Book Nook

Recently completed reading a fascinating biography of prolific and fabulously wealthy writer Stephen King by Lisa Rogak, who is something of a specialist in unauthorized biographies of writers (she has also profiled Shel Silverstein and Dan Brown).

"Haunted Heart: The Life and Times of Stephen King" offers a great deal of information about his life and times. Although familiar with the basic outlines of King's biography, I was stunned by the poverty in which he was raised. Absent a father, but with a hard working and often stressed out mom, he was periodically farmed out to relatives and had to deal with plenty of moves from one town to another, hand me down clothes, thick eyeglasses, poor hand and eye coordination, and the usual abuse inflicted by classmates who enjoyed more stable family lives.

This was, after all, the 1950s, a time when father always presumably knew best. To tune out these unpleasant facts of life, King took refuge in comic books and pulp science fiction, which inspired his first literary efforts, which were rewarded by his mother with nickels, dimes, and quarters. An excellent example of the supportive powers of pay for play.

King has been open about his former dependence on booze and drugs, but again the sheer quantity and variety of the substances he selected to abuse was a real eye opener. For example, I've never known that Listerine and NyQuil could be abused at such high levels.

The high profile recovery from his auto accident is covered in harrowing detail (along with his subsequent efforts to overcome his new addiction to painkillers). In the end, we are left with a portrait of a prolific writer, one who is still compulsively driven to write, in his twilight years, enjoying the longevity of his marriage and the successes of his three grown children.