My historical context essay about Pet Sematary: A Man’s Heart Is Stonier by Bev Vincent | Stephen King Revisited
Stephen King Revisited
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Excellent article Bev. This one remains the scariest book King ever wrote for me.
Enjoyed the article. Keep them coming, Bev!
Great article Bev. My 17 year old just had to read Pet Sematary for his high school contemporary literature class. He loved it and he enjoyed your article as a follow up. thank you.
Really good essay. It even had bits that were new to me. Good stuff.
Bev, this was a great essay. Let me highlight one specific statement you made that I had never read before.
I remember that King used this book as leverage to get out of his contract, but I never knew about the holding of royalties. I have to request, can you explain this more to me, or give me a link that talks about this? And did King himself confirm this? Because I have to say, it makes absolutely no sense. Why would someone agree to $50,000 per year and have the rest of the sum invested. Who did the investing? Were their fees taken out of King's royalties to pay for those investments? Why would anyone care about the taxes? This is really odd; I can't even believe it was legal to do. Thanks.
The boilerplate contract from Doubleday established something called an Author Investment Plan. I don't know the specifics, but it would be pre-tax earnings that were invested on the author's behalf, so he wouldn't have to pay taxes on the whole advance + royalties in one year, potentially putting him in a higher tax bracket. To someone earning less than $10K a year, $50K a year probably sounded like a bonanza, and it was a way of deferring and possibly decreasing taxes on the total amount. It was probably something like a 401k.
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Neesy
#1 fan (Annie Wilkes cousin) 1st cousin Mom's side
Nice! Thank you for all that info
Next time I am at Value Village I will keep an eye out for this - I have a copy or two, but I would like to buy more to give to friends (those unenlightened ones, who still associate the name Stephen King with 'horror').