I've said before on this blog what kind of effect Stephen King has had on my writing--so much so, in fact, that I promised myself I would write to him and let him know if I ever got a publishing contract. And so, on Friday, an envelope with an Advance Reading Copy of WAKING LAZARUS and a heart-felt letter went to Mr. Stephen King. Do I expect him to read the ARC, let alone send me a blurb for it? Not likely; in fact, I'll be surprised if Mr. King himself ever sees the letter. (And frankly, if I got a blurb from someone like Stephen King, I'm sure it would prompt a few, um, "discussions" within my publisher's offices.)
However, it's an act of homage, more than anything, to me. Stephen King had such a profound effect on my desire to be a writer, I had to acknowledge that. In other words, it's a long-winded way of saying "thanks." (Just finished Cell, by the way; King manages to make some incisive commentary about our culture. Plus, it has zombies, man. With cell phones.)
Dear Mr. King:
It's winter of 1978. A 12-year-old boy ventures into the local Buttrey Food & Drug store in Kalispell, Montana, tagging along on one of his mother’s grocery shopping trips. But while mom’s shopping for canned peas and Swanson TV dinners, the boy’s looking for a different kind of food.
He’s recently graduated from the typical Hardy Boys fare at his school library, stepping up to authors such as Tolkien, Heinlein, and Richard Adams. In this very store, he’s discovered paperback gems by authors such as Jack L. Chalker, Piers Anthony, and Graham Masterton. Now he has $4.00 in his pocket, ready to plunk down on the next great discovery. After a bit of browsing, he spies a silver-covered book with a featureless face on the cover. Cool, he thinks. Metallic silver. And the face doesn’t have eyes or anything. Double cool. He picks it up. THE SHINING, it says in bold letters, by STEPHEN KING (in his 12-year-old mind, it’s pronounced “STEFF-en.”) He reads the back cover, finds the idea of a haunted hotel triple cool, pulls the $4.00 out of his pocket, grabs a new edition of "CarToons" magazine (because he’s also a big fan of Mopar muscle cars--Dodge Chargers especially--and this some five years before "The Dukes of Hazzard" debuts on CBS), then rushes to find his mother.
The next morning, which happens to be a Saturday, he retreats to his bottom bunk bed and cracks open the shiny silver treasure. Late that afternoon, he reads the last sentence--still perched on his bunk bed--and closes the book. Silently. Maybe even a bit reverently. A door in his young mind has opened, and for the first time, for the very first time, he realizes these books aren’t just things that pop out of a factory in the way that Frosted Flakes do. These books are written by people--no, not people, but magicians--who create whole other worlds and realities where young boys have real imaginary friends and animal hedges come to life. At this moment, the young boy decides he’d like to be that kind of magician.
In the days, months and years that follow, the young boy buys many more books by Stephen King. "The Stand" is next, followed by "‘Salems Lot," "The Dead Zone" and "Carrie." He begins venturing to BooksWest, the closest book store, just to ask when the next Stephen King novel will be published. (This, coincidentally, is how he discovers the man’s name is pronounced “Steven” rather than “Steff-en.”) And each time he absorbs one of these books (most notably "It," which he reads on the graveyard shift at a Circle K convenience store, working his way toward an English Lit degree at the University of Montana), the same feeling inside him stirs. Someday, he will publish a book.
That someday will come on July 1, 2006, about 28 years after the first glint of a silver cover caught the young boy’s eye in Buttrey Food & Drug. It seemed only fitting that the young boy, now nearly 40 but still just a fascinated young kid on a bunk bed, give the first copy to the man who most inspired it.
Sincerely,
Tony L. Hines
