There was a response from Mr. King to a question about what he read that kept coming back to me, and I finally figured out why. His answer was something like, "I don't really like 'relationship' books..." That made me giggle, because that's exactly what he writes! Not kissy-smoochy, romantic love, but relationships between individuals drive just about every one of his books. It's what sets his writing apart from other 'horror/suspense' writers and makes his characters and stories memorable. Just about every book of his that I can think of has at its heart the relationships between characters: it's your family, friends, or 'heart family' (a lovely phrase used by one of my dear friends) and how you relate to them, how they can save, hurt, help, or heal you, that drives nearly everything I can think of by Mr. King. The supernatural parts are 'so much hugger-mugger', to quote RLS, to make the medicine of considering one's place in one's society palatable. And it is because he gets right to his characters' hearts that they can touch our hearts; he makes us feel his stories, and we become fierce fans, because the majority of this world is all about cynicism and shoving down feelings. Mr. King's stories say, in essence, "Screw that! You have a heart--we all have hearts, and don't you dare deny it, even if only here in these pages. And we are all responsible to and for each other--don't you forget that." He demands that we face our humanity and our interconnectedness, and that's what a 'relationship' book is.