I am a Constant Reader and have been for 45 years. I don’t mean I read constantly for that length of time. That would be crazy. What I mean is, I have been reading Stephen King for 45 years so I am, as Mr King calls me and millions of others, a Constant Reader.
It started in 1980. My Mum, who really was a constant reader – she would read watching the TV, she would read whilst knitting whilst watching the TV, she would read whilst in the kitchen cooking the dinner, she would read at the table having her dinner – handed me a library book she’d just finished and suggested I might like it.
It was Salem’s Lot by Stephen King. I had not heard of him, but I was a fan of horror movies and had already started reading James Herbert, Graham Masterton and Dennis Wheatley paperbacks. I’m still not sure what made her go for it all those years ago but I’m glad she did.
I read Salem’s Lot and loved it. Not long after, I went to Germany to work for the NAAFi for the summer. On the way back, at Dusseldorf airport, I saw a copy of The Stand written by the same author. It was a weighty paperback but I bought it, devoured it in a couple of weeks, and henceforth became a Constant Reader. I bought all the books he’d released up until then and in 1981 Cujo became the first one I bought brand-new in hardback. Which is what I’ve done ever since.
And which I will do again later today when I go into town and buy his new novel, Never Flinch. I could buy it online but I fancy a walk.
So what is it about Stephen King?
As I said, I had already started reading horror fiction when I was introduced to Stephen King, so I guess I was always likely to go for his stuff. But actually it’s just the way he writes that is so appealing. He draws you into a story like no-one else does, in my view.
A critic reviewing Bag of Bones (1998) said “…his [King’s] real genius is for the everyday” while King himself says: “Whether you talk about ghosts or vampires … we’re still talking about the same thing, which is an intrusion of the extraordinary into ordinary life and how we deal with it.”
And he makes you love these ordinary people and their ordinary lives. Stu Redman and Mother Abagail in The Stand (1978). Andy McGee and his daughter Charlie in Firestarter (1980). Jud Crandall in Pet Sematary. Edgar Freemantle in Duma Key. In recent years, King created Holly Gibney, originally a minor character but who, as King himself is quoted as saying: “She just walked on in the first book she was in, Mr. Mercedes, and she more or less stole the book, and she stole my heart.” Holly got her own novel in 2023, simply titled Holly, and appears in Never Flinch, the new one.
It’s not just horror
King tells this story: “I was in a supermarket down here in Florida, and I came around the corner and there was a woman coming the other way. She pointed at me, she said, ‘I know who you are! You’re Stephen King! You write all of those horrible things. And that’s ok. That’s alright. But I like uplifting things, like that movie Shawshank Redemption.’ And I said, ‘I wrote that!’ And she said, ‘No you didn’t. No you didn’t.’”
Sure, a lot of them are horror but Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption, a novella in Different Seasons (1982) is now one of his most well-regarded works, because it’s a brilliant story and was made into a great movie, which is not something you can say about all of his books.
My favourite Stephen King novel
For years, I always rated The Stand as the one I love the best, but there are plenty of others. Salem’s Lot (1975) and The Dead Zone (1979) are corkers. Pet Sematary, mentioned earlier, is great. It (1986) is a classic, Desperation (1996) is underrated, Duma Key (2008) is terrific and the Bill Hodges (another wonderful character) trilogy – Mr Mercedes (2014), Finders Keepers (2015) and End of Watch (2016) – are essential.
In 1999, Stephen King was hit by a car when he was walking along the side of a road in his home state of Maine. For some weeks it looked like he might never write again. But he battled through the pain of his multiple injuries and was able to resume his career. All of his Constant Readers breathed a sigh of relief.
He’s 78 later this year and his novels of the last ten years have been as good as at any time in his life.
If you’ve not read his stuff, perhaps because you “don’t like horror” or you’ve just never got round to it, now’s as good a time as any to start. You won’t regret it.
I mean, you’ll have nightmares, but you won’t regret it.
CLICK HERE TO DONATE TO OUR CROWDFUNDER
HELP US BECOME STRONGER SO THAT WE CAN CONTINUE TO DELIVER POWERFUL CITIZEN JOURNALISM!
