The Horror King’s Scare

Stephen King, the reigning master of the horror novel, gave his fans a real fright in January when he told the Los Angeles Times that he was going to retire. But there seems to be some wiggle room in the word “retire.” Says King, “There’s almost a willful misunderstanding among the press or among people about what that means. I can’t imagine retiring from writing. What I can imagine doing is retiring from publishing.” By way of further explanation, King adds, “If I wrote something that I thought was worth publishing, I would publish it. But in terms of publishing stuff on a yearly basis the way I have been, I think those days are pretty much over.” Does that make everything clear?

Fortunately for his legions of fans — King has sold hundreds of millions of books — his self-imposed exile is not underway quite yet. His new collection of short stories, Everything’s Eventual: 14 Dark Tales, begins with the story of a man who, alive but unable to speak or move, finds himself about to be autopsied. The rest of the book follows macabre suit. Explains King, “I think that any kind of story where something really terrible happens makes your own life look better by comparison. They give us a scale, if you will, to measure our own problems by.” And does King, who displays a robust sense of humor, ever creep himself out when he’s writing this stuff? “Sometimes,” he admits.

King, 54, has lived in the rugged northeastern state of Maine since the age of 11, and much of his work is set there. Soon after graduating from the University of Maine in 1970, he sold his first short story to a men’s magazine. Since then, writing daily from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., he has published more than 40 books. He and Tabitha, his wife of 35 years and also a novelist, split their time between Maine and Florida. Their two sons are also writers, their daughter is in divinity school.

In 1999, King had a scare of his own: he was struck by a van and nearly died. After a lot of rehabilitation, he is much improved. “I can do all of the things I used to do, except that I do them slower,” he says. Is this really the final chapter for Stephen King, horrormeister extraordinaire? Readers will just have to keep turning the pages to find out.

Q&A

TIME: What do you think of the New York publishing scene? Do you like going to Manhattan, doing the parties?
KING: I don’t do that much. I’m not really interested in being a “writer” in any kind of public way. I could give a damn about leather patches on my elbow, you know what I’m saying?

TIME: Certainly in the beginning of your career, money was a big motivation for your writing. Did it continue to be?
KING: It was never a motivation. The money came, but that was a side effect. I continued to write what I was writing, and people tossed money at me. What am I going to do — not pick it up?

TIME: How much money have you made?
KING: I have no idea. Maybe $100, $120 million. I couldn’t tell you exactly.

TIME: How have you stayed so productive for so long? .
KING: Stay healthy and married. Other than having a guy hit me with a van, I’ve been able to do both.

TIME: Don’t some writers have great periods late in life?
KING: I’d like to think that I have gotten better, that the writer you’re talking to now is a better craftsman than the one who wrote Carrie when he was 22 or 23 years old. But I don’t detect in my own work any particular late blossoming [laughs].

TIME: Your fans will be crushed if you stop writing, won’t they?
KING: They’ll find plenty to read.There’s enough out there that’s just crying out in the bookstores. They might be crushed, but think of all the other poeple in the business, who will breathe a sigh of relief, and say, “At last — he shut up!”