GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #563: STEPHEN KING AND OBSESSION

 

I was in Anderson's not too long ago, and I broke my new rule about not buying any books. I'm moving soon, and I don't want to add to my burden. But I saw the book above on the shelf, and it occurred to me that I haven't read anything about King since, well, probably since he got hit by a van. And this book said it would talk about everything that happened after.

I thought, why not?

I used to obsess over a lot of things, and chief among them was Stephen King. I went out of my way to ravenously read everything he had available and a few things he didn't. I wasn't going to wind up stalking him like that guy from Finders Keepers, and I certainly wouldn't hold him captive like in Misery, but everything within reason? I would do.

I used to do this with a lot of things, and for some reason I stopped doing that. Maybe because there's just so much stuff out there nowadays. It's easy to overdose on stuff now. I blame the internet.

But it was nice to visit with an old friend. Bev Vincent is probably one of the biggest King experts currently on this planet, and he has access to a lot of very interesting things, which he showed us in this book. I very much enjoyed my time in this. It's neat that Fairy Tale was included, and I had my doubts that it would. But then, along the way, there are two mentions of a possible third book in the Jack Sawyer trilogy. It would have been nice, but if it happens, it will have to be without Peter Straub. It could work. King tried imitating Straub while writing The Talisman and Black House, so . . .

It's also interesting to see that King's next book will be about Holly Gibney. Well, a lot of things can change, of course, but it will probably happen. I'll bet it's going to be excellent. He's currently better than he's ever been right now. That will probably stick in a few craws, but I firmly believe that.

Funny story. One score and, like, a bunch of years ago my friend, Rob Tannahill, wrote and illustrated a few Stephen King stories using Beavis and Butt-Head as characters. The first of them was The Dork Half. So I decided to make photocopies and send it to Stephen King. I got a letter back from his assistant at the time saying that he enjoyed it a lot and was a huge Beavis and Butt-Head fan.

Fast forward to his Bag of Bones tour. I got to meet him, and I managed to ask him a couple of questions. First was for a paper I was writing for college. My thesis was essentially: Why is someone like Nathaniel Hawthorne taught to death in schools while current novelists (like King) are strictly ignored. It irritated me that I'd been taught The Scarlet Letter about four times throughout my academic career, and that's why I was writing this thing about canon. King's answer: "Because he's dead."

I'll bet that I'm the only one in that class who got a direct quote from one of his subjects in person.

The second question? I asked him if he remembered The Dork Half. He did. And then he did what I never expected to hear from him. He imitated Beavis and said, "Fire! Fire!"

It's a memory I will treasure for the rest of my life.

Sad story: Not long after I sent The Dork Half to Stephen King, there was a horrible accident that involved the loss of one of those pages. On a lighter note, if King kept his copy, he has the only complete copy in existence.