So This Is It

Whenever I saw Stephen King’s novels on bookshelves, I looked right past them. That old adage about covers aside, the visual vernacular of King always screamed gory, corny, and loaded with cheap thrills. Dark colours and creepy illustrations, paired with the author’s name in a dominating font, suggested predictable offerings, anodyne adrenaline spikes — a sort of automated user experience. “Junk food for the mind” was how it read to me.

As a kid, I fell into the trap of being a “serious” reader. Jane Austen fed my adolescent romantic fantasies. Dickens was there for any coming-of-age needs. I also forced myself to consume a few far too adult contemporary titles, selected for their golden awards stickers. Precocious, pretentious, I was doing my best to have no fun. And while I eventually loosened up, horror always seemed horribly beyond good taste.

You’ll imagine my surprise, then, when two different bosses, on separate occasions, brought up Stephen King...