One of the greatest writers of our time, Stephen King, has mystified, terrified, and entertained audiences for decades. The Master of Horror has published at least fifty novels and over 200 short stories. And then there are all of the film adaptations.
With huge cinematic hits such as 2017’s IT and the endless announcements of upcoming adaptations, King has stayed on our radar. Though nearly every audience member knows his name, many people still don’t know that much about the esteemed author himself. Without further ado, here are thirteen mystifying facts about Stephen King to help you get better acquainted.
1. He was once hit by a car…and later bought it.
In 1999, while walking near his home, King was struck by a minivan after the driver’s dog distracted him from the road (perhaps the author foresaw this when he wrote Cujo more than a decade earlier). Though he was in serious condition (having broken his leg and requiring surgery), he got his revenge. Paying $1,500 for the Dodge Caravan, King later told reporters, “Yes, we’ve got the van, and I’m going to take a sledgehammer and beat it!”
2. He barely remembers writing his 1981 horror hit, Cujo.
King’s career was plagued by drug and alcohol use in the 1980s. Though the writer wrote on of his most famous novels during that period, he barely remembers it.
“There’s one novel, Cujo, that I barely remember writing at all,” King said. “I don’t say that with pride or shame, only with a vague sense of sorrow and loss. I like that book. I wish I could remember enjoying the good parts as I put them down on the page.”
Luckily, King received help soon after and has been sober in the years since.
3. His childhood friend died after being struck by a train.
While many of King’s stories are tragic, none compare to a horrific event the author experienced during his childhood. While playing with a friend who lived near a train track, his friend was tragically struck and killed by a train. King returned home where he was reportedly “white as a ghost” with no memory of what happened. He later said:
According to Mom, I had gone off to play at a neighbor’s house – a house that was near a railroad line. About an hour after I left I came back (she said), as white as a ghost. I would not speak for the rest of the day; I would not tell her why I’d not waited to be picked up or phoned that I wanted to come home; I would not tell her why my chum’s mom hadn’t walked me back but had allowed me to come alone.
It turned out that the kid I had been playing with had been run over by a freight train while playing on or crossing the tracks (years later, my mother told me they had picked up the pieces in a wicker basket). My mom never knew if I had been near him when it happened, if it had occurred before I even arrived, or if I had wandered away after it happened. Perhaps she had her own ideas on the subject. But as I’ve said, I have no memory of the incident at all; only of having been told about it some years after the fact.
4. He despises Stanley Kubrik’s The Shining Adaptation.
If you’re a true movie buff or King fan, then this won’t come as a surprise. Stephen King has been incredibly vocal about his disgust for Kubrik’s direction. From criticizing the film as “misogynistic” to appearing dismayed at the casting, it doesn’t seem like there’s anything King likes about it. Though he once called it “beautiful,” his argument that the film is purely superficial makes it more of a backhanded complement. In an interview with Deadline, King said:
I think The Shining is a beautiful film and it looks terrific and as I’ve said before, it’s like a big, beautiful Cadillac with no engine inside it. In that sense, when it opened, a lot of the reviews weren’t very favorable and I was one of those reviewers. I kept my mouth shut at the time, but I didn’t care for it much.
5. He wrote a music video for Michael Jackson.
The Master of Horror collaborated with the King of Pop, writing the script for Jackson’s Ghosts music video. The 40-minute long-form music video helped to secure the singer a Guinness World Record for the longest music video.
6. His career began in porn magazines.
In the beginning of his career as a published writer, King sold his short stories to porn magazines such as Playboy and Cavalier. Before his best-selling books brought in the big bucks, these sensual establishments payed King under $100 a pop for each article. Though his career has blossomed since then, he returned to his roots when he published his poem, “The Bone Church,“ in a 2009 edition of Playboy.
7. He was once mistaken as a vandal—while signing his own books.
Apparently authors’ faces become buried by their words because many audiences don’t always recognize them apart from their writing style. Stephen King, the hero that he is, once decided to sign his signature on copies of his book in a bookstore (for free) when a customer mistook him for a vandal. After the customer reported King to management, they approached him and (one way or the other) quickly realized who he was. The signed copies were later auctioned off.
8. King met his wife in the cutest way possible (for bookworms, that is).
What’s a better way to meet your future partner than in a spot that mirrors your exact persona? While attending the University of Maine at Orono, King met his wife in the stacks of the Folger Library. His wife, Tabitha, was also a writer. King later joked that he married her purely for her typewriter, saying, “I married her because I loved her…the typewriter was a factor, though.”
9. He wrote Carrie to challenge his persona as a “men’s writer.”
As previously stated, King’s early career consisted of writing short stories for porn magazines like Cavalier and Playboy. His sci-fi and horror short stories, juxtaposed with images of scantily-clad women, drew criticism from readers. According to Mental Floss, one reader told King, “You write all those macho things. But you can’t write about women. You’re scared of women.” In response, King began writing Carrie, a novel entirely centered around a young female protagonist who struggles with her identity all the whilst undergoing puberty and high school antics.
10. He killed his alias.
In the late 1970s, King published a book under the pseudonym Richard Bachman. The book would become the first of seven novels published under the name. Wanting to avoid bombarding the public with too many “King” novels, the author took to writing under a pseudonym in order to release more than one book a year. When suspicion arose in the mid 80s, King decided to step forward and announced the truth. Rather than simply forgoing the pseudonym, King announced that Richard Bachman died of “Cancer of the Pseudonym.”
11. He banned his own novel.
Before Richard Bachman’s untimely death, King published his 1977 psychological thriller Rage under his alias. Detailing a high school shooting, the novel soon came under attack when it became linked to four high school shootings decades after it was released. In response, King allowed the novel to go out of print.
12. He threw Carrie in the trash, literally.
While trying to write his fourth novel, King struggled with the first few pages. He thought it was trash and quite literally threw it away. Lucky for us King fans, his wife came to the rescue, fishing Carrie out of the trash and convincing the writer to keep trying. He ended up getting the story published and it’s gone on to be one of his most popular novels to date.
13. King suffers from triskaidekaphobia.
In an ironic twist, the author who dreamed up some of readers’ worst nightmares has a fear of his own: The number thirteen. The fear of the number thirteen is a sort of cultural phenomenon—Friday the 13th has long been associated with spooky occurrences—yet the fear isn’t superficial for King.
He’s been quoted as saying, “The number thirteen never fails to trace that old icy finger up and down my spine. When I’m writing, I’ll never stop work if the page number is thirteen or a multiple of thirteen; I’ll just keep on typing till I get to a safe number. I always take the last two steps on my back stairs as one, making thirteen into twelve. There were, after all, thirteen steps on the English gallows up until 1900 or so. When I’m reading, I won’t stop on page 94, 193, or 382, since the sums of these numbers add up to 13.”
Featured image courtesy of François Sechet/Amazon