996 - Ghosts (Co-written with Michael Jackson)
• 1997 - The glow
• 1998 - The X Files (Episode: "Chinga")
• 1999 - The storm of the century (Storm of the century)
• 2002 - Rose Red
• 2004 - Kingdom Hospital
• 2006 - Desperation
• 2014 - Under the Dome (Episode: "Heads Will Roll")
• 2014 - A Good Marriage
• 2016 - Cell (Co-written with Adam Alleca)
• 2021 - The Stand (Episode: "The Circle Closes")
• 2021 - Lisey's Story

Others

• 1982 - Creepshow (picture novel, illustrated by Bernie Wrightson)
• 2000 - The plant (unfinished novel, published only in electronic format)
• 2000 - Mounting the bullet. Report published in electronic format and then incorporated into the collection Everything is eventual (2002).
• 2009 - Ur. Report published in electronic format and then incorporated into the collection The bazaar of bad dreams (2015).
• 2009 - Stephen King goes to the movies (not edited in Spanish). Compilation of stories previously published in other collections.
• 2010 - Blockade Billy. Short novel published first in limited edition and then incorporated into the collection The bazaar of bad dreams (2015).
• 2010 - American Vampire Vol. 1 (picture novel, co-written with Scott Snyder and illustrated by Rafael Albuquerque)
• 2012 - In high grass (In the Tall Grass, written account with your son Joe Hill)
• 2012 - A face in the crowd (A Face in the Crowd, account written with Steward O'Nan)
• 2016 - Charlie the Choo-Choo (book for children within the universe of The Dark Tower. Under the pseudonym of Beryl Evans and illustrated by Ned Dameron)
• 2018 - Laurie (relato presented as abbreviations for The visitor, published only in electronic format)

Awards