Stephen King's Contemporary Classics

Reflections on the Modern Master of Horror

Philip L. Simpson (Anthology Editor) , Patrick McAleer (Anthology Editor)

Stephen King's Contemporary Classics

Reflections on the Modern Master of Horror

Philip L. Simpson (Anthology Editor) , Patrick McAleer (Anthology Editor)

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Description

Many readers know Stephen King for his early works of horror, from his fiction debut Carrie to his blockbuster novels The Shining, The Stand, and Misery, among others. While he continues to be a best-selling author, King’s more recent fiction has not received the kind of critical attention that his books from the 1970s and 1980s enjoyed. Recent novels like Duma Key and 1/22/63 have been marginalized and, arguably, cast aside as anomalies within the author’s extensive canon.

In Stephen King’s Contemporary Classics: Reflections on the Modern Master of Horror, Philip L. Simpson and Patrick McAleer present a collection of essays that analyze, assess, and critique King’s post-1995 compositions. Purposefully side-stepping studies of earlier work, these essays are arranged into three main parts: the first section examines five King novels published between 2009 and 2013, offering genuinely fresh scholarship on King; the second part looks at the development of King’s distinct brand of horror; the third section departs from probing the content of King’s writing and instead focuses on King’s process.

By concentrating on King’s most recent writings, this collection offers provocative insights into the author’s work, featuring essays on Dr. Sleep, Duma Key, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, Joyland, Under the Dome, and others. As such, Stephen King’s Contemporary Classics will appeal to general fans of the author’s work as well as scholars of Stephen King and modern literature.

Introduction
Section I: Contemporary “Classics”
Chapter 1 “‘Ordinary Miracles: Stephen King’s Writing (and Painting) a ‘Way Back to Life’
in Duma Key”
Hayley Mitchell Haugen
Chapter 2 “Narrative Structure in Under the Dome”
Jennifer Miller
Chapter 3 “‘There’s No Place Like Dome’: An Assessment of the Adaptation of Stephen
King’s Under the Dome into a Primetime Drama”
Tamara Watkins
Chapter 4 “Reading Joyland and Dr. Sleep as Complementary Stories”
Clotilde Landais
Section II: Modern Horrors
Chapter 5 “Failure Is Indeed an Option: Pride, Prophecy, and Roland Deschain’s Perpetual
Quest for the Dark Tower”
Patrick McAleer
Chapter 6 “Trisha McFarland and the Tough Tootsie: Coping with Fear in The Girl Who
Loved Tom Gordon”
Matt Holman
Chapter 7 “‘Morality’: Stephen King’s Most Disturbing Story?”
Philip L. Simpson
Chapter 8 “In Search for the Lost Object in a Bad Place: Stephen King’s Contemporary
Gothic”
Alexandra Reuber
Chapter 9 “A Different Breed: Serial Killers in the Works of Stephen King”
Rebecca Frost
Section III: Stephen King and Writing
Chapter 10 “How to Draw a King: Duma Key, a Blues Aesthetic, and the American Artist”
Michael Perry
Chapter 11 “It Lurks Beneath the Fold: Stephen King, Adaptation, and the Pop-up Text of
The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon”
Carl H. Sederholm
Chapter 12 “Bachman’s ‘Found’ Novels: The Regulators, Blaze, and Author Identity”
Kimberly Beal
Chapter 13 “King’s Toolbox—for Writing and for Life?”
Mika Elovaara
Chapter 14 “The Blue Diamond”
Steph Post
Bibliography
Index
About the Editors and Contributors

Product details

Published	13 Nov 2014
Format	Ebook (Epub & Mobi)
Edition	1st
Extent	242
ISBN	9781442244917
Imprint	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Publisher	Bloomsbury Publishing

Anthology Editor

Philip L. Simpson

Anthology Editor

Patrick McAleer

Rowman & Littlefield has . . . released an extraordinary hardcover tome that delves deeply into several of King’s lesser known works particularly from 2009 – 2013. It’s called…deep breath…Stephen King’s Contemporary Classics: Reflections on the Modern Master of Horror. It is a collection of essays written by various authors and examines books such as Dr. Sleep, Duma Key, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, Joyland, Under the Dome and others. The essays are scholarly and thought provoking. Each author takes on the project with a great deal of passion which comes through in their writing. . . .The book will surely be of interest to fans of King, especially hardcore fans. . . . [It] will interest people who like to tear a story apart and see how and why it works. . . .If you must own all things King then you must add this hardcover book to your collection. I dare say even Mr. King will be astonished when he sees how his stories have been inspected, dissected and examined. Who knows, he may even learn a bit about himself and what must be going on inside his mind! All kidding aside this is an insightful set of essays to read and discuss with your fellow King fans. Stephen King’s Contemporary Classics will get you thinking.

Scared Stiff Reviews
The volume is a welcome addition. As the editors note in the introduction, academic criticism of Stephen King’s work tends to focus on his early works. The editors here capture scholarship on King’s newer works that tends to show up at conferences but often wouldn’t find purchase in the more durable academic record. In that light, much of the material in this collection is best thought of as a first foray into new territory.

Science Fiction Research Association Review