The Girl Who Loved Stephen King

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22. 'Salem's Lot' (1975).

- May 13, 2020

'Salem's Lot - Beware: Spoilers ahead. I first read Salem's Lot when I was about thirteen, and it was perhaps the fourth or fifth King I had read. I had seen the miniseries before reading the book, and other than the horribly striking scene of Ralphie Glick dragging his nails squeakily down his brother's bedroom window, found the whole thing a disappointing bore-fest, particularly coming from Tobe Hooper. I have to admit that my first reading of Salem's Lot was probably influenced by my opinion of the miniseries, and I really had to drag myself through it. It didn't help that very few of the major protagonists were women or children, unlike It and The Shining, and at thirteen, my range of empathy didn't extend much further than myself. I really wasn't looking forward to re-reading this, so imagine my surprise when I found I was thoroughly enjoying it. I read the much more recently written introduction at the start of the text, just to get a se

21. 'The Lawnmower Man' (1975).

- May 10, 2020

This particular blog post won't be a long one - from what I can tell there is only one short story separating Carrie from Salem's Lot , and it's not one which has a huge amount to say for itself. It's a bonkers, gruesome, pretty silly story, that I enjoyed in less than fifteen minutes. The Lawnmower Man It's difficult to outline the premise of this story without simply spilling the entire thing. It's told from the perspective of a fairly ordinary, suburban family man, Harold Parkette, who is reluctant to get his lawn cut after an unpleasant accident caused his neighbour's cat to be run over by his lawnmower the year before. When the lawn eventually gets out of control, Harold calls a new service he finds advertised in the newspaper, and unfortunately for him, discovers that the service provided is anything but ordinary. This is a short story even by short story standards, and I was initially baffled by how anyone could have made a feature length pic

'A Head Full of Ghosts' by Paul Tremblay (2015).

- May 05, 2020

A Head Full of Ghosts - Beware: Spoilers ahead. This is my first non-King related post, and I've chosen this particular book because it was one of the first I read as part of my New Year's Book Resolution (part 2). I had heard about this book countless times, and became even more intrigued after listening to Paul Tremblay speaking as a guest on the Books in the Freezer podcast (which is great for your reading list and terrible for your bank balance). A Head Full of Ghosts is a modern take on the possession sub-genre. At first glance, the premise doesn't sound particularly original; Marjorie, a teenage girl from a comfortable, middle-class family, suddenly starts behaving strangely, frightening her little sister, swearing at her parents, vomiting in her dinner. The usual. Bring in the priests, right? The only difference is that Marjorie's exorcism will be filmed, edited, and played to the nation on prime time television. The story is told through a mix of flashba

20. 'Carrie' (1974).

- April 27, 2020

Carrie - Beware: Spoilers ahead. King’s first published novel, Carrie , is a rare example of a story that has retained its power over forty years. It is the story of a high-school outcast with a religious zealot mother, who suffers the ultimate humiliation when she has her first period in the school showers after gym class. Due to her mother’s refusal to acknowledge a woman’s sinful reproductive system, Carrie does not understand what is happening to her, and her terror is compounded by the reaction of the girls around her, who pelt her with sanitary towels and tampons.This mix of fear and humiliation triggers a latent telekinetic power in Carrie, and the activation and growth of this power propels Carrie and her fellow students to a horrific, deadly fate. Carrie White is an iconic character, recognisable the world over. Most who haven’t read the book have seen one of the movies, and even those who haven’t won't show a completely blank face at the mention of her

19. 'Sometimes They Come Back' (1974).

- April 20, 2020

This next story stands alone for me as a particularly memorable and unusual. Many of King's early stories take inspiration from sources in his childhood and his own favourite authors and filmmakers ( Trucks and Duel , Grey Matter and The Blob, etc), but this feels all his own. Sometimes They Come Back Sometimes They Come Back is an updated, original take on a haunting, where the 'ghosts' take on a more solid shape. This is one of the best known of Stephen King's short stories, mainly due to the three movies it spawned (one made-for-TV, two straight to video). The material probably is meaty enough to make a movie out of, although the director took significant liberties with the source material, fluffing out a simpler, harsher story that probably would have created a more subtle, streamlined film. The story is centred on Jim Norman, a young English teacher with a dark history. As a boy, Jim narrowly escaped being killed by a gang of bullies on the way to the loca

17. 'It Grows on You', and 18. 'Grey Matter' (both 1973).

- April 15, 2020

The next two stories on my list don't have a huge amount in common, but I've popped these two together because I thought both were a little thin, like snippets of much bigger ideas. Many of these early King stories have felt like practice runs for his bigger novels, and perhaps that's what some of them are. It Grows on You It wasn't that I didn't like It Grows on You , exactly, I just couldn't quite work out where it was going. Just as with Night Surf , four years earlier, I felt like this was more a collection of interesting ideas and a concept that King wanted to explore, but couldn't quite get a handle on. The story is the first set in King's famous fictional Maine town of Castle Rock, and is told through the gossipy old man conversations of a small group in a general store. The town of Castle Rock is dying, but the Newall house, visible from the store, is alive and growing. It's a house with a history of death and devastation; among other

0.5 - 'Jumper' and 'Rush Call' (both 1959) and 16. The Horror Market Writer and the Ten Bears: A True Story (1973).

- April 10, 2020

I thought I'd take a brief moment to comment on these three little snippets from my recently arrived hardback, Secret Windows: Essays and Fiction on the Craft of Writing . The first two I mentioned in my first story post; they are where I suppose I should have started - King's first published works. The second is an interesting little essay about how to get your work published as an aspiring horror writer, and the 'ten bears' you can use to play upon the fears of the reader. Jumper and Rush Call Oh, so cute! Baby King could write, alright. He was just twelve when he wrote these two stories and put them in his brother's self-published newsletter called Dave's Rag. The first of the two is a story about a psychiatrist trying desperately to convince his patient to come off the ledge he claims he is about to jump from. Little King has great fun toying with the reader - will he jump? Will he be pushed? The second story is about a close-to-retirement doctor who

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