I always felt Stephen King was particularly attuned to the cruel of class, and how that fuels sexism, and he proves that in his review of this Raymond Carver bio.

(If you are a Carver fan and can't enjoy a writer after knowing they did horrible things, then I would recommend against reading it, because - when he was an alcoholic - he did some horrible things.)

Why do I read Candace Bushnell? Why? Because for a while, it's all sexy fun, and then sometime in the middle, I want these shoe-fetishizing wenches to get sent to some North Korean work collective and never screw again.

Hm. But King is also pretty focused on how editors are evil, which... well. I suppose he would think that. There's a piece about the unedited Carver stories here which I think is a little more nuanced:

[link]

Lish's editing of Carver's stories is a pretty complex story and not about the usual writer/editor relationship. It was (I think) an abusive relationship and Lish went well beyond editing into rewriting and changing the meaning and style of Carver's work. It was driven by Lish's ego not to serve Carver's work. And Carver was in the very vulnerable position being late into his career and desperately needing a break.

Yeah, that's pretty twisted. But I can't help wondering what things his wife might have had to say as well, if she wasn't his pack mule so often. Of course, she might not have had much interest in stories at all, but even still I think some women still find a guy who lives out their outer life for them, not as much as in the fifties, but still.

Stephen King considering writing 'Shining' sequel:

According to the author, the second novel would center on Danny Torrance, the young boy from the original story with the gift (or curse) of being able to communicate clairvoyantly with ghosts, and who is now an appropriately aged 40-year-old. All these years after being tormented by the spiritual inhabitants of the Overlook Hotel and his father’s alcoholism/homicidal rage, Danny is now working at a hospice using his supernatural powers for palliative purposes. King even offered a tentative title: Doctor Sleep.

I don't know how I feel about this! In any case, he's just tossing the idea around and may not actually write it.

The comments are pretty amusing, though. My favorite is this criticism of the original headline:

"Stephen King to write possible Shining sequel" makes it sound like he's writing something and even while writing it he can't decide whether it's the sequel to the Shining or not.

I'm not sure I'd call it a sequel. King has a track record of incorporating events and characters from one novel into other novels, though usually they're just minor references. (Example -- several of his works are set in Castle Rock, Maine.)

So I think it could be interesting to see what eventually happened to Danny Torrance. Although I'd worry that King might ignore the 30+ years between the winter at the Overlook and now -- a lot happens in that time.

King? Giganto book writer extrodinaire?

Methinks those 30 years would be well documented, in flashback, if nothing else, Fred Pete.

I've always wondered what happened to that poor kid in 'Salem's Lot. Boy, that book creeped me out. The footsteps coming up the stairs at sunset, the kid maintaining absolute focus trying to get loose, then his buddy at the window on another night . . .

King definitely has his moments, and my favorite part of On Writing is the memoir about his accident, where he describes the guy who hit him as "a character out of one of my own books."

I like King. But I like giant books. I like his older stuff better than his newer stuff, although I thought "Bag of Bones" was just terrific.