In a nutshell: carting my new Stephen King novel, the titanic Under the Dome, from place to place and becoming vaguely annoyed whenever anyone tried to, you know, interact with me.
See? That’s me at Les Halles, mildly irritated that Kendrick showed up on time. Smiles can be deceptive.
And that’s me at the Manhattan Plaza Health Club (Mom brought me using a guest pass), my brow all afurrow at the fact that my new great love is covered with Hawaiian Tropic.
A quick synopsis of the book: it’s a beautiful fall day, and all of a sudden a woodchuck is sliced cleanly in half, a plane goes crashing into the clear blue sky, and a woman reaching for a potato finds her hand neatly sheared off at the wrist. An invisible barrier (later called The Dome) has descended around the town of Chester’s Mill, following the man-made borders and extending thousands of feet into the air and earth. Hell breaks loose.
Cool, no?
Stephen King is often seen by detractors as lowbrow, simplistic, what have you…and I don’t understand that opinion at all. I’ve been reading Stephen King since I was way too young to be reading Stephen King (I have a distinct memory of being in a hotel room around age 8, reading the closing pages of Pet Sematary, and racing downstairs in my nightgown into a ballroom where my parents were attending a party, in an absolute panic), and here’s what I think: he is, without a doubt, one of the greatest writers of all time. Period. (His book about his writing techniques, On Writing, is excellent, by the way.) Sure, he (mostly) writes horror novels, but they are much, much more – they’re about god, death, politics, religion – and most importantly, they’re fascinating. They’re what entertainment is all about: good stories, told well.
My top six Stephen King stories, in no particular order:
– The Long Walk (as Richard Bachman)
– Thinner (as Richard Bachman)
– Running Man (as Richard Bachman)
– The Mist (can also be found as a novella in Skeleton Crew)
Stephen King is also one of those writers who’s been fortunate enough to have had his books made into some pretty awesome movies. Pet Sematary, Misery, and The Shining are obviously up there among the best, but I (yes) liked The Mist (shitty effects aside…it had Thomas Jane, and anything Thomas Jane is good by me), and whenever I’m home sick for a day I watch the miniseries The Stand in its entirety.
Posted by Jordan Reid, 7.19.10.
