Today is my first day as a member, and I look forward to becoming a part of the SK.com community.
I became a fan of our beloved Mr. King when I was about eight years old. I had run out of Cleary, L'Engle, Rawls, and Ingalls Wilder, and I had ventured quite disobediently into the garage to grab a book off of The Forbidden Bookshelf. After stealthily grabbing a few books off the shelf, checking out the covers, and carefully placing them back into their exact previous location, I stumbled upon a book with a cover that immediately grabbed my third-grade attention.
It was a gauze-wrapped hand that had EYEBALLS on it. This HAD to be good! I took it and read it cover to cover, including a story about a closet-dwelling creature that killed children by making them swallow their own tongues...
I began having horrible nightmares, waking the entire house with my screams, and my worried parents dragged me off to a counselor, probably certain I was losing my marbles before I had even learned to ride a bike.
The counselor dragged out of me that the culprit was not hormones or a preadolescent psychotic break but a certain short story by Mr. King.
I have been hooked on him ever since. That was 38 years ago.
I am now a 46-year-old wife and mother and former second-grade teacher living in rural Michigan. I have two children, a 21-year-old junior at University of Michigan and a 15-year-old daughter who is, as we speak, finishing up her first King novel. (Fifteen and just now reading her first King. Late bloomer. Too many other distractions these days, I assume.)
One of the great tragedies of my life is that my father actually attended a book signing nearly 30 years ago and obtained a signed copy of The Tommyknockers for me, which was lost in a move along with a number of other boxes. The moving company's insurance gave us money for the missing boxes, but there was not enough money in the world to replace that book my father had gone to so much trouble and waited in line to obtain. Sigh.
Anyway... Thank you for allowing me into your tribe. I assume the secret password is:
I DO believe in spooks. I DO believe in spooks. I DO believe in spooks...
Sincerely,
Julie McIntosh, a Constant Reader