Tag Archives: Naomi King

The Two Princes by Bev Vincent

Historical Context Essays

By the age of thirteen, King’s daughter, Naomi, was an avid reader but hadn’t read any of his books[1], even though her younger brother, Joe, had already read two. Her mother pushed her to read some horror with the idea that it would be another way for her to know her father. However, she made it clear to him that she had “very little interest in my vampires, Ghoulies and slushy crawling things.” So, as he wrote in a letter for Viking Press[2], “I decided that if the mountain would not go to Mohammed, then Mohammed must go to the mountain.”

The Eyes of the DragonHe asked her what she did like and she told him she liked dragons. He told Jo Fletcher, “I knew that she liked fantasy, she had read some of the Conan comic books and Piers Anthony and stuff like that and in the end I really got into it.” [3]

He started working on the story, originally called The Napkins, in their house in western Maine. He wrote on a yellow legal pad in front of a woodstove while a screaming northeaster blew snow across the frozen lake outside. King had recently been working on The Talisman with Peter Straub, so the fantasy land of the Territories was fresh in his mind. He wrote The Eyes of the Dragon at the same time as he was writing Misery, working on one in the morning and the other at night, completing the first draft in 1983.

Naomi, he admits, took hold of the manuscript with a marked lack of enthusiasm, but he was rewarded. The story kidnapped her and the only thing wrong with it, she told him later, was that she didn’t want it to end. » Read more

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A Man’s Heart Is Stonier by Bev Vincent

Historical Context Essays

In 1978, Stephen King was invited to be writer in residence at the English department of his alma mater, the University of Maine at Orono. He moved his family into a rented house on a major highway in Orrington. The heavy traffic included transports heading to and from a nearby chemical plant. A new neighbor warned the Kings to keep their pets and children away from this road, which had “used up a lot of animals.”[1] In support of this claim, the Kings discovered a burial ground not far from the house, with “Pets Sematary” written on a sign in a childish hand. Among its residents: dogs, cats, birds, and a goat.

Pet SemataryShortly after they moved in, daughter Naomi’s cat, Smucky, was found dead on the side of the road when they returned from a trip to town. King’s first impulse was to tell her that the cat had wandered away. Tabitha, however, believed this was an opportunity to teach a life lesson. They broke the news to their daughter and conducted a feline funeral, committing Smucky’s mortal remains to the pet cemetery. A few nights later, King discovered Naomi in the garage, jumping up and down on sheets of bubble wrap, indignant over the loss of her pet. “Let God have His own cat. I want my cat. I want my cat,” she was repeating.[2]

The road almost “used up” the Kings’ youngest son, too. Owen was about eighteen months old when he wandered dangerously close to the highway. To this day, King isn’t sure whether he knocked Owen down before he reached the highway as a tanker approached or if the boy tripped over his own feet. Owen had been born with an unusually large head, and the Kings had already agonized over the possibility of losing him to hydrocephalus. This near miss was an unwelcome reminder of the fragility of their children. » Read more

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A Pleasure To Burn by Bev Vincent

Historical Context Essays

FirestarterFirestarter arose from research Stephen King had been doing into psychic phenomena, specifically, pyrokinesis[1]. He read about spontaneous human combustion and other bizarre incidents. In one case that he has mentioned on several occasions, a boy started to burn while the family was at the beach. His father dunked him in the water, but he kept on burning and died from his injuries, with his father sustaining serious burns on his arms. King has admitted to a fascination with fire, referring back to one of his favorite characters, Trashcan Man from The Stand, who loves to start fires, the bigger the better. King wanted to explore what might happen to a person who had the ability to start fires with his or her mind and could control it.

Then he thought about people taking part in psychology experiments who unwittingly received drugs like LSD. He envisioned such a drug turning people telepathic and causing a genetic mutation that allowed the test subjects to pass this talent on like “the Wyeth people hand down artistic talent.” » Read more

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