Stephen King's main house with me in front.

We passed through the Maine to arrive at Québec, and on the way, we passed by Stephen King’s house. I unfortunately did not see him, but he passed our car just as we were arriving to his house. Both my parents saw him in the driver’s seat, but all I saw was a faint silhouette going further and further away.
We still toke our pictures, not staying any longer than a few minutes in respect of the Kings. This post is going to be for those of you unfortunate souls who have no idea who Stephen King is, or for those of you who know you have heard his name somewhere before.
Stephen Edwin King was born in Portland, Maine, on the 21st of September 1947. He is a writer of horror stories, novels, short stories, and also movie scripts. He was the son of Nellie Ruth Pillsbury and Donald Edwin King. When Stephen was two, his father left with the pretext of ‘going to buy a pack of cigarettes’, and he never came back.

Stephen King

Ellie King had to take care of Stephen and his older adopted brother David all alone, with some financial stress. They moved to Fort Wayne, Indiana, then to Stratford, Connecticut, and finally back to Durham, Maine, where Nellie could take care of her age-incapacitated parents. As a child, Stephen supposedly witnessed his friend being struck and killed by a passing train, although he has stated that he has absolutely no memory of this. Some people consider the fact that this trauma may the source for some of his more gruesome works, but Stephen himself denied this speculation. He entered into the University of Maine, where he graduated in 1970 with a Bachelor of Science in English. He had random jobs as well as the occasional boost of selling a short story to men’s magazines. In 1970, his first daughter, Naomi Rachel, was born, and in 1971, he married Tabitha Spruce, a fellow student of the University of Maine. In the same year he was hired as an English teacher in a highschool. It was also in the same year that he developed a drinking problem. In 1972, his second child, Joseph Hillstrom (often called Joe Hill), was born. And the following year, his first great succes with the publishing industry came with his novel ‘Carrie’. After winning $200,000 with the book, Stephen and his family moved further down in Maine so that they could take care of Stephen’s ill mother. During this time he began writing his second novel, ‘Salem’s Lot, which was published in 1975. In 1974, his mother died of uterine cancer, and Stephen’s drinking was very severe at the time, he was drunk while giving the eulogy at his mother’s funeral. After her death, the Kings moved to Boulder, Colorado, where Stephen wrote ‘The Shining’. They shortly after returned to Maine, where Stephen wrote his fourth novel, ‘The Stand’, which is considered by many fans to be his best work so far (I haven’t read all his books yet, so I can’t say for myself). In 1977, the family travelled briefly in England with the newest member, Owen Phillips, but they returned to Maine again, where Stephen began teaching creative writing at the University of Maine, while still continuing to write on the weekends. He has lived primarily in Maine ever since. He does spend to cold Maine winters in his second house in Florida however, but he considers his house in Maine as his home. After years of writing, he produced over 40 books, many of which were adapted to film.

Movie poster for the film adaptation of King's novel 'It'

In the late 1970s-early 1980s, Stephen published a few short stories and novels under the name of Richard Bachman. He did this because the publishing standards at the time allowed only one book to be published per year. He also did it as an experiment to see if his fame was just luck, or if he really was super talented. He published the stories, and soon Richard Bachman had received a lot of attention, and this is when many fans suspected that the Richard and Stephen were one and the same. However, Stephen still went along with the story, and when Richard ‘died’ of a cancer, his widowed wife found a box full of finished stories, which were published after his ‘death’. Perhaps she will ‘find’ another box full of ready novels sometime in the future.
In 1987, Stephen’s family intervened with his addictions to nicotine, alcohol, Xanax, cocaine, marijuana, diazepam, NyQuil, and dextromethorphan (cough medecine). After his family’s intervention, he realised his problem, and got help. He has been sober from all drugs and alcohol since the late 1980s.
On June 19th 1999, while taking his usual walk, he was on the shoulder of Route 5, in Lovell, Maine, when Bryan Smith, distracted by his unrestrained dog in the back seat, ran Stephen over, causing him a collapsed right lung, multiple fractures of his right leg, scalp laceration and a broken hip. His lawyers bought Bryan Smith’s vehicle for $1,500, saying it was to prevent it appearing on eBay. It was destroyed in a junkyard after Stephen had severely beaten it with a baseball bat, stating that he wanted to destroy it himself with a sledgehammer. He later stated that he would stop writing, but he still toke up writing again, but he made it clear that his imagination had becoming being much less productive, and that he would write at a much slower pace. He currently has three grand children, his two sons are published authors, and his daughter went into religion and became a homosexual as well as a gay activist.
I hope this enlightened you about how Stephen King is. I did not name much of his novels, but simply typing into google search ‘stephen king’s works’, will give you all you need to know.

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First official cover for the book.

Pet Sematary, is a horror novel written by Stephen King in 1983. It got nominated with a World Fantasy Award for Best Novel in 1984, and was then later made into a film. It is the story of the Creed family moving into the countryside from Chicago. Their home appears safe and their only neighbors are elderly, friendly people. The only real threat is the road passing by their new house, with the constant passing of large trucks. Louis Creed, a doctor and the man of the house, had gotten a job at a local university at the infirmary, and on his first day of proper work, he receives a patient who is surely going to die. The road accident victim, Victor Pascow, dies in the arms of Louis and haunts him continually in his dreams. When Church, the family cat, becomes a road kill while Louis’ wife (Rachel), his barely two year old son (Gage), and his five year old daughter (Ellie), are in Chicago visiting relatives, Jud Crandall, the friendly, elderly neighbor, helps him by taking him to beyond the Pet Sematary. The Pet Sematary, built and looked after by the children of the village (hence the misspelling), was built for all the animals who were run over by the dreadful trucks and some animals who died of old age or disease. But what was beyond the Pet Sematary, through the woods which used to belong to Indian tribes? Louis, led by Jud, found another cemetery, this an old Indian one hard to reach. When instructed to bury the cat there, Louis did and the following day, the cat returned alive. Slightly changed, and clumsy and untrusting, but still alive. When Louis’ son, Gage dies in another road accident, and Louis buries him in the Indian cemetery, Gage comes back much changed, in a very evil way.

Movie poster for Pet Sematary

I liked this book because firstly, it was written by Stephen King (who I think is awesome), and secondly because the story contains a lot of intrigue and suspense. Although at times some little plots are so obvious, the ending comes with some surprise. This being said, the ending is more of an open one, letting the reader imagine what they want to complete the story. This is a very frustrating and yet exciting way to read this novel. Frustrating because you do not know if your made up ending is the intended one, and exciting because you feel the author trusts you with his narrative.

This was made into a movie in 1988. It was directed by Mary Lambert, and Stephen King appeared in it as a small role of a priest at a funeral. A sequel movie was also made, Pet Sematary 2, but this movie was met with less critical and financial success. The movie does differ greatly in some very important details, sometimes the details were left out or else completely changed. The end also has an alternative feel to it. It does not have the same unfinished ending the book displays, forcing a definite end on the watcher. But I still think both the movie and the book were good in their own rights. I definitely recommend both of them.

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