Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Protection built in.

Meet the Other Phone.
Protection built in.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to utterly love Stephen King?

319 replies

minifingers · 29/09/2014 14:45

Ex secondary English teacher, who snootily resisted his books and the whole horror genre for decades, in favour of Turgenev, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Jane Austen, and lots of serious modern authors like Saul Bellow.

Had children, got too knackered and thick to read serious fiction so tarted on the Stephen Kings.

I find that I absolutely love his books. Love them, and the mind which created them.

Worried that I'm going to end up like that woman in Misery - you know, the Kathy Bates character. Obsessed.

Anyone else got a Stephen King pash or is it just me? He's not very mumnsetty.

OP posts:
Thread gallery
5
NuggetofPurestGreen · 29/09/2014 21:36

Only two I didn't manage to finish were Lisey's story and tommy knockers.

I was interested in Duma Key about how it could have been about his own injuries (also see Dreamcatcher when Pete gets hit by the car). However have always found it a bit creepy that Misery charts a similar recovery from injuries from a car accident that wrecked his legs and describes the pain etc so well and how he (Paul) gets back into writing - written more than 10 years before SK's own accident...

NuggetofPurestGreen · 29/09/2014 21:37

(When Jonesy gets hit by the car I mean)

TolstoyAteMyHamster · 29/09/2014 21:37

Webchat! Webchat! Webchat!

pointythings · 29/09/2014 21:42

If MN gets SK on a webchat I will personally take a day of leave to be there.

I have read The Ledge - brilliant.

FlossieTreadlight · 29/09/2014 21:42

I'm also a SK fan, with IT and the stand in my top 5 (need to think about the rest carefully). I loved The Talisman and the Dark Tower series which I'd so recommend if you haven't. ( has anyone read insomnia? There are crossover characters with DT, as well as in The Stand). I felt bereft when I'd finished the dark tower series...

I think IT stands out for me as the most terrifying book he's written but the late 70s early 80s cover of Carrie terrified me as a child - I remember seeing it in my uncles house and having to slam something down on it to cover the front cover with Carrie's face covered in blood. Confused

I recently read Joyland which I'd really recommend - some of his loveliest writing I think. His son has published under the name joe Hill - I've read one which was ok...

OnIlkelyMoorBahtat · 29/09/2014 21:43

If MN gets SK on a webchat I will personally take a day of leave to be there.

Hear hear!

CoreyTrevorLahey · 29/09/2014 21:58

SK would so be up for a webchat. That man is a feminist!

MrsMinton · 29/09/2014 22:13

Nugget The End Of The Whole Mess was the water story.

FurryDogMother · 29/09/2014 22:28

I think SK is a genius, but in many ways I hate what he writes. He 'goes there' when you really hope he's not going to, and bad things happen to good people. Reading The Shining and Salem's Lot - they both freaked me out for months - his books suck you in and you're right there, living it, with his characters. I can't think of another writer that can do that - but at the same time he drags me into places I really don't want to go, and so I find myself reading him with an almost deliberate detachment, like watching the telly from behind the sofa with one eye open and your favourite teddy clutched tight.

WyldChyld · 29/09/2014 22:41

Another vote for a webchat and I PROMISE not to squeal like a total fangirl that I will attend!!

Duma Key scared the SHIT out of me. I love his imagery (although it terrifies me) - the blood in the sink in IT, the dead woman in the bathtub in The Shining / Dr Sleep, Perse and the ships in Duma Key. It's so realistic - hence why my bathtub gives me the creeps at night...And so often, it's such a simple image - think how innocuous some of his scariest images are. The blood in the sink kept me awake needing to pee for days.

I loved The Stand - I always want to know what happened next! His characters are so real I always feel like they could be friends.

I can't read The Green Mile without howling. All the way through The Bad Death of Eduard Delacroix (which gives me chills - the turkey skin analogy...) and the final 40 pages or so.

PsychicCaramel · 29/09/2014 22:56

I love a good Stephen King. I've only read a fraction of his work so far (working on that) and he can be a bit hit and miss but overall I think he's brilliant.
I'm reading Gerald's Game at the moment for the second time, I don't think it's one of his most highly rated but it's one of my favourites and it's the only book I've ever read that scared me so much I had trouble sleeping afterwards (granted this was quite a few years back). I'm at that part now though and I'm having to force myself to read further... I think the first time I skimmed through and skipped some of it as it was just too gruesome.

Nessalina · 29/09/2014 22:57

A web chat would be AWESOME Grin

EvilRingah - I first read the Stand 10 years ago and couldn't remember any of it, it was just too big and epic for me I think. I'm a fast reader and I think I probably sped through it and missed a lot of the nuance and detail
Recently downloaded the unabridged audiobook, and absolutely LOVED it. I think I could just feel the shape of it better, and I could really appreciate how good it was! Smile

I still have to read 11.22.63, I have the book in hardback and it's a bigger to take to work, but I've just finished for mat leave, so it'll be a treat to finally get in to it!

WeAreGroot · 29/09/2014 23:19

I think SK is a genius, but in many ways I hate what he writes. He 'goes there' when you really hope he's not going to, and bad things happen to good people.

I was devastated when I finished Duma Key for the first time. I adore the book and read it regularly but I find myself skimming over a certain line or two right at the end when I do, as if I can pretend in my head that it didn't happen.

wobblyweebles · 30/09/2014 03:15

I got the chance to meet him at a political fundraiser recently but... Meh, it would have been $50 to attend... His.books are good but not that good. His politics OTOH are spot on.

CheerfulYank · 30/09/2014 04:28

$50! I'd pay four times that and I'm broke as a joke. Shock

Yohoahoy · 30/09/2014 08:01

Gosh, webchat would be fab :)

PorkPieandPickle · 30/09/2014 08:25

LOVE LOVE LOVE SK!!
Favourite the stand, am fascinated by post above that mentioned a sequel to the stand- but am fairly sure I'm getting my hopes up for nothing

SquirrelledAway · 30/09/2014 10:04

I've just finished Dr Sleep and really enjoyed it, a good sequel to The Shining.

Wasn't very keen on Cell, Dreamcatcher, Desperation and The Tommyknockers, but loved 11:22:63.

Shawshank Redemption was a great movie adaptation, anyone else like the movie version of Secret Window, Secret Garden?

Short story favourites are The Mangler, The a Library Policeman, Here a There Be Tygers and Crouch End.

Jackiebrambles · 30/09/2014 10:08

I was thinking last night how awesome a SK Mumsnet webchat would be, glad you all agree. Please Mumsnet, make it happen!! Grin

Celticlass2 · 30/09/2014 10:10

Good to hear you enjoyed Dr sleep Squirrelled I'll get it on my kindle.

Original poster
minifingers · 30/09/2014 10:11

I really enjoyed Dr Sleep too.

My sister is a recovering alcoholic and very active in AA. I particularly like the way he writes about AA - reflects what my sister tells me.

OP posts:
magpiegin · 30/09/2014 10:14

I love SK. I used to read my sister's books as a teen. Love Pet Semetary, Under the Dome, Misery, The Dark Half and so many more.

Luxluna · 30/09/2014 10:42

I LOVE thread!

My favourites are

IT
The Stand
Salem's Lot
Desperation

And I really enjoyed Doctor Sleep, a lot more than I enjoyed The Shining.

The end of 'IT' always makes me cry, when Mike is beginning to forget everyone and he's trying to hold on to it all!

TheOriginalSteamingNit · 30/09/2014 10:46

I think there are some beautiful parts in SK, quite often not the 'horror' bits (the boys sneaking up to the treehouse in Christine to eat white bread, for example, and the moments before it all goes to shit in Pet Sematry about parenting, though I haven't read that one since I became a parent). He's also extremely good at terror and horror and the uncanny - spot on in terms of what makes something genuinely terrifying as opposed to just gory.

I definitely don't think he's a feminist, though! Big Driver, anyone? Wives are usually lovely and supportive, or bitches: they rarely do much else. The new society at the end of The Stand is very much a utopia based on old gender roles, too.

Jackiebrambles · 30/09/2014 10:49

I love what a PP said about IT being the best depiction of childhood there is.

It's so true, IT has stuck with me more than anything I have read before or since. The lovely bits and the horrible bits.

I absolutely loved how a couple of the characters made a cameo in 11:22:63.

In fact that's one of the best things about SK's writing, the interconnections of the places and people between his novels that make you feel like you are 'coming home' whenever you read another one.

That and the warmth you feel as one of his 'constant readers'.

That said I did have to throw Dreamcatcher in the bin as it made me feel physically ill!

What the hell are we going to do when he stops writing?!