It was all my sister Sylvia's fault. She was saying how she listened to audio books during her morning commute to work in San Antonio. "Okay." I said. Not really noting anything because she read ghost romances and political thrillers. Not my bag at all. I was a short form girl: poetry, short stories, short essays. I read 'em and I write 'em. I didn't have the patience for novels. The last novel I attempted was in 1997--It was Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood. Now I loved her short story, "Rape Fantasies" (which isn't what you think). But Cat's Eye, I didn't get or I was impatient because about a third of the way through I stopped reading because I was mentally editing her book.
Flash back to a few months ago, my sister Sylvia said "Oh I listened to one you will really like it's by Stephen King. "Oh no kidding" I said, now intrigued. Sylvia didn't seem like the "Stephen King type" at all to me. (I have since revised what a Stephen King type is). "Yes," she said, "it's called 11-22-63 about this guy who tries to prevent the shooting of Kennedy." I inwardly frowned. Not my kind of story at all, I thought. (I was wrong again. AWESOME STORY essay forthcoming).
I decided to take her audio book idea and checked out a couple of titles from the library. Snore fest. I finally broke down and decided to give Mr. King a try--my very first novel was Lisey's Story.
Being an adult and a writer I am just wired differently--I notice language first. The language in Lisey's Story jumped out at me. It knocked me over. It crawled in my brain and took up residence in the living room of my mind and lives there still but now has to make room for all the other Stephen King Novels I have read.
One of my favorite is something that starts out as "the impressive stacks and piles of memorabilia which ran the length of the study's south wall." But the next time he mentions the stack along the wall, it becomes a "slumbering stack along the wall." Then stack that is 4 feet high and 30 feet long transforms into a "dusty booksnake" and I am amazed at his cleverness and am almost expecting it to start moving to devour her.
It doesn't of course but her memories almost do--they come and she runs--not wanting to remember the darkest ones or even the sweetest ones because those are painful too. This is a story for me about acceptance---a willingness to accept ALL of a person the good, the bad and the ugly. Lisey saved her husband in many ways as long time loves often do and in the end he saves her from her crushing grief, from her fear of the past and from that other thing.
Lisey's Story was the perfect novel for my first time and I am so glad that I came along to read Mr. King as an adult and as a writing because I can appreciate the layers of meaning in his prose, his language for me is an end in itself not just a means to carry the story along. Mr. King said in an interview that he hopes that people will read his books first for story but then go back a second time for the language--I kinda got that backward, I imagine I always will--I guess I'm wired that way.
Flash back to a few months ago, my sister Sylvia said "Oh I listened to one you will really like it's by Stephen King. "Oh no kidding" I said, now intrigued. Sylvia didn't seem like the "Stephen King type" at all to me. (I have since revised what a Stephen King type is). "Yes," she said, "it's called 11-22-63 about this guy who tries to prevent the shooting of Kennedy." I inwardly frowned. Not my kind of story at all, I thought. (I was wrong again. AWESOME STORY essay forthcoming).
I decided to take her audio book idea and checked out a couple of titles from the library. Snore fest. I finally broke down and decided to give Mr. King a try--my very first novel was Lisey's Story.
Being an adult and a writer I am just wired differently--I notice language first. The language in Lisey's Story jumped out at me. It knocked me over. It crawled in my brain and took up residence in the living room of my mind and lives there still but now has to make room for all the other Stephen King Novels I have read.
One of my favorite is something that starts out as "the impressive stacks and piles of memorabilia which ran the length of the study's south wall." But the next time he mentions the stack along the wall, it becomes a "slumbering stack along the wall." Then stack that is 4 feet high and 30 feet long transforms into a "dusty booksnake" and I am amazed at his cleverness and am almost expecting it to start moving to devour her.
It doesn't of course but her memories almost do--they come and she runs--not wanting to remember the darkest ones or even the sweetest ones because those are painful too. This is a story for me about acceptance---a willingness to accept ALL of a person the good, the bad and the ugly. Lisey saved her husband in many ways as long time loves often do and in the end he saves her from her crushing grief, from her fear of the past and from that other thing.
Lisey's Story was the perfect novel for my first time and I am so glad that I came along to read Mr. King as an adult and as a writing because I can appreciate the layers of meaning in his prose, his language for me is an end in itself not just a means to carry the story along. Mr. King said in an interview that he hopes that people will read his books first for story but then go back a second time for the language--I kinda got that backward, I imagine I always will--I guess I'm wired that way.
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