mae
11-13-2011, 11:49 AM
http://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/books/reviews/exclusive_interview_stephen_king_the_best_selling_ author_speaks_about_his_life_career_and_scottish_w eather_1_1949827
The irony is that for all his reputation as an author of horror novels, King has, over the years, crafted some of the most moving and life-enhancing novels of his generation. The voiceover narration of The Shawshank Redemption, recently voted by the readers of Empire magazine as their favourite film of all time, is lifted right off the page. “Hope”, as Red explains “can set you free”. He admits: “For someone who writes horror a lot of my books are kinda sunny.” Yet if ever his readers doubted he still possessed the nerve to write a truly disturbing story, it was set straight with A Good Marriage, a recent novella which documented a wife’s reaction to finding that her husband is a serial killer. He is also nursing another darker novel, to be published once again under his pseudonym, Richard Bachman.
“There are guys that work on the edge. James Ellroy is one that I can think of and there was another guy, Charles Willeford. I would like to write a Bachman novel that had some of that Charles Willeford feel. The dark side of American life … I would like to start a book about a crazy private eye, a guy who is really on the dark side. I see the scene: this guy sitting in his office in an unnamed American city, the sky grey, the rain grey and hitting the window. That is it … But I know the rest of it would follow pretty nicely with that hard-boiled voice like Raymond Chandler. Think of Philip Marlowe, only a total fucking degenerate.”
The irony is that for all his reputation as an author of horror novels, King has, over the years, crafted some of the most moving and life-enhancing novels of his generation. The voiceover narration of The Shawshank Redemption, recently voted by the readers of Empire magazine as their favourite film of all time, is lifted right off the page. “Hope”, as Red explains “can set you free”. He admits: “For someone who writes horror a lot of my books are kinda sunny.” Yet if ever his readers doubted he still possessed the nerve to write a truly disturbing story, it was set straight with A Good Marriage, a recent novella which documented a wife’s reaction to finding that her husband is a serial killer. He is also nursing another darker novel, to be published once again under his pseudonym, Richard Bachman.
“There are guys that work on the edge. James Ellroy is one that I can think of and there was another guy, Charles Willeford. I would like to write a Bachman novel that had some of that Charles Willeford feel. The dark side of American life … I would like to start a book about a crazy private eye, a guy who is really on the dark side. I see the scene: this guy sitting in his office in an unnamed American city, the sky grey, the rain grey and hitting the window. That is it … But I know the rest of it would follow pretty nicely with that hard-boiled voice like Raymond Chandler. Think of Philip Marlowe, only a total fucking degenerate.”