The Constant Reader

I have quite a few regrets. None of them amount to very much, which is to say that on the grand life scale, the things that I have chosen not to do are, for the lack of better terms, unsubstantial. I don't regret not going to college. I don't regret quitting my first job out of high school. I don't regret not engaging in meaningless conversation with everyone around me. I don't regret keeping to myself.
No, my sincere regrets are minimal. They more have to do with personal choices that I've made over the years that, when I look back, may have helped me a bit more in the present. Specifically, I regret that I hadn't fully embraced who I am a lot earlier in my days and gone for broke before I started to hit thirty.
This isn't really about that, though. This is about lost time in another area, and it's very close to being a reget that I had no control over. My major gripe with myself? I really, truly wish I had read a lot more books when I was younger. Not too major, huh? Well, the root of it is fairly simple. I've found myself so buried in turning pages over the last few months, so engulfed in fictional and nonfictional character's lives, that I wished I had taken the time to get to know even more of these people, these places, these things. It's not something that will leave me on my deathbed screaming, "Why?!!! Whhhyyyy??!!". It's just a Spicolli-sized bummer for me.
I had started out alright. My mother provided fuel for the fire in me to gather as much information (real or unreal) as possible. My birthday presents from about four years old on had always included at least one book, sometimes more. I read a lot. Not just book books, but comics, cartoons, anything I could get my hands on. To this day, I have a hardbound coffee table book about The Muppet Show that was given to me by my grandmother at five years old. Garfeild books. Batman comics. The Time-Life Mysteries of the Unknown series.Christmas books (two in particular that I remember are "The Sweet Smell of Christmas", which was a scratch and sniff book that I read about forty times every holiday season, and a book with a name along the lines of "Little Miss Suzy" or something to that effect, about a squirrel trying to hide inside a home during Christmas. At least, I think it was a Christmas book. We are talking twenty five plus years ago....I can't remember everything.)
As soon as I began elementary school, the library became a regular visiting station for me. Once a week, usually Saturday afternoon, my mom would drive me down to the Dover Public Library, a beautiful, three story brick building set around a legion of maple(?) trees. I can remember looking up at the building and always feeling so important walking into that place. The building itself was old, and planted right there where it was, set back behind a feild of green grass, I can now fully understand why some people are such die-hard, small town New Englanders. The major buildings are few and far between in these locations, but they always look to have been built with the care and consideration that is probably overlooked as the five plus story addresses became dimes of a dozen in larger, more populated areas.
The first summer vacation from school? I saw that library quite a bit, as I did every summer after that. Second and third grade was when I had discovered young adult suspense novels. The names R.L. Stine and Christopher Pike come to mind, though I don't really remember much about any of the books, only that someone would go missing and one hundred fifty pages later, they'd be found. I loved reading The Far Side Comics by Gary Larson, which made my mother quite happy, since she shared my bizarre and sometimes sick sense of humor.
It was mid way into my third grade year of school when it all happened, when things got darker and, in turn, the light in the attic started to shine brighter. Some people pull out the small violins and tell you that they had no friends, that they were the nerd in school, blah, blah, blah. I'm going to be honest and just tell you I was the vanilla center in the neopolitan bowl of ice cream that was the Dover School system. I was there, I had a reason to be there, but the reason wasn't very important. I was filler. I had a few friends. None that would last beyond a given school year, but I still had a few. I was pretty boring to most of the kids that came over. I hated "playing". I hated "hanging out". I really, really liked entertaining myself. I did, however, have a friend named Conor that was a good kid. We'd go over each other's homes quite a bit that third grade year.
So, what happened you ask? Well, Conor introduced me to a great, great friend. A friend that I have kept to this day, who has been there time and time again for me on rainy, snowy, or just plain shitty days, though he doesn't even know it. He's kept me entertained and has helped me bring out some of my true emotions late at night when no one is looking, here in overcast Seattle, when my wife is asleep beside me. He's told me all about love, about life, and, most importantly, about fear. He's a fantastic, brilliant person, and I honestly hope he outlives me, so that he can continue to rip apart all the boards up in my attic. His name is Stephen King.
Conor probably doesn't even remember me. He was a pretty popular kid in my later school years, so an early friend when he was still young can't really take up too much of his memory, I'd assume. And, truthfully, if it wasn't for the night at hand, I'd have probably forgotten about him a long time ago as well. That's the nature of school friends. It lived and breathed at the first ring of the bell on the first day of the school year and tended to die a quick and painless death the moment the last bell was rung deep in June. You'd run outside, ready to throw your backpack in an open field. You'd wave goodbye to the familiar faces and then forget they existed until the following September. Zombie friendships.
Everything isn't crystal clear to me, but there's enough there to make it a story. Or, at least try. Conor's mother was nice enough to allow me to sleep over on a friday night. There was something us kids had to do involving school that kept us there until long after most of the other students had left. Not detention, that stage of my life took a few more years to come to fruition. No, it was some sort of project, or sports game.....something. I really wish I could think of it. She picked us up around five o'clock, in which we left the school and walked outside into brisk winter New Hampshire air. It was already dark, and I absolutely remember that, so it must have been around late January or early February. It wasn't snowing, though there was a faint sleet passing down all around us that had made way for a half inch layer of slush to soak our sneakers. It may have only been a fifteen second run to her car, but it was enough time to let the wetness sneak it's way in and surround our socks and chill our feet.
I had been looking forward to the sleepover. Conor's mom would let us rent movies well beyond our age. Lots of them were horror films. His house was where I saw The Omen for the first time. Same with Halloween. It'd be a few more years before my mom would realize how much I thrived in horror culture, in which time she introduced me to Alfred Hitchcock (which is another story entirely). My mom's pretty great.
We went to the independant rental store in the heart of downtown Dover, all one major street of it, and I told Conor to just grab what he wanted to see. I had no real reference. I just wanted to see any horror films I possibly could. Fifteen minutes later, while I was still trying to get my oversized red gumball out of the machine in which I had just sacrificed my last quarter, Conor told me we were all set. I gave one last nudge to the machine, and my gumball somehow jarred loose and rolled into my hand, kind of like a bratty kid who wouldn't move until you told him you were leaving, causing him to cry and run after you. My gumball was screaming, "Noooo!!! I want to be eaten! Don't leeeaave!!"
We got back in the car and took one last errand at the ultimate of childhood treasures: McDonalds. Chicken mcnuggets, fries, a vanilla shake and cookies for later. A big pile of shit that would bring a smile to any youngster's face. Especially if you were a fat kid in training. The drive-thru made the process that much quicker and we were on our way. (Anyone shocked as to why a quarter of the nation's population is obese needs to look no further than the birth of a way to have food handed to you while you're still sitting, never having to move a muscle except to fish an Abraham Lincoln out of your wallet.) The final stop was my house, where that morning I had gathered my sleeping bag and a box of odds and ends for possible late night entertainment as Conor and I would pretend to sleep when we were doing anything but.
We made it to Conor's, our hands clamped with food, accessories and VHS rental cases. The moment the back door was opened, Conor's mother just stepped aside for fear of being knocked over by the youth stampede. Our wet shoes and socks kicked and pulled off, we ran with our overstuffed hands straight up to his room. I took a second to thank his mom for carting us around. I was a polite kid. More, I was safe. Most parents like me because I looked like the most innocent little boy ever created. Times have changed.
We layed out our high calorie bounty on his floor, situating ourselves with our backs resting against his bunk beds and our eyes able to feast on the television screen ahead place in the center of his extra wide bureau. This was the other thing that made Conor cool. He had his own televsion and VCR! We could watch whatever we wanted, whenever we wanted. All the horror movies we could ever ask for.
I had already started to stuff french fries in my mouth, looking out his second floor window. Conor had a pretty big backyard. It was very unkept and always seemed a bit creepy, especially after a creature double feature. The mind can race as a kid, and my attic light used to pulsate violently when I looked out there. Tall weeds, a huge, crooked tree and an iron gate. All that was missing was tombstones with hands rising out of fresh dirt.
He asked me which one I wanted to watch first, shaking one movie in each hand. I told him I didn't even know what they were. Conor smiled, looking at my soft skinned innocence. He may as well have said "I'm about to corrupt you for the rest of your life."
Instead he said, "Tonight's Stephen King night."
"Who's that?"
"You're about to find out."
He put the black VHS boxes face down so that the labels couldn't be read. Then, as if he was a magical carnie, he swirled both boxes in circles back and forth as if he were going to command me to pick a card, any card . This went on for about fifteen seconds. Finally, he raised his hands and smiled at me again.
"Pick your poison."
I pointed to the left case. Conor picked it up so that he could read the title. I silently waited, shoving a full mcnugget dipped in honey mustard into my mouth. Conor turned around the box and in the worst ghoul voice ever said, "Looks like we begin the night with Cat's Eye!"
It could have been anything. I didn't care...I just wanted to be scared. He popped in the tape and sat back down as we finished our dinner out of waxed yellow, red and white paper bags and waxed paper cups with plastic straws, all emblazed with a giant "M".
The movie may not have been amazing, but it did the job. There was a severed finger that scared the shit out of me. There was a thing that lived under a little girl's house that frightened my third grade mind. It was evil, that movie. Plain and simple. Made up of three stories that all ended on sour notes, all three of them giving my young frame a shudder and causing me to avoid looking out the window into Conor's back yard every time I got up to go to the bathroom.
I still didn't quite get what Conor meant by Stephen King night, other than the stories seemed to have been written by him. He knew how to make a kid nervous, I gave him that. But, even though I got scared, I wasn't impressed. It wasn't as if the movie had torn at my very core. Conor ejected the tape and then turned and asked me a question that I remember to this very day.
"So, you ready for the main event?"
I shrugged in an I guess so way. Whatever was next couldn't be that bad.
In a rather large and theatrical presentation, Conor grabbed the other black plastic case and turned it around so I could see the label. "You ever heard of The Shining?" he asked.
Jack Nicholson's manic eyes may not have been staring straight ahead through that broken door, but they sure as hell were looking at me. Straight through me. And, Jack Nicholson (as Jack Torrence) was basically telling me he was about to fuck up my innocent little world.
Tape in.
Cue haunting strings.
Cue opening credits.
I read the words "Based on a novel by Stephen King".
And, within ten minutes, I understood why this was Stephen King night. I'm pretty sure Conor spent less time watching the film and more time watching my reaction to each tension filled minute.
There's really nowhere to begin. The twins in the hallway. Danny Torrence's talking finger. The young / old woman in the bathroom. Everything. All of it. The goddamned axe through the door. This wasn't a movie to my young head. This was an assault. And, scared shitless as I was, I loved every single second of it. That last scene, the panning out of the old photograph, ended. Credits rolled, and I took a big breath. I turned to Conor, shit eating grin still planted on his face, and all I could say was, "Stephen King is awesome."
(Come to find out, Stephen King hated this cinematic adaptation. When I finally read the book years later, I didn't have a problem figuring out why. The things is, Stanley Kubrick made an incredible film. A haunting, intense, piece of celluloid paranoia and psychosis. While watching the film, you were trapped in the Overlook Hotel with Wendy and Danny Torrence. But, it's not Stephen King's novel. Not even close. I remember getting three quarters of the way through the book and asking myself where most of this was in the movie. It was proof that two brilliants minds may not be able to see eye to eye, especially when one is requested to retell a perfect story and somehow also make it their own.)
I didn't sleep that night at Conor's. I didn't even toss and turn. All I remember is staring at his ceiling from the top bunk and thinking of The Shining. One scene at a time. Over and over. I was still young, and this was the first time I grasped the concept that they make films based off of novels. My initial though upon this realization, is that maybe Stephen King has other novels. And, hopefully, more movies to scare the shit out of me.
I left Conor's house early the next morning. As in, like, seven a.m. I walked back home with books on my mind. It was a short walk, maybe ten minutes at the most, that I took at lightning speed, dropping my sleeping bag several times along the way. I swung open the door in an overly dramatic hurry, as if I had been chased by a band of theives. I was excited. I couldn't help it. My mom was in the kitchen, fully armed with a look of disbelief as to why her son was already home. I just told he I couldn't sleep, or something along those lines. I tried to play it cool and not jump all over her, as I had a very important request for the day. I waited a few hours, until my parents had had breakfast. Finally I begged my mom to take the library.
Now, with my mother involved, begging to be brought someplace where the sole purpose was to find things to read was not very difficult. In fact, it wasn't begging. If it involved her son reading, my mom was willing to do whatever needed. We made it down there, to that big brick building and I ran on ahead. I had to ask at the counter for help, since this was big time important business and I had no idea where to look. I wasn't sure if there was a "spooked out of your gourd" section or not. The older woman looked at me a little weird, noting how young I was, but she brought me over there anyways. She patted her hand on a book and then said, "Here they are...." and moved her hand along the whole row. My jaw probably didn't drop, but I'd like to think my eyes bugged out a little bit. The holy grail. I thanked her and began my research.
Honestly, I was extremely intimidated that first day. Probably because my eyes laid first on that behemoth known as The Stand. All ten gazillion pages of it. In fact, all of his books looked pretty thick. After about an hour (and two check ins with my mom) I made my selections. I went slow and steady, starting small. First, was Cycle of the Werewolf. It had pictures. Yeah, that was the deciding factor. I also had watched Lon Cheney as The Wolf Man one Saturday afternoon Creature Double Feature on channel ten and loved the very idea of werewolves. It seemed to be a good way to dip my foot in the guy's work(after, of course, having my skull pummeled by The Shining). The second selection was Skeleton Crew, which was a collection of short stories. Perfect introductions.
I loved them both. I read Cycle of the Werewolf in a few hours and started immediately after with Skeleton Crew. Less than twenty four hours before, I hadn't known his name, and now, Stephen King was my favorite author. It went on for years. I would take forever to read some of his classics. I never found the time during the school years, so most of the reading was done on summer vacation whenever I wasn't outside.
It kept on like this throughout high school, except I'd read less and less, my spare time filled with either jobs, girlfriends or homework. Timing never seemed right, especially for the novels at hand. They deserved my full attention, and that was hard to come by. Then, as high school came and went and I plowed headfirst into the working class, a sad thing happened. I forgot about Stephen King. This is not to say I forgot he wrote, but I forgot to read what he wrote. Visits to Salvation Army stores, yard sales and flea markets would involve me buying a few of his hardbacks for a dollar or two, but then they just sat there on the shelf. I knew they were there. They looked back at me like a sausage on the sidewalk stares at a stray dog. They knew I wanted to ingest them, to soak their words in like a blood sponge. But, still, the time never felt right.
I would still read novels, but the frequency died. I'd get through three, maybe four a year. I'd read a Chuck Palahniuk story whenever it came out. Randoms odds and ends, never really paying attention to any given author. I'd waste my time on bullshit. I don't even have an exact description of said bullshit, but bullshit it was.
Somewhere around the winter of 2003, it all came back. The reading, that is. I had recieved Clive Barker's Abarat for Christmas. It looked incredible. I had cheated and thumbed through it after I had unwrapped it, knowing that Mr. Barker had done a generous amount of illustrations to help tell the story of Candy Quackenbush and her travels. About a month later, during a January snowstorm in which I had lucked out and had the day off from work, I happened to look over at the bookshelf after my first pot of coffee for the day had come and gone. The thick, bold blue spine just shouted at me, "Read! Do it now!!!" So, I did. Twelve hours later, as the snow outside had started to die down and my fourth pot of coffee that day was on it's last cup, I read the final page to the first installment of the Abarat series. Mr. Barker was the one to light that fire under my ass and convince me to resume my infatuation with turning pages.
By a stroke of luck, the next day as I left my apartment building to head over to a corner store, hungry for a Little Debbie cake donut, I looked across the minimally busy Broadway Road in Desperatetown (also known as Derry, New Hampshire). I saw something that I hadn't really noticed for the last six months I had been there. I mean, I'm sure I had seen it, but it never gave me that click! like it did that day.
A used and out of print bookstore.
I bought my little desert snack (two of them, actually...one for now, one for five in the morning when I would inevitably still be awake) and walked across Broadway and straight into the building. It wasn't very well advertised. No neon "open" light....come to think of it, there were no lights outside at all. Unless you checked, it may as well have been permenantly closed. Luckily, the doorknob turned, a little bell anounced to the owner that a new customer was about to present himself, and in I walked. It was a fairly small store upon first glance, but after my initial walk around the walls, I found more than enough to peak my interest. I found an early publishing of James Dickey's Deliverance, Patrick McGrath's Spider and many odds and ends. I took chances on unfamiliar authors, resulting in novels like Graham Joyce's The Tooth Fairy and Michel Faber's Under the Skin, the latter author becoming one of my all time favorites since my initial introduction. It went on like this for a few months and then, unexpectedly, the store closed. I was crushed. This place wasn't anything like a second home to me (I'm not going to be that dramatic...), but it was my adult library. I went there twice a week and bought a book or two, would read them on my days off, then repeat. All of a sudden, it was all gone.
So, I started to hunt. I went back to going to the yard sales, picking up more random novels, all while those Stephen King books longingly hoped I'd pick one of them up. The shelves filled up with no set order or with no end in sight. I'd love to be able to look over at my shelves right now and be able to list everything, but it's not possible. Not because there are too many to list (though, that would be the case ....) but because over the years I've downsized, minimalized and stripped myself of a lot (....if I still had them). I gave away books. I'd sell them back for more. I moved so many times and got rid of so much stuff that I don't have any idea where a lot of my things ended up.
About a year and a half ago, when my wife and I moved to Seattle, our first apartment was down in Pioneer Square. If you ask anyone in Seattle where not to move, they'd probably tell you there. I loved it though. At least, I really liked our studio apartment. It was high up and we had a minor view of our new downtown. The thing that sold me about the location, though, was that right next door was the Seattle Mystery Bookstore. Have I established that I like suspense novels? Good, I'd hoped I was making this clear. So, basically, this place next door was screaming bloody murder at me....almost calling my name. It took a few days of settling in and aranging the apartment before I went over. One project at a time, and every box needs to be unpacked before I can let my mind rest.
My first trip in there was overwhelming. I had no idea where to begin. I, unsurprisingly, became that guy and asked the counter clerk if all the books were really mysteries. She'd heard it before and could tell I wasn't being a dipshit, just another boggled crime reader that stumbled upon the promised land. She said yes, they were, and if I needed any help to please ask. My response was in the form of a question.
"Where do I begin?"
Luckily, she laughed and shot right back, "Anywhere at all, hon. Take your time."
I bookhunted here quite a bit. My main stops were always Elliot Bay Bookstore and Half Price Books. I'd scan the clearance and discount sections first, then move on. I've found some pretty amazing buys. All the while, I'd still pick up a King book whenever I saw one I didn't have.
One local store had a moving sale. I was back in the city for the day and it just so happened to be the last day before they moved. All the books left, hardcover or not, were under two dollars. For one dollar, I found a signed first edition of Dennis Lehane's Shutter Island. One dollar. The first ten pages were worth the price alone. By the time I had finished it, I had a new member of my top ten. (Oddly enough, once I read the novel, I considered how amazing a film adaptation might be. I checked IMDB and typed in the title. Three guesses what Martin Scorcese's next film is? I'm counting the days until I get to sit in a theater with a box of popcorn and see live action versions of all the characters running though my attic) I was able to buy a few titles at that sale that I would have never given a chance. For fifteen dollars, I purchased nine new novels; and since then I've read each and every one. I think I made my money back after reading halfway through the first stack of pages I flipped.
In a roundabout way, I have Poppy Z. Brite to thank as much as Conor. It was an interview in Vice magazine with her (volume 14, number 12). It was their "fiction" issue. I was immediately interested in reading one of her novels as soon as I finished the interview. The description of her early vampire / gothic stories sounded interesting, but it was her last few titles that really caught my attention, those being about two chefs from New Orleans that had decided to open a restaurant called "Liquor". I knew that the used bookstore down the street from our new apartment on Capital Hill (we escaped from Pioneer Square after six months....not a second too soon...) would have at least one of her books for me to buy. No sooner had I finished the article, I had my coat on and was out the door. Now, I'm the farthest from an impulse buyer, but when you want something, you want something. Go get it.
The store actually had three titles for me to choose from: Exquisite Corpse, which by the title alone sounded promising to my little black soul, Liquor and Soul Kitchen. I bought all three. No use deciding. Sometimes you can just tell when something is meant for you, and these books needed a new home. I read Exquisite Corpse first. It was wonderfully written. Graphic. Emotional. Intense. I finished it in one night. I like to read the whole thing in one sitting if I can, and her novels are perfect for that.
The next night was Liquor. It's an understatement to say I loved it from the very first paragraph. Some characters immediately make their mark and, for me, Gary "G-Man" Stubbs and John Rickey were those characters. I read both Liquor and Soul Kitchen, the respective first and third novels in the series, in one night. I bought Prime, the second (or as I'd call it, the cream filling) in the series within the next two weeks. another local bookstore, Bailey/Coy Books, had her novella, D*U*C*K*, that was also part of the series. Subterranean Press had published it, signed in hardcover. It was a little too pricey for my blood, and I knew I'd have to wait until a rainy day when I was able to either finally afford it, or shrug off responsibility for a week. Neither of those ended up being the case. I came home from a very long time on the road, and there sitting on my nightstand when I came into the bedroom for the first time in two and a half months, was D*U*C*K*. My wife is very good at surprises.
I've finally started to dip back into her early work, just last week purchasing Drawing Blood. Though, I'd be lying if I said I'm okay waiting another few years to read about Rickey and G-Man. Great storytelling takes time, so I'll continue to be patient. I'll be there on release day whenever she dives back into Liquorland.
After I had read all I could find by Ms. Brite, I went back and read the interview. She listed A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole as her favorite work of fiction. I figured, "why not?", and picked up a copy. Thank you, Poppy. It was another brilliant satire, told by a tortured mind. Toole commited suicide at the young age of thirty one, considering himself a failed writer. This novel of his was found after his death by his mother, who brought it to a local college professor to read. This novel of his was then published after the professor read it and realized how good it was. This novel of his, young John Kennedy Toole, a "failed writer" who commited suicide, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1981, twelve years after he gave up on himself. John Kennedy Toole, folks, is the reason the phrase "stranger than fiction" is still used today.
Once I had read Confederacy, I went back to the interview. I wanted to see what else Poppy could tell me. I read a few more recommendations Most were entertaining. Some, not so much. But then, as if it were like the books in my shelf that I hadn't looked at for so long, I noticed one single sentence that I truly didn't remember ever reading. She called Stephen King her comfort reads, or something to that affect.
Click!
She was right. He is a comfort read! I looked up from my corner chair and stared at the shelves. There was one big book with a red and white cover that was finally plucked from the island of forgotten toys. Stephen King's Insomnia. I had the time. I had most of the summer free this year because I 1) wasn't on tour and 2) couldn't find a job. I was an involuntary international man of leisure. But, if I was going to be at home for a long period of time, I was damn well going to make it worth it.
It had been, man...like seven years since I read a King novel. Shameful. I had read one short story last sumer, wanting to know the literary version of his short story, 1408, before I saw the movie. It was in King's collection called Everything's Eventual, which was published in 2004 or so (the dates aren't that important, so if anyone wants to point a finger at incorrect statements, I'll politely tell you where to put it once you're done correcting me...). Like I said, I never stopped buying them, just stopped opening the covers.
I read Insomnia over the course of four nights, two hundred pages at a time. I learned the story of Ralph Roberts and the end results of gradual sleepless nights. By the time I was finished, my heart was aching. Part of it had to do with the story itself. It was, at the root, a perfect story of life and death. The other part of the ache came from overflowing of anticipation. I simply couldn't decide which of his works I wanted to read next.
I looked back over at that pile of books and it dawned on me that I had only read the man's early works...up to around 1991 or so. My mission for the summer was to play catch up with my new old friend, to find out what he'd been up to the last seventeen years or so. I jumped around, not taking it so seriously that I was reading in chronological order. I wanted to read them in the order of which title shouted at me after I had closed the back cover, feeling the finished book in my hands. And I learned that I enjoy the new(er) Stephen King more than the early version of the prolific novelist.
Bag of Bones was the one that hit me the hardest. I'm not sure why, but this one is the be all end all for me. I'll probably read it once a year for the rest of my life. There was just something about Mike Noonan's unraveling little haunted story that left me in awe. If you notice, I'm not really describing any of these books in great detail. The reason should be obvious. No one likes a spoiler.
There are a few others that I've read this summer that I hold in high regards. Rose Madder incredibly perceptive and, for most of the story, entirely realistic. There was an underlying redemption soaked in sorrow that King touched upon with every chapter with the greatest of ease. Hearts in Atlantis and Lisey's Story, were both heavy, heavy reads for entirely different reasons. In fact, Lisey's Story left me a bit shook up for a few days. It was so damn personal and, yes, depressing that I finally had to admit that I wasn't prepared for it. At all.
About halfway through writing all of this, I finished up his latest work, Duma Key. I spent six hundred plus pages finding out about Edgar Freemantle's first, second and third lives. About why he has only one arm. About Duma Key itself.
He's always told a great story. Always. I have no complaints about any of his forty novels and two hundred plus short stories, though, I've got about ten scattered novels and a large handful of shorts that I've not yet read. But, for me, somewhere in the early 90's, while every one else in the world was happy with a decade about nothing, Stephen King was telling us all something. His work became unflinchingly epic. He became so in touch with living, dying, with human nature, that his work became more than print. The stories leaped off of the pages and danced into my attic, waking the bats, kicking out the windows and screaming out into the open air.
And there are a lot of us that realize this about him. You don't sell three hundred fifty million of your books to a select crowd. Three hundred fifty million means you've got quite a few people who like you, who wait every year or two for an announcement about a new publication. Luckily, a new collection of short stories was released at the end of 2008. Mid November, there I was, somewhere in Europe, and my inner horror nerd wouldn't stop reminding me that back home there's a brand new book stuffed with new victims and villains. I waited until New Year's had come and gone, and Mr. King and I had a coffee date in my warm bedroom while the pacific northwest rain and snow fell down hard outside. He is also said to be working on a new novel, one he had attempted twice in the eighties to no avail. It will be his longest novel ever. I've read a brief synopsis and it sounds amazing. I'd tell you, but that would be no fun. Go find out for yourself.
So....regrets. In a way, taking this long to read the rest of King's latest works can't be considered a regret, because I really was waiting for the right time. I just regret the right time taking this long to find me. Now that is has, though, I'm going to give it a hard run. What will I do if I run out of new tales to read from him? Start all over. Find all the things I missed the first time around.
I'll probably never get the chance to say hello to him, to thank him for the hundreds (maybe thousands) of hours that he has held my interest. I'll probably never get the chance to explain my gap in time between our visits. Though, I think he would understand all of this, as I am one of the legion of the unnamed that are thanked in every book, united by his appreciation for his "Constant Reader". He provides the stories, and I provide the endless support.
Sometimes, that's all it takes to make a friendship last.