Today is Stephen King’s 79th birthday. Many words have been written about the man and his words and stories, but his “holy cow!” birthday post on social media got me thinking about all the hours I have spent inside his imagination. I read King’s works heavily from around 1984 to 1991, then just bought his “Dark Tower” books until 2004. I only started reading his new books, and rereading some classics, when the COVID pandemic hit in 2022. I am by no means a completist like I used to be, but I have probably read tens of thousands of King’s words; more than any other author.
I’ve been thinking about the kernels of my love for genres King swims in: horror, fantasy, sci-fi. There were not many books in my house growing up, let alone horror and sci-fi fiction. My life was already layered with real and imagined horrors since my dad ran a funeral home and drove an ambulance in the pre-EMS 1970s rural south. I heard about the wrecks, shootings, feuds, violence, and gore at a young age. I knew about death and grief and loss as well, and it was at times difficult for my developing brain to understand what was going on emotionally and physically. This gave me a bit of wisdom about my surroundings, but also a tough skin to deal with it. Back then, I also enjoyed scaring myself. It was easy to imagine witches in shadows, trap doors at the stairs, and giant spiders in carports.
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