Stephen King’s wife literally pulled his career from the garbage can, when she rescued his manuscript for Carrie,
and it wouldn’t be the only time that trash would save the King of Horror.
This is the Evolution of Stephen King.
The author of ‘It’ and ‘The Shining’ went on to sell over 300 million books,
but the long walk to success was anything but easy,
and it began in The Early Years
King’s father deserted his family when Stephen was just two years old,
leaving his mother Nellie to raise he and his brother as a single parent.
Stephen began writing in high school, and by the time
he graduated from the University of Maine in 1970,
he was selling short stories to any magazine that would publish him,
and working at an industrial laundromat to pay the rent
on the trailer he shared with his wife Tabitha
and their son Joe, who today is a successful horror author of his own
King eventually found work as a high school English teacher, but he never gave up his dream of writing,
which eventually led to his First Fame
King wrote four pages of the infamous shower scene
from his breakthrough novel ‘Carrie,’ then he threw them in the trash.
"They're all gonna laugh at you!"
He thought he wasn’t capable of writing a realistic teenage girl,
but after Tabitha pulled them out of the garbage,
she insisted he finish the story, with her help to add
a woman’s perspective. When ‘Carrie’ was completed,
publisher Doubleday agreed to buy it in 1973, but King almost missed
the most important phone call of his life, since he had
disconnected his phone lines in a desperate attempt to save money.
"This machine just called me an asshole!"
That wouldn’t be a concern for much longer.
The hardcover advance for ‘Carrie’ was only $2,500, but after the paperback rights sold for $400,000,
and Brian DePalma’s hit movie made its telekinetic star
a household name, the author was able to quit his job
and focus on writing full-time.
Over the next few years King produced some of the most influential novels in the history of horror,
From ‘The Shining’ in 1977,
to his apocalyptic epic ‘The Stand’ the next year.
But as his star continued to rise, the master of horror
was plagued by Personal Demons
King’s problems with alcohol began in the ‘70s.
He was actually drunk when he delivered the eulogy
at his mother’s funeral, and you can see him
dealing with his addiction through his work.
"I'd give my goddamn soul for just a glass of beer."
"What'll be?"
As his wealth and fame grew in the ‘80s, King’s addictions
moved beyond alcohol into cocaine and prescription drugs.
It didn’t affect his work too badly, since he released some of his greatest work during this period.
There’s ‘Cujo,’ which King claims he was too messed up
to even remember writing,
‘Pet Sematary,’ arguably his most terrifying novel,
and his masters thesis on the horror genre known as ‘It.’
King also began to display a skill for non-scary stories
when he released ‘Different Seasons.’ a collection of four short novels
that gave us ‘The Shawshank Redemption’ and ‘Stand By Me.’
But despite his professional success,
Stephen’s personal life was in a downward spiral,
which came to a head when his family staged an intervention in 1987.
They confronted him in his office and dumped his garbage can
all over the floor, and when King saw all of the beer cans,
cigarette butts, cocaine baggies and pill bottles piled on his carpet,
it finally pushed him to seek treatment for his addictions.
"I never met a drink or a drug that I didn't like
and if I could take it, I took it."
His first post-sobriety novel was ‘Needful Things’ in 1991,
and the author has remained clean ever since.
Unfortunately, just a few years after turning his life around,
it almost ended in tragedy, with A Close Call
On June 19, 1999, a distracted driver hit King with his minivan
during one of the author’s daily walks. King was thrown 14 feet,
and the impact collapsed his lung and shattered his hip and right leg.
The damage was so bad that doctors considered amputing the limb,
but King’s leg was saved after five surgeries and grueling physical therapy.
After the accident, King rushed to complete his life’s work,
releasing the final novels in his epic ‘Dark Tower’ series.
The finale disappointed a lot of Constant Readers
who’d been waiting to see the end of Roland’s journey since 1982,
and his other output from this period like ‘Dreamcatcher'
and ‘Cell’ also failed to reach the same heights as pre-accident work.
"You dirty bird! How could you!"
Fans began to wonder if King had lost his touch,
and even the author himself admitted that good ideas
weren’t coming to him as often. He even considered retiring
in 2002 but King finally returned to form by the end of the aughts;,
releasing the intricate ‘Under the Dome,’
the gripping ‘11/22/63,’
and the hard-boiled ‘Mr. Mercedes.’
And just as his writing mojo returned, a new generation of fans
were introduced to King’s work through 2017’s blockbuster adaptation of ‘It.’
"Beep beep, Richie"
Between ‘It: Chapter 2,’ the ‘Shining’ sequel ‘Doctor Sleep,’ and shows like ‘Castle Rock’ that pay homage to the author’s entire career,
we’re in the middle of a Stephen King boom
that shows no signs of slowing down.
Not bad for a man who recently entered his seventies,
and is still pumping out at least one new novel a year.
While he’s never really gotten the critical acclaim he deserves,
with over thirty number one best-sellers to his name,
King remains one of the most popular and prolific writers in all of fiction,
and his work is both a gateway to rich tradition of horror, and the larger world of literature.