Notes Chapter 1 1. Allen’s choice of Dickens as the “literary” in contrast to King’s populist is interesting, as there have been comparisons between King and Dickens drawn throughout much of King’s career, including Dickens’s long-time dismissal by his contemporary critics as a populist writer pandering to his audience. As fellow writer Peter Straub comments in Jane Ciabattari’s “Is Stephen King a Great Writer?”, King’s “readership is even larger and more inclusive and the similarities between King and Dickens, always visible to those who cared for King’s work, have become all but unavoidable. Both are novelists of vast popularity and enormous bibliographies, both are beloved writers with a pro- nounced taste for the morbid and grotesque, both display a deep interest in the underclass” (qtd. in Ciabattari). Chapter 2 1. The theme of small town secrets is a familiar one for King, a central factor in several of his books. In addition to Jerusalem’s Lot, some of King’s other notable small towns include Castle Rock, Derry, and Haven, all of which are fictional towns in King’s Maine and the settings of several of his novels. 2. Chapter 11 focuses exclusively on King and graphic novels, including an overview of graphic novel conventions and terminology. Chapter 3 1. As Charlotte F. Otten outlines the outcome of Grenier’s case, “The court, rec- ognizing his mental aberration and limited intelligence, sentenced him to life in a monastery for moral and religious instruction. He died there at age twenty, scarcely human” (9). Other accused werewolves weren’t so lucky and often “the rudimentary proceedings and the mass executions bore something of the same hysteria as such manifestations of the Salem witch trials” (Copper 27). 2. Cycle of the Werewolf’s structure is also unique in that King originally imagined it as text to accompany a calendar, as a series of 12 monthly vignettes, echoing the lunar pattern of the werewolf’s transformation at the coming of the full moon. 178 NOTES 3. LeBay’s brother has his doubts about the nature of these deaths, however. When Dennis pushes George LeBay for the rest of the story, George tells him that after his daughter’s death, “Veronica wrote Marcia a letter and hinted that Rollie had made no real effort to save their daughter. And that, at the very end, he put her back in the car. So she would be out of the sun, he said, but in her letter, Veronica said she thought Rollie wanted her to die in the car” (Christine 433), a choice Dennis interprets as an act of “human sacrifice” (ibid.). George also has his doubts about his sister-in-law’s suicide, telling Dennis “I’ve often wondered why she would do it the way she did—and I’ve wondered how a woman who didn’t know the slightest thing about cars would know enough to get the hose and attach it to the exhaust pipe and put it through the window. I try not to wonder about those things. They keep me awake at night” (Christine 434). Beyond the many literal ghosts that populate Christine, George LeBay is haunted by these unanswered questions, just as Dennis will be haunted by the myriad ways in which he was unable to save Arnie. 4. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, with schizophrenia, “People with the disorder may hear voices other people don’t hear. They may believe other people are reading their minds, controlling their thoughts, or plotting to harm them. This can terrify people with the illness and make them withdrawn or extremely agitated” (“What Is Schizophrenia?”). While the effects of schizophrenia can include hallucinations and delusions, in truth schizophrenics don’t usually experience the multiple personalities exhibited by Mort Rainey. 5. The second book of King’s Dark Tower series,The Drawing of the Three (1987), features another complex dissociative character in Odetta Holmes/Detta Walker, whose “two personalities—the sophisticated and wealthy Odetta and the uneducated and vulgar Detta—lead separate lives, completely unaware of each other” (Strengell 72). 6. King keeps the supernatural possibility alive as well, as at least a partial expla- nation. A witness tells Amy about seeing Mort talking to Shooter: “according to what Sonny says, Tom looked in his rear-view mirror and saw another man with Mort, and an old station wagon, though neither the man nor the car had been there ten seconds before . [B]ut you could see right through him, and the car, too” (Secret Window 380, emphasis original). 7. Rage is discussed at length in Chapter Six. 8. Many readers and critics wondered why King had chosen to publish under a pseudonym, when his own name and work had begun to be so well known and popular and this is a question he addressed in his introduction to the col- lected Bachman Books, in an essay titled “Why I Was Bachman.” One of the main reasons he discusses is, in fact, to directly counter the fame he had already achieved early in his career. As King says, “I think I did it to turn the heat down a little bit; to do something as someone other than Stephen King. I think that all novelists are inveterate role-players and it was fun to be someone else for a while—in this case, Richard Bachman” (“Why I Was Bachman” viii). He addressed this question from another angle and in further detail on the “Fre- quently Asked Questions” section of his official website, where he says that “I NOTES 179 did that because back in the early days of my career there was a feeling in the publishing business that one book a year was all the public would accept [from an author] but I think that a number of writers have disproved that by now . [Writing as Bachman] made it possible for me to do two books in one year. I just did them under different names and eventually the public got wise to this because you can change your name but you can’t really disguise your style.” Chapter 4 1. This argument appears in the novel’s preface, which bore Shelley’s name but was in actuality written by her husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley. 2. When the dying Pascow begins speaking of the pet sematary, however, Louis finds it much more difficult to maintain his professional distance, nearly fainting (Pet Sematary 75). Throughout the novel, Pascow continues to refuse the easy categorization of living/dead that Louis imposes upon him, appearing to Louis in a dream of the pet sematary and the woods beyond (Pet Sematary 83–87) and later to warn Ellie (Pet Sematary 314). 3. In a nod to Shelley’s Frankenstein, Mary’s mother’s maiden name is Shelley (Revival 358) and Mary has a son named Victor, who Jacobs says will be well taken care of after her death, as payment for her willing participation (Revival 361). 4. As Nell Greenfieldboyce explains, though many people think immediately of “the scenes from the classic horror films, which show Victor Frankenstein in a storm, using lightning bolts to jumpstart his creation as he cries ‘It’s alive! It’s alive!’ … You won’t find that dramatic scene in Mary Shelley’s book.” While Shelley refers to the rain outside and Victor’s decision to “infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet” (51), there is no dramatic light- ning strike at this moment of creation, though storms and lightning feature predominantly elsewhere in Shelley’s novel. 5. Several of King’s other works take inspiration from Lovecraft as well, including his novella The Mist (included in Skeleton Crew, 1985) and the stories “Jerusa- lem’s Lot” (in Night Shift) and “Crouch End” (in Nightmares and Dreamscapes, 1993). Lovecraft’s inspiration can also be seen in King and Hill’s In the Tall Grass, which is discussed in Chapter 10 on ebooks. Chapter 5 1. The zombie permutation of the undead monster is an exception to this tradi- tion, as discussed in the previous chapter. 2. In “‘Truth Comes Out’: The Scrapbook Chapter,” Tony Magistrale argues that King positions readers uniquely alongside Jack as he pages through the scrap- book, implicating the readers themselves in the fascination with and hauntings perpetrated by the hotel. As Magistrale writes, the “third-person narrative per- spective . helps to create a sensation in the reader of peering over Torrance’s shoulder as he reads along, even pausing with him to consider the implications 180 NOTES of what is revealed. We become co-conspirators with Jack, involved in a subtle collusion that is so compelling because it delves into a yet undisclosed record of evil” (41). 3. Garris has directed several King adaptations for television movie and minise- ries format, including The Stand (1994), Desperation (2006), and Bag of Bones (2011). Garris also directed the film adaptation of Riding the Bullet (2004), which had limited theatrical release. 4. Nearly a century has passed since Sara’s rape and murder when Mike begins asking his questions. Much has changed in the TR-90, though this pervasive racism remains, ugly and persistent, acting as an excuse for those who know the TR’s troubling history. Before Mike starts digging into this dark past, he consid- ers his caretaker Bill Dean one of his closest friends, a man who will always tell him the truth and speak straight with him. However, when Bill confronts Mike about his late wife’s research, he tells Mike that Sara and the Red-Tops “were just .