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As part of the Althea Ward Clark W’21 Reading Series, bestselling author Stephen King and writer Eileen Myles read from their work on Wednesday, November 16, at 4:30 p.m. in the Berlind Theatre at McCarter Theatre Center. The event is free, however tickets are required. Tickets will be available to the public beginning October 28th — more details will be posted here on that date.
Please note that King will not sign books following the reading, however presigned books will be available for purchase.
Here’s the entire interview, in Q-and-A format:
Hello, Stephen. Thanks for your time.
Stephen King: I appreciate you doing this. The book is a University of Maine Press book, and I want them to sell as many copies as they can because then they can fund other projects. You know, it turned out to be a very good book. I had my doubts, but it was good. It’s also a hell of a look at the way college used to be 50 years ago. It’s changed a lot.
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Fifty years since you arrived on campus. Does it feel like it?
SK: Some days it seems like a hundred and fifty, but mostly it feels like you just looked back over your shoulder and you say, “How did it get so far away so fast?” You know, the time goes by. So on the whole, I’d say, no, it doesn’t seem like 50 years. Things have gone by so quickly.
You’ve spoken about the challenge of recapturing those times, first with “Hearts in Atlantis,” and now in the essay in this book. How hard was it to write that essay and feel like you were doing the era and the experience justice?
SK: I think that my initial reaction when Jim Bishop came to me with the idea was similar to a lot of other people that were in the book. It was, “I’m not sure if I want to go back to that time.” Living it was traumatic in some ways. It was great — I mean, when you’re 18, 19, 20 years old, you’re healthy and all your hormones are working, and your senses are acute. But at the same time, there are a lot of emotional upheavals. My high school girlfriend broke up with me, and that was traumatic. And we were all worried about the draft, the guys were, anyway, and a lot of the gals were worried for us. And furthermore, they were such a blur of classes, homework, events, card games, drinking at Pat’s, that I thought to myself, “I can’t really recapture it.”
But as a writer, I know that there’s a kind of hypnosis that kicks in. And if you can find a place to start, a lot of times the act of writing itself will open things up. And that’s what happened with me. The more I wrote, the more I remembered.
That really comes through. I was mentioning to my editor after reading it, that though you’re so well-known for your fiction, I sometimes enjoy reading your nonfiction; “On Writing” comes to mind. [Your essay in “Hearts in Suspension”] took me there. It made me feel like I was watching a film of what that time was like, and what your experience was like.
SK: Hopefully that’s the way that it works. A lot of the stuff that’s there, it’s interesting that apparently I remembered a lot of it correctly, because some of the other essays kind of backstop the things that I remember. I did check a couple of things, but some of the events are mixed up, chronologically, in my mind. I thought to myself, ‘Well, this is the way I’m gonna write it, because it’s the way that I remember it.’ So it’s more subjective than objective. If it feels like a film, that’s great.
I never knew you entered college as a Goldwater Republican. It seems like that’s kind of an apt metaphor for the times, or maybe for all time. You enter college, then over time, you find out that you didn’t know everything you thought you knew when you showed up, and transformed yourself into a very different person.
SK: Absolutely. I grew up in a really small community, Durham, Maine, and all my relatives were Republicans, going back three generations. They were rock-ribbed Methodists. We weren’t real, what you’d call “hard” Methodists, because we didn’t believe in drinking, but we could dance. It was a small community, dirt roads, farming. There was no reason to question anything.
As far as school went, when I went to grammar school, my class was three kids. Then, when I went to Lisbon High School, I think maybe the class I graduated in, it might have had 90, 95, because the whole school population was like 400. It’s changed a lot since then.
Coming to the University of Maine after [growing up in a small town] was like all at once you discover a brand new world. I know that I was shocked the first time that I heard people challenge my beliefs, because I wasn’t used to that. Little by little, my eyes were opened. Everybody’s were after a while. If you were in school, and if you were paying attention and using your intellect and listening to teachers and everything.
I think a lot of people in Maine — there was a prevailing theory at the time that all of the University of Maine professors were commies, and they were turning the kids into pinkos. All they were doing was teaching, “This is what’s happening, this is what’s going on. And draw your own conclusions.” Which we did.
Do you see any parallels between the turbulence of those times as compared to what we’ve got for political times now — the extreme polarity of views?
SK: No, I don’t. The current times disturb me a lot, because there seems to be, between left and right, a real hatred. And at that time, in the ‘60s, they talked about the generation gap, but the ties were strong. Yeah, there were marches that we had, marches against the war where eggs were thrown and in some cases, stones were thrown. But not a lot. There were no rallies of the sort — even when [George] Wallace ran in ‘68 — there were rallies like some of the ones, the [Donald] Trump rallies, where you could see guys wearing shirts that showed America with the [message], “We’re full. Get the f—k out.” That’s a different thing entirely. It’s a different feeling.
The closest you could get to the feeling of the ‘60s was there was this upwelling in 2010, 2011 about the 99 percent vs. the 1 percent, and Occupy Wall Street, and there was an Occupy movement here in Bangor. People would go past and yell things sometimes, but there was a tolerance that seems to be missing now. That’s the word I’m looking for.
Can you describe your relationships with those people that were the essayists. How much did you keep in touch in between, and how do you describe the relationship, and just the communal feel, [which] is the way [“Hearts in Suspension” editor] Jim Bishop described it to me yesterday, of the people that were there all together and working.
SK: I didn’t [keep in touch]. We said “Goodbye” on the day that we graduated in June of 1970, and I don’t believe I’ve seen any of those people again. I’ve probably seen Frank Kadi a couple of times. I think some of that has to do with the fact that people scattered to the four winds. But also, I scattered, in the sense that I never left the state, but I moved down to the western part of the state. I was down there a lot of the time. I mean, I was here for years and years and years, but we were occupied — I had my writing career, at the same time the kids were in school. So we had a lot going on there.
But I haven’t seen Phil Thompson since the day that we — no, that isn’t right — I saw Phil into the ‘70s, and then he kind of just dropped out. So I haven’t seen him for 40 years, not 50 years. But some of these people — Sherry Dresser, who is now Sherry Dec, nope. Diane McPherson, nope. Dave Bright, of course, I see Dave Bright from time to time, but I bet I haven’t even seen Dave for five or seven years.
What do you think it will be like on stage, seeing those faces again?
SK: I’m scared. I’m scared. And it isn’t like I think something’s going to go wrong. I don’t think anything’s going to go wrong. I think we’ll have a great discussion about what times were like, and hopefully some kind of contrast to the differences between the university, then and the university now. For one thing, the university’s a lot bigger now.
But I’ve got to tell you, I’m a little bit scared to see how my old college running buddies look now, and I’m a little bit scared for how they’re gonna look at me, and see the way that I look now. I’ve got to ask you. Have you been to any of your high school reunions? I went to one, I think it was like 10 years after we graduated from Lisbon High School, and that was enough for me.
Tell me about [your UMaine instructors] Jim Bishop and Burt Hatlen, and the role they played in your life. The things they taught, or the way that those messages have influenced you over the past 50 years?
SK: The very first class that I walked into on the very first day I came to the University of Maine was EH-1 [English composition], and Jim Bishop was teaching that class. So I met him at the very beginning, and he was a huge influence in my freshman year. Just the whole atmosphere, the give and take in that class, where we talked about writing and books and that sort of thing. When I was a sophomore, I met Burt, and the first time that I heard him lecture about poetry, and [William Butler] Yeats, I was transported by the new attitude, by the way that we were challenged intellectually. Then we started to have this poetry seminar where Jim Bishop was involved and Burt Hatlen — they were the main ones — but Graham Adams used to come to that one as well. That’s the passage of time.
I think Graham these days is living in Nova Scotia, and he might be suffering from some of the ills that we suffer from in our later years. That’s kind of sad. And Burt has gone on. But thank God Jim got in touch with me and persuaded me to do this.
I’m running out of my allotted time and I wanted to ask you this: I saw the photo of you and the “Vote Pennywise” poster. Any idea who put those up? Did you put those up?
SK: I didn’t put ‘em up. I have no idea who did. I think that it’s almost like a preordained thing that was going to happen at some level, because you get to this point of a campaign and people just sort of reach their gag reflex and the natural reaction is satire.
Any idea what [Pennywise] would be running for?
SK: I think probably Pennywise, given the temper of the times, could be a good candidate for president, or even possibly a candidate for governor. Now some people would claim that we have Pennywise for governor. But I’m not going to say that.
How scared are you right now — we always talk about what scares you — but how scared are you of the national and state political climate that we’re in right now?
SK: I’m very stressed out about the election. My kids are stressed out about the election. Everybody that I talk to is stressed out about the election. The Wall Street Journal did a piece that said Americans are more stressed by this election than any in the history of the republic. And it isn’t just us. People abroad, people in Europe … are very, very worried about what Americans are going to do [on Election Day]. Frankly, the worry is that Donald Trump might be elected, because the perception of him is of a man who is possibly dangerous. Short-tempered and unpredictable.
Author discusses his favorite Dylan songs – and dismantles critics who say he doesn't deserve the honor
Stephen King, who lives in Maine and Casey Key, visited for a sold-out book signing Wednesday at the bookstore on Palm Avenue in downtown Sarasota.
In an exclusive interview with the Herald-Tribune, King said he grew up unable to afford buying much at bookstores, frequenting libraries and drugstores' paperback racks instead.
Now that he can afford them, many people send him books for free. But he said he loves visiting bookstores, particularly Bookstore1Sarasota.
"I love to come to this place because they have everything, they hand-sell, it's well-lighted, you can browse," King said. "I can't browse as freely as I used to because people come up and say, 'Are you him?'"
He is the author of beloved, bestselling novels such as "The Shining," "Carrie," "The Stand" and "It," which were then adapted into successful movies and television series.
The author came to sign copies of his 2016 book "End of Watch," the third in a trilogy of crime novels following Detective Bill Hodges.
King has credited author and longtime Sarasota resident John D. MacDonald, including in a Herald-Tribune column, as a huge influence on his work. MacDonald's crime writing helped reject the idea that genre fiction and great literature are separate worlds — a belief King said many people still had while he was teaching a college seminar on popular fiction.
"I wanted to talk about books that were popular and still could count as literature," King said. "I taught this John D. MacDonald book in that course called 'The End of the Night,' which I still tell people to read to get an idea of what you can do with popular fiction."
Father-and-son effort
King soon will have a new book, which he co-wrote with son Owen King, called "Sleeping Beauties" set for release in September. (Another son of his, pen name Joe Hill, is also an author).
The story takes place in a world where all women have fallen asleep in a cocoon-like gauze and turn feral and violent if awoken, leaving men to themselves. King and his son had initially considered making a limited television series out of the premise, but believing that would bring too many other people into the process, spent two years writing it as a novel together.
"The way that it worked was we went back and forth, like tennis, like the book is the ball," King said. "I'd have it for three or four weeks and he'd have it for maybe three or four weeks or maybe a little bit longer. He's a slower composer than I am, but he's very, very good — very sharp, very funny."
King, 69, said there's been a lot of interest in the novel even before its publication, particularly with the ever-relevant topic of women's rights.
"It just turned out when we were writing this book, it never even occurred to us all of a sudden the whole question of women's rights and the way men that behave toward women (would arise.)" King said. "I think in a way what made us a fortune was that tape of Trump saying, 'I grab them by the p---y.' It just woke people up in some way."
King participated and spoke at the Sarasota Women's Solidarity March in January, which he said was a cathartic experience for everyone involved.
"A lot of us were really depressed and that thing was the day after the inauguration," King said. "And for everybody to come together and feel there was still a chance to make change and not to roll back everything that happened during the Obama years, that was good."
In addition to his upcoming book, there will be two films based on his work — a remake of "It" and "The Dark Tower" — hitting multiplexes this year.
King also has entered the streaming service game. Hulu made a television series of his novel "11/22/63" and has ordered another series called "Castle Rock," based on the fictional Maine town that frequently appears in King's writing. Netflix will also make two films adapting his novel "Gerald's Game" and novella "1922," both of which King has seen and said are terrific.
"And I've seen 'It' the film, and that's terrific," King said. "And I've seen 'The Dark Tower' and that's terrific."
Bookstore1Sarasota owner Georgia Court said this is the second time King has done an in-store book signing for the business and the fourth event overall, including two fundraisers for the Manatee County Library Foundation.
King not only did the appearances for free, he brought his friend and fellow best-selling author John Grisham to one of the fundraisers. He also accepted no appearance fee.
"This is unheard of on that fundraising circuit, totally unheard of," Court said. "He deserves all kinds of credit for his generosity to this area."
Nope. Well, there’s a lot of things I want to say about that, but I can’t. It’s too cool to talk about right now. All I can say is it won’t be out in 2017 because I’ve got enough going on.
They are about the same age, both are prolific with no signs of slowing down, and both have been profoundly influential for nearly five decades. And even though they began making their marks at the same time, they have never truly intersected.
On April 5, 1974, after honing his skills with years of unsettling short stories, a high school English teacher named Stephen King had his first novel published, Carrie, the story of a bullied teenage girl who harnesses telekinetic powers to exact fiery revenge.
On the same day, Universal Pictures wide-released the jailbreak comedy The Sugarland Express, the first theatrical film from a young director named Steven Spielberg, who’d made his name in TV with chilling movies of the week like Duel, Something Evil, and the Night Gallery episode “Eyes.”
King’s second book, Salem’s Lot, came out four months after Spielberg’s Jaws scared people out of the water in 1975. The year 1977 began with the January publication of The Shining and ended with the November release of Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Nearly every landmark in one Steve’s career is matched by the other’s.
They came close to collaborating a few times but never joined forces — although the generation of filmmakers who grew up as their fans now merge their styles. You can see it in the Duffer brothers’ Stranger Things and in director Andy Muschietti’s It, a King adaptation with an unabashed Spielbergian vibe.
“I don’t know how Stephen King and I aren’t related by blood,” says Spielberg, 71. “I cannot believe that part of Stephen King is not Jewish, and I can’t believe that we haven’t actually made a movie together. I really think Stephen and I have a spiritual connection in terms of the movies and the stories we love to tell.”
In a separate interview, King, 70, reveals that there was one movie they almost did together: Poltergeist. “It didn’t work out because it was before the internet and we had a communication breakdown,” he says.
Spielberg adds,“Yeah, I wanted him to help me out with the script and sort of write it with me, but he was unavailable.”
King never got the message — until it was too late. “I was on a ship going across the Atlantic to England,” he recalls. It took so long to reply that Spielberg moved on.
While the 1982 suburban scarefest went King-less, another of the author’s books caught Spielberg’s interest: 1984’s The Talisman, a fantasy quest through a monstrous alternate dimension that King co-wrote with Ghost Story author Peter Straub.
“Several times he came very close to making it, and there were a lot of discussions about that,” King says.
Spielberg says he still might. He liked the story so much that he bought the rights before it was published, when it was still a work in progress. “I feel that in the very near future, that’s going to be our richest collaboration. Universal bought the book for me, so it wasn’t optioned. It was an outright sale of the book,” Spielberg says. “I’ve owned the book since ’82, and I’m hoping to get this movie made in the next couple of years. I’m not committing to the project as a director, I’m just saying that it’s something that I’ve wanted to see come to theaters for the last 35 years.”
About a decade ago, Spielberg tried to turn the 944-page novel into a six-hour TNT miniseries, adapted by The Skeleton Key screenwriter Ehren Kruger. “At that time it was just too rich for TNT’s blood,” he says. “Then I pulled it back and decided to try to reconfigure it once again as a feature film.”
The Steves have had a few other close calls. In the mid-’90s, they discussed crafting a haunted-house tale set in a sprawling Victorian mansion, but after they shelved it King kept going with the concept and turned it into the 2002 ABC TV miniseries Rose Red.
Years later, through his Amblin Television company, Spielberg executive-produced the CBS TV show based on King’s 2009 book Under the Dome. And there are several shout-outs to the author in Spielberg’s new film, Ready Player One, including a chase through Stanley Kubrick’s version of The Shining and the killer Plymouth Fury from Christine tucked in among scores of other cars in a giant race.
At some point in the mid-’80s, while King was visiting L.A., the two men’s family’s did spend a day together, but it was strictly socializing: All play, and no work.
Spielberg brought a toy clock for King’s son Owen (who, last year, co-wrote the novel Sleeping Beauties with his dad). “It didn’t work at first, and he went crazy trying to get it to work,” King recalls of the clock incident. After an eternity of tinkering, they figured it out.
Maybe there’s a metaphor in that. Many years have passed without the two parallel Steves intersecting. But there’s still time to fix that.
“American Pastoral” is one of the five best novels I have ever read, maybe the best. It is muscular storytelling complemented by characters — especially Swede Levov — who burn their way into one’s memory. The scope is relatively small, but the ambition is epic. Few can handle the passing years as well as Roth does here. It ranks with the greatest of American fiction.