I took a look inside this book on Amazon:
Stephen King A Face Among The Masters - Kindle edition by Brighton Gardner. Literature & Fiction Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.
The author, whom I think I'm in general agreement regarding SK's place among the masters, makes the statement that SK is "mean" and even "heartless' in dealing with his characters. He seems to mean that in a "good" way, given the context, but it's still untrue. King is unafraid to kill off his readers' favorite characters, that's true, but it isn't because he's mean, and it's certainly not heartlessness. If he were, the deaths wouldn't come off as nearly as heartbreakingly realistic. It's because he's committed to the literary school of Naturalism. Now characters who are killed in a slasher movie, who are not generally intended to evoke sympathy with the audience---there, the author is indeed being heartless. But not King. With him, it's a whole different story.
Also, the author says that SK shows courage in killing off characters likebut I've read that letters arrived by the truckload). I don't think I would, in fact, have King's guts. I would never kill of a kid in one of my own self-published stories though. Not because I'm chicken --it's just not what I do.Tad Trenton in Cujo. I can't argue with this, especially in light of the fact that many readers (including myself) objected (I didn't send SK any letters regarding Tad's death,
Well, I agree about the Cujo thing. He broke his own rules as set out in Danse Macabre, or at least I remember thinking that he did. But in On Writing, he says that he wrote Cujo during really dark days of substance abuse and really doesn't remember it, which actually helped me out quite a bit in pondering why he would write what he did.
i.e., write something so hopeless and empty. Yeah, real life is sometimes hopeless and empty, but if I want to experience that, I'll stick with real life