Stephen King paperbacks were a staple of the Cheese Fry's bookshelf during his high school and college years. They filled one entire shelf, arranged neatly in order of publication (of course), spines crinkled and worn with use.
We've lost touch with Mr. King since the early 1990s (though we are faithful readers of his Entertainment Weekly columns), but much of his work has stuck with us. No one is better at mixing everyday pop culture ordinariness with scary, out-of-the-ordinary thrills and chills. But there's more to it than just cool scary stories.
King may be a best-selling populist author, but he's ambitious, long-winded, and literary in ways that the Stephanie Meyers and Dan Browns of the world never will be. His books aren't always high-concept. It's not just about the hook. His many books and short stories (he's nothing if not prolific) can be sprawling and messy. He's really trying to understand who we are and why we do what we do. He'll try anything once, it seems, always trying to stretch himself as a writer. So not everything is a home run. He often has trouble with his endings. With set-ups so outrageous, there are sometimes no easy resolution that plausibly allows the hero to save the day. And we do stipulate that some of his books are just plain awful (don't ever, ever read The Tommyknockers). This odd inconsistency makes him seem all the more mortal and fallible. He's not perfect. He's just very, very good at what he does.
Here are the best:
1. The Shining - Probably the scariest book we've ever read.
2. Firestarter - For those of us who love an evil-government-conspiracy-thriller, this is a classic.
3. Pet Sematary - This one goes to some very dark, very depressing places. Not exactly entertaining, but certainly memorable.
4. The Green Mile - One of King's fastest-paced, most spry novels.
5. The Stand - Even though it's an epic story, the book is probably too long. But it's one of the best post-apocalyptic stories where the end of the world prefaces a literal clash of Good versus Evil.
6. The Dead Zone - King's most high-concept book: what would you do if you had the chance to kill Hitler before he rose to power?
7. Cell - King's take on zombies. The Cheese Fry loves zombies. Ergo we loved this book.
8. On Writing - King's detailed, fascinating rumination on the struggles and challenges of being a writer. Essential reading for would-be writers.
I'm a commenting foo today! Have you read LISEY'S STORY? Very good, I thought. ON WRITING was fantastic. You should blog about the tornado siren going off while you were reading THE SHINING - I still laugh about that one!
ReplyDelete