Stephen King, one of the most prolific and beloved horror writers of all time, covers the new issue of Parade. He’s promoting his new novel Joyland, which seems more like a crime thriller/pulp fiction rather than horror. King rarely gives interviews, which is sad because he’s an incredibly interesting guy. He actually reminds me a lot of the late, great Roger Ebert. Both men were and are talented writers whose interests were exhaustive, whose lust for life, knowledge and art appreciation were unquenchable. One of my favorite epitaphs for Ebert was “He was a bomb-thrower.” And he was. He loved controversy. He loved a debate. He loved a fight. I feel like King is the same way. Maybe I’m reading him the wrong way though. Anyway, here are some highlights from King’s Parade interview:
On the fact that Joyland, his new book, isn’t a horror novel:
“I’ve been typed as a horror writer … but I never saw myself that way. I just saw myself as a novelist. With Joyland, I wanted to try my hand at the whodunit format.”On his daily writing regimen:
“I wrote 1,500 words this morning. Five pages a day, that’s usually what I get through.”On why he and his two novelist sons show their work to his wife, Tabitha:
“She’ll say, ‘Here, you’ve done this before. This sucks. This is dumb.’ There’s no soft landing with Tabby, and that’s fine. [My sons] both dedicated their first novels to her, so it means a lot.”On the current TV shows he enjoys:
“Justified, Bates Motel, The Walking Dead. The best show of the year is The Americans. I don’t watch Mad Men. I think it’s basically soap opera, and if I want soap opera, I watch Revenge. That show is crazy, but they have great clothes.”On whether he thinks he’ll be popular beyond his lifetime:
“Well, you really can’t worry about it. … Fantasy has a better chance of lasting than a lot of other things. The Hobbit and the Narnia books … because they’re set in a fantasy world, they can remain relevant. So maybe things like Salem’s Lot and The Shining might last, the Dark Tower books. … The idea of posterity for a writer is poison. … You do the best you can.”On his main reason to keep writing:
“The major job is still to entertain people. Joyland really took off for me when the old guy who owns the place says, ‘Never forget, we sell fun.’ That’s what we’re supposed to do—writers, filmmakers, all of us. That’s why they let us stay in the playground.”On gun-control measure, a subject he also addressed in his essay, Guns, published as a Kindle Single on Amazon.com:
“I heard that [the background checks legislation didn’t pass in the Senate], and I thought, ‘Oh, my God, they couldn’t even do that.’ It infuriates me, because most people would like to see some rational controls on guns. I think we all understand that they wouldn’t entirely solve the problem. I mean, in Boston they built bombs in pressure cookers. But you’ve got a roadblock of probably most of the Republican Senate and four or five Democrats who come from rural areas, some of whom are up for reelection pretty soon, who stopped what the public wanted.Background checks for gun purchases:
“Lindsey Graham and Mitch McConnell say, ‘Background checks won’t solve the problem because crazy people will still get guns.’ To me, that’s tantamount to saying, ‘Why bother to make it illegal for kids under 18 to buy cigarettes, because they’ll find a way to get them anyway?’ But we know that those laws, [while] they don’t stop underage smoking, inhibit it greatly. These people are so shortsighted — this is going to happen again.”
[From Parade]
Shall we discuss his thoughts on gun control? I think he sounds very sensible. I think – and the polling data suggests this too – that he sounds like the average American voter on this issue. He’s not calling anyone names, he’s making a rational argument and seriously, he’s right. That is all. Oh, I love that he watches Revenge, and that he’s all about the costumes! That makes me so happy.
King also has some lovely things to say about his mother, and how she influenced him as a writer. Apparently, his family didn’t have a TV growing up (until he was 10) and so his mom would read to him. King says, “She read us Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde when I was six and my brother was eight; I never forgot it.” Also: did you know he’s only 65 years old?! I thought he was older, for sure. I guess I thought he was older because he’s written about a bajillion books.
PS… Name your favorite King book! Mine is The Stand. I still love that crazy book and I still think about it so often.
Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet, cover courtesy of Parade.
Thanks to Cele Bitchy
