I am very excited to be here today to review one of my favorite authors - Stephen King. The bestseller I’m reviewing is ROSE MADDER. I actually listened to the booktape and so besides reviewing the book today I’m here to tell you of the wonders of books on tape and how well they fit into our busy lives today. (Just as any T.V. show does we must start out with a commercial - this is my commercial!) I first discovered booktapes when I started hearing how great they would be for car trips. What a wonderful way to spend what would otherwise be boring interstate miles listening to romance, suspense, comedy or anything else that strikes your fancy. In fact I enjoyed listening SO much that I had to find other times - car trips were definitely not enough! So I discovered there are many times in the days and weeks when I’m doing thoughtless chores such as exercising, cleaning house, or just riding in the car doing errands around town that a good story just makes the time go by more quickly.
Just as I’m doing now I had to try to convince anyone who would listen how fun these book tapes were. So I mentioned to one couple here in town that a booktape was the only way to travel and they decided to try it. They drove the six hours to Kansas City to visit their children and would you believe when they arrived the book was not finished. What did they do? You know how it is when you are reading a book you just can’t put down - they pulled off in a parking lot and listened to the ending. Now that’s a good booktape!
Stephen King has always fascinated me. (Mention pics of King) I’ve always wondered what kind of mind could possibly come up with all of those wild stories. However, everything I read points to a relatively normal man born in Portland, Maine, USA in 1947. He was educated at the University of Maine and has lived most of his adult life in Maine - in the Portland area or where he presently lives in Bangor, Maine. He and his wife Tabitha King, also a novelist, have three children, Naomi, Joe and Owen Philip.
Many of his books have taken place in make-believe Maine towns. Here is a picture of what is called The Maine (according to Stephen King). Now many of the names would be much different than if you looked at a true map of Maine. You will find on this map the town of Little Tall Island where Dolores Claiborne resides and Castle Rock, the home of Cujo, the boys in "Stand by Me", and Johnny Smith in Dead Zone who wakes up after being in a coma for 4 years. You will find Derry, Mt. Desert Island, and St. Stephen. I found this on the Internet and you have only to click on the map to know exactly what happened where and to whom.
Beginning with his first novel CARRIE published in 1974, Stephen King has written 28 novels, 5 collections of stories, 8 screenplays, 1 non fiction book, and many, many short stories. Of these 38 have been made into a movie, TV mini series, or TV special. He has managed to have a bit part in 10 of those. It’s always interesting to see whether he’ll pop up as a truck driver, minister, cemetery caretaker, or hoagie man!
Everyone with yellow sheets please hold them up. These are Stephen King novels! In addition there are two of his novellas on the lighter yellow, his non fiction book on the bright pink sheet, and his collections of short stories on the purple sheets. If you would hold these up also and call out the name of the book that is on your sheet please! (As I continue, you can pass these sheets around & exchange them, because quite a few of the sheets have additional facts and trivia that may be of interest to you.)
Between 1977 and 1984 he published five novels under the pseudonym of Richard Bachman. Those with blue sheets please tell us the names on your sheets. He developed a biography and personality for Richard Bachman complete with a picture of the author on the back cover, but somehow he couldn’t fool people for long. His final Bachman book THINNER, had sold about 28,000 copies in hardcover. Now 28,000 is not in the best seller category, but even at that is 4000 more copies than his NIGHT SHIFT sold in 1978 About this time a Washington bookstore clerk and writer named Steve Brown got suspicious, went to the Library of Congress, and uncovered Stephen King’s name on one of the Bachman copyright forms. As soon as this information was out 280,000 copies were sold. Why did he use this false name? King says, "The numbers have gotten very big. I have times when I feel as if I planted a modest packet of words and grew some kind of magic beanstalk or a runaway garden of books (OVER 40 MILLION KING BOOKS IN PRINT!!!!, as my publisher likes to trumpet). Or, put it another way-sometimes I feel like Mickey Mouse in FANTASIA. I knew enough to get the brooms started, but once they start to march, I couldn’t stop them, things are never the same. Did I do it because I thought I was overpublishing the market as Stephen King? The answer is no. I didn’t think I was overpublishing the market...but my publisher did. I love my life. I’m still married to the same woman, my kids are healthy and bright, and I’m being very well paid for doing something I love." He goes on to say that perhaps he wanted to see if he could "make it" again. He intended Bachman to follow THINNER with a little suspense thriller called MISERY and thinks that might have just put "Dicky" (as he has nicknamed Bachman) over the top and onto the best seller list.
The boy Stephen King believed everything he was told as a boy. He says," One kid told me with complete certainly that if you put a dime down on a railroad track, the first train to come along would be derailed by it. Another kid told me that a dime left on a railroad track would be perfectly smooshed by the next train, and what you took off the rail after the train had passed would be a flexible and nearly transparent coin the size of a silver dollar. My own belief was that both things were true, that dimes left on railroad tracks were perfectly smooshed before they derailed the trains which did the smooshing. I still love a good story..I love hearing one and I love telling one. I was paid a great deal of money to publish this book, but I wasn’t paid a cent for writing this book. I am grateful to be talking to you the reader once more. I am glad to know that you are still there, alive and well and waiting to go to some other place - a place where perhaps, the walls have eyes and the trees have ears and something really unpleasant is trying to find its way out of the attic and downstairs, to where the people are." So in order to enter the world of Rose Madder let’s imagine as Stephen King would and repeat a catechism he had in one of his earlier books:
I believe a dime can derail a freight-train.
I believe there are alligators in the New York City sewer system, not to mention rats as big as Shetland ponies.
I believe that you can tear off someone’s shadow with a steel tent-peg.
I believe that there really is a Santa Claus, and that all those red-suited guys you see at Christmastime really are his helpers.
I believe there is an unseen world all around us.
I believe that tennis balls are full of poison gas, and if you cut one into and breathe what comes out, it’ll kill you.
Most of all, I do believe in spooks, I DO believe in spooks, I DO believe in spooks.
Okay? Ready? Fine. Here’s my hand. We’re going now. I know the way. All you have to do is hold on tight.. ..and believe.
(PLAY THE TAPE! ROSE MADDER SONG!)
Roused by a single drop of blood on the bedsheet, Rosie Daniels wakes from fourteen years of a nightmare marriage and suddenly decides to take flight. Scared to death she decides to take her husband’s ATM card and dares to get $350 with it. She buys a bus ticket, throws the ATM card in the trash fearful that if she doesn’t he’ll for sure catch her and strikes out of her own for the first time in her life. She is determined to lose herself in a city where Norman will never find her.
Alone in a strange city, she encounters the kindness of strangers and begins to make a new life for herself. Good things start to happen. By chance she enters Liberty City Loan and Pawn meets Bill Steiner who becomes very important to her, is offered a job reading books on tape (if you can believe), and finds an odd junk-shop painting that seemed to be just perfect for her new apartment. Somehow, the painting seems to want her as much as she wants it. The painting seems to change over time. It begins to look dimensional and expand. She begins to see more of the landscape. How can that be? (Only in a Stephen King book, right?) Let’s listen!
(PLAY THE TAPE!)
Strange! And believe me it does get even more strange! However, the picture is the least of Rosie’s problems. It’s hard for Rosie not to keep looking over her shoulder, and with very good reason. Her husband is a cop, with the instincts of a predator. He’s very good at finding people. The fact that he’s losing his mind works to his advantage in finding her. Let’s listen to Stephen King as the voice of Norman Daniels. ( I might say that if you are at all offended by bad language, bigoted statements, and a character who is a total deviant with NO redeeming qualities, you will not want to get to know Norman Daniels. I thought it would be so wonderful to let you listen to Stephen King read this part, however, I must say that I certainly had a difficult time finding a very long segment that was not entrenched with four letter words and hideous bigotry. Here are three short segments that I hope will give you a clue into the personality of Norman Daniels.)
(PLAY THE NORMAN TAPE!)
Rose-maddened and on the rampage, Norman Daniels becomes a force of relentless terror and savagery. He is a man obsessed and almost mythic in his monstrosity. For Rosie to survive, and have a chance in her new world, she must enter her own myth - a world that lies beyond the surface of a work of art. She must become a woman she never knew she could be: Rose Madder!
(PLAY THE ROSE MADDER SONG!)
There may be times that you wish you did have someone’s hand to hang on to as Stephen King’s imagination and storytelling genius keep the listener or reader captivated and on the edge of your seat, holding your breath and just a little afraid of ghosts! I hope this will join the list of movies and screenplays that you people in pink may hold up now. Please call out the names you have on your sheets!
As I mentioned, in anticipation of this book review I checked out the Internet, found some Stephen King Emailers Extraordinaire and have joined up. It seems that Stephen King has actually emailed them and to prove it’s him has given clues as to what he is working on and what will be coming out. Several have already proven to be true! I’ll let you know if I get a personal email. I do have a borrowed autograph from Ben Wicks. Several years ago perhaps many of you heard that Stephen King himself stopped out at the Colby Sirloin Stockade in the late afternoon. It was a slow time with no one but the help in the restaurant and they did recognize him. I had heard that one of the waitresses came up to him and said "I’m your #1 Fan," which was a line by Annie from MISERY. He just grinned, said yes, he was Stephen King and agreed to sign some autographs.
Now if those of you who have green sheets will hold them up please. These are the names that we can expect to see in the near future. THE GREEN MILE will be released as a series of six 96 page paperbacks on the last Monday of each month from March to August. King will receive about a million dollars per installment. The first two parts are titled "The Two Dead Girls" and " The Mouse on the Mile." (The first one is out and the internet emailers are just going crazy "chatting" about it!) DESPERATION will be published on August 1st. THE REGULATORS and THE DARK TOWER IV: WIZARD AND GLASS will also come out soon.
Other bulletins: THINNER is due out in theaters this month.
NEEDFUL THINGS will air on TV on May 22 and
THE SHINING will be shot in Colorado over 13 weeks beginning March 11th. I have a newspaper article from Estes Park. Many local artisans are refurbishing the lobby of the Stanley Hotel where shooting will take place for 5 weeks. Peggy Wicks was up there last week, went to eat at the Stanley and they were shooting. They’d come in say please be quiet, the diners would hear a blood-cuddling scream, and then they would cut and they could go back to their dining. The newspaper tells of extras that they have used and show Stephen King as band leader Gage Creed (if you are a Stephen King fan and that name rings a bell, you are certainly correct. Gage Creed was the little boy in Pet Cemetery) Stephen King showed up unannounced at a local book store in Estes and offered to sign books. Following this shooting they will move their new movie studio to the old Stapleton airport. Old Town Arvada will serve as Sidewinder. This 6 hour miniseries will air in the spring of 1997.
As you can see I have more information than probably you ever wanted to know today. I’ve tried to give you just a feel for the book ROSE MADDER, but even more important to me is the interesting man behind the book. Even though he is almost fifty and beginning to gray slightly around the edges, Stephen King is still afraid of the thing under the bed, and although millions of readers worldwide have been scared to death by him he still leaves a small light on in the bathroom at night. ROSE MADDER leaves you knowing this and is Stephen King at his electrifying best.
Now I began with a commercial so I feel the need to also end with a commercial. We began with the wonders of books on tape and I want to end with the wonders of Pioneer Memorial Library. Keep in mind all the wonderful options the Pioneer Library has to offer in addition to the over 37,000 books. There are 133 magazine subscription titles, 1116 videos, 78 cake pans, puzzles, games, Polaroid cameras, video cassette player, all sorts of A-V equipment, a public-use computer, color printer, and typewriter, a microfiche/microfilm reader/printer, CD’s, and lastly don’t forget any of those 995 wonderful booktapes. Be entertained as you are driving or working at home. We all loved to be read to as children and to continue this experience into adulthood and have it be acceptable is really great fun! Remember if you ever see me in the car now and I seem a little preoccupied or forget to wave, you can bet Stephen King or someone like him has me under his spell and I’m listening to some exciting tale of mystery, suspense, or romance and enjoying every minute of it!