Bag of Bones   ::   Кинг Стивен

Thomas Hardy, who supposedly said that the most brilliantly drawn character in a novel is but a bag of bones, stopped writing novels himself after finishing Jude the Obscure and while he was at the height of his narrative genius. He went on writing poetry for another twenty years, and when someone asked him why he’d quit fiction he said he couldn’t understand why he had trucked with it so long in the first place. In retrospect it seemed silly to him, he said. Pointless. I know exactly what he meant. In the time between now and whenever the Outsider remembers me and decides to come back, there must be other things to do, things that mean more than those shadows. I think I could go back to clanking chains behind the Ghost House wall, but I have no interest in doing so.

I’ve lost my taste for spooks. I like to imagine Mattie would think of Bartleby in Melville’s story.

I’ve put down my scrivener’s pen. These days I prefer not to.

Center Lovell, Maine:

May 25th, 1997—February 6th, 1998

STEPHEN KING was born in 1947 and has lived most of his life in the state of Maine, attending the University of Maine at Orono, where he met his wife, the novelist Tabitha King. He began writing stories when he was nine years old, encouraged by an aunt who paid him a quarter each time he finished one. Mr. King was teaching high school English when his first novel, Carrie, was accepted for publication. He has since written and published more than thirty novels, including The Shining, The Stand, It, Desperation, and The Green Mile. His stories and novellas have been collected in four volumes, with a fifth to be published in 1999.

Numerous films have been based on his stories, including three— Carrie, Stand by Me, and Shawshank Redemption—that received Academy Award nominations. His most recent volume in the Dark Tower series, begun while he was in college, is l’zard and Glass, published in 1997. Among many honors for his work over the years, he received in 1996 the O.

Henry First Prize Award for his short story, “The Man in the Black Suit,” and in 1997 the Poets & Writers’ Writers for Writers Award for his support of writers, writing, and reading. Since 1991 he has played rhythm guitar and sung vocals for The Rock Bottom Remainders, a band of writers that performs now and then around the country to promote literacy. Year after year he roots (so far in vain) for the Red Sox to win the World Series.