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Manchester, VT
Legendary Stephen King shares newest novel in Manchester
MANCHESTER CENTER -- Master storyteller and legendary author Stephen King will present his new novel "Under the Dome" on Wednesday, Dec. 2 at 7 p.m. at Manchester Elementary and Middle School.
Stephen King is the author of more than fifty books, all of them worldwide bestsellers. Among his most recent are the Dark Tower novels, "Cell," "From a Buick 8," "Everything’s Eventual," "Hearts in Atlantis," "The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon," "Lisey’s Story" and "Bag of Bones." His acclaimed nonfiction book, "On Writing," was also a bestseller. He was the recipient of the 2003 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.
In "Under the Dome," the town of Chester’s Mill, Maine is inexplicably and suddenly sealed off from the rest of the world by an invisible force field. Planes crash into it and fall from the sky in flaming wreckage, a gardener’s hand is severed as "the dome" comes down on it, people running errands in the neighboring town are divided from their families, and cars explode on impact. No one can fathom what this barrier is, where it came from, and when -- or if -- it will go away.
This is King’s first Northshire Bookstore-presented event in 14 years. General admission tickets are $10 each, and will be available at the bookstore, by phone, or online. General admission entitles the holder to event admission only. Copies of "Under the Dome" will be available for sale at the event, but these will not be signed.
Don’t miss this rare opportunity to hear one of the most prominent authors of our time. For more information on this and other events, call 802-362-2200 or 1-800-437-3700, or visit the Northshire Bookstore Web site at www.northshire.com.
MANCHESTER CENTER -- Master storyteller and legendary author Stephen King will present his new novel "Under the Dome" on Wednesday, Dec. 2 at 7 p.m. at Manchester Elementary and Middle School.
Stephen King is the author of more than fifty books, all of them worldwide bestsellers. Among his most recent are the Dark Tower novels, "Cell," "From a Buick 8," "Everything’s Eventual," "Hearts in Atlantis," "The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon," "Lisey’s Story" and "Bag of Bones." His acclaimed nonfiction book, "On Writing," was also a bestseller. He was the recipient of the 2003 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.
In "Under the Dome," the town of Chester’s Mill, Maine is inexplicably and suddenly sealed off from the rest of the world by an invisible force field. Planes crash into it and fall from the sky in flaming wreckage, a gardener’s hand is severed as "the dome" comes down on it, people running errands in the neighboring town are divided from their families, and cars explode on impact. No one can fathom what this barrier is, where it came from, and when -- or if -- it will go away.
This is King’s first Northshire Bookstore-presented event in 14 years. General admission tickets are $10 each, and will be available at the bookstore, by phone, or online. General admission entitles the holder to event admission only. Copies of "Under the Dome" will be available for sale at the event, but these will not be signed.
Don’t miss this rare opportunity to hear one of the most prominent authors of our time. For more information on this and other events, call 802-362-2200 or 1-800-437-3700, or visit the Northshire Bookstore Web site at www.northshire.com.
Comments
Manchester — The standing ovation that greeted the author of America's best-selling novel, "Under the Dome," at the Manchester Elementary-Middle School on Wednesday was fit for a Stephen King.
"Gosh darn, I feel almost as popular as Sarah Palin. I'm not sure if she would get a standing O in Vermont," King joked.
King was in Manchester for an appearance sponsored by the Northshire Bookstore. For more than an hour, he read what he called the "supermarket riot" scene from "Under the Dome," joked and answered questions from fans old and young on topics such as his earliest inspiration, his feelings about movie adaptations of his work and his future plans.
Barbara Morrow, one of the founders of the bookstore, said about 800 tickets had been sold for King's appearance in town.
"Well, needless to say, we're extremely excited and very privileged to be having him tonight. He doesn't do a lot of these kinds of events," she said.
King was introduced by his friend and fellow best-selling author John Irving, who has a home in Dorset. Irving spoke of the criticism he and King often received for the length of their novels.
Irving said it was nothing new for novelists, as "Moby Dick" author Herman Melville had gotten similar responses.
"As Melville knew, as Stephen King and I are well aware, when you have written a number of novels, is often one of being condescended to by your inferiors," he said. Irving introduced King as "one of the best storytellers alive and the scariest writer I know."
King began by thanking the audience for being readers and encouraged them to visit independent bookstores. "You people who are here tonight, go to Northshire Books, and buy that sucker out to the walls. Any independent bookstore is a treasure, but this is a very special place to have in the heart of Vermont," he said.
King talked about how amazed he was to hear about a price war between two large retailers who were selling "Under the Dome" for $9, which caused him to worry about the future of independent, "brick-and-mortar" bookstores like the Northshire. There was no shortage of readers in the Manchester school gymnasium on Wednesday. Morrow said people had come from North Carolina, Ohio and Connecticut. Matthew Patry of Tinmouth said he was hoping to hear King talk about how he had come up with his first spark of creativity.
"He's without a doubt the greatest artist in his genre living today. He has taken the horror writing to a whole new level," Patry said.
Michela Silver, a16-year-old from Argyle, N.Y., who had come to the appearance with her mother, said she thought King was a great writer whose "stories are all amazing," while Zachary Lamphere of Whitehall, N.Y., said the trip to see King, his favorite author, was an early Christmas present from his wife.
King told the audience before he read from "Under the Dome" that he didn't need to explain what the book was about because its title explained it. "It's a town that's under a dome. What else is there to say about it," he said, which led to a round of applause. He also joked with the audience about the shock he felt when he realized after completing the long novel that its plot mirrored the plot of "The Simpsons Movie," in which the Simpsons' hometown of Springfield is contained within a dome.
Those kinds of stories were valuable to Carlin Scherer of Manchester, who said she also writes and likes to come to author appearances at the Northshire because "they fire me up again" to continue writing.
"When I look at this crowd, I think I better be sure to write like (King) to earn that kind of money," she said. King ended by taking a poke at his own fame and how well he is and isn't known. He said he had been stopped in an Oregon supermarket by an older woman who told him she recognized him and didn't respect what he did. "I like uplifting things like that 'Shawshank Redemption.'"
"I said, 'I wrote that one, too.' She said, 'No, you didn't,'" he said.
"Rita Hayworth & Shawshank Redemption" is a novella from King's 1982 book, "Different Seasons."
MANCHESTER -- The master storyteller did not disappoint. Stephen King, now 62, author of more than 50 books, held a sold-out audience of approximately 800 people at the Manchester Elementary Middle School gym enthralled Wednesday night, first with a reading from a chapter in his latest book, "Under the Dome," and then with a follow up question-and-answer session.
King was introduced at the event, which was sponsored by the Northshire Bookstore, by fellow writer and Dorset resident John Irving.
After taking the opportunity to respond to critics and book reviewers who have critiqued both his work and King’s for excessive length, Irving described King as one of the best storytellers around today and someone "who has been appalling us for years" -- in an enjoyable, entertaining and thought provoking way, he said.
What frightens people the most about King’s work is not the creepy, strange and bizarre characters that populate his novels, but rather, "the wondrous display of human error," he said.
"It’s what is human about the devil which makes that character so terrifying," Irving said. "The real horror comes from regular people."
King then took the stage to an enthusiastic ovation and began by urging the audience to go out and support local independent bookstores, like the Northshire, noting that a price war between Wal-Mart and Amazon Books had driven down the price of his book to $9 -- a level at which smaller bookstores could not hope to compete.
Then, before stating his reading, he gave the audience a bit of background about the long and winding road the tale took before falling into place. It may have been worth the wait -- "Under the Dome" made it’s debut on the New York Times best seller list last week at Number 1.
He first started the book in 1976 and wrote about 75 pages before stopping. He picked up the thread of the tale again a few years later, but the idea veered off in another direction and turned into a different book, he said.
"And then, for a long time, it just left my mind," he said. "But good ideas stay, and this one came back to my mind during a long plane ride to Australia." By the time he arrived there, he had the book more or less fully plotted out, he said.
"Under the Dome" is the saga of a small town in Maine named Chester’s Mills, whose residents woke up one day to discover that an enormous transparent dome has descended over the town, setting the stage for the novel’s principle bad guy, the town’s second selectman and police chief named "Big Jim" Rennie, to begin a takeover of the town’s government. To expand his power and the size of the police force, Rennie provokes a riot at a local supermarket in town. It was this scene, concluding with a frenzied crush as the beer coolers were broken into, that King read for about 30 minutes to an audience which seemed to be paying rapt and close attention.
King was last in Manchester four years ago when he appeared at a fund-raising event with John Irving at Maple street School in Manchester. His speaking appearances are relatively rare, and his audience came from some distances -- Ohio and North Carolina in two instances -- to hear his presentation, which was often animated and energetic, with arm and hand gestures punctuating his talk.
Afterward, King took questions from the audience. One questioner asked how he felt when he went back and re-read earlier books he had written. He said he sees some areas where a story went well, others when he could have done better. King said he always liked "The Shawshank Redemption," presumably referring to the novella he published in 1982 called "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption," which was the basis for a movie released in 1994.
"(Sometimes) I go back and get a sense of despair," he said. "I start off each project hoping it will go well. Usually, I’m like a shark, I have to keep moving and eating, but I certainly have books that I like."
Another questioner asked what was his first inspiration to start writing. He replied that, while a child he had been sick for a long time, about a year, and to entertain himself he started copying stories from comic books. His mother encouraged him to write something original, and one thing led to another, he said.
The subject of book length, which Irving touched on during his introduction of King, came up again during the questioning, At nearly 1,100 pages, "Under the Dome" is not an unusual length for one of his stories, and King recounted a discussion with a former editor from an earlier book who told him he needed to trim 400 pages from the manuscript he had submitted. Nothing was wrong with the writing, the editor said -- it was just too long.
"When you write a long book, every review at some point says this -- ‘(It) could have used a good editor! -- this is self-indulgent,’" King said. "What do you want? You want TV? Go watch TV."