Description
Book SynopsisMany readers know Stephen King for his early works of horror, from his fiction debut Carrie to his blockbuster novels The Shining, The Stand, and Misery, among others. While he continues to be a best-selling author, King's more recent fiction has not received the kind of critical attention that his books from the 1970s and 1980s enjoyed. Recent novels like Duma Key and 1/22/63 have been marginalized and, arguably, cast aside as anomalies within the author's extensive canon.In Stephen King's Contemporary Classics: Reflections on the Modern Master of Horror, Philip L. Simpson and Patrick McAleer present a collection of essays that analyze, assess, and critique King's post-1995 compositions. Purposefully side-stepping studies of earlier work, these essays are arranged into three main parts: the first section examines five King novels published between 2009 and 2013, offering genuinely fresh scholarship on King; the second part looks at the development of King's distinct brand of horror; t
Trade ReviewRowman & Littlefield has . . . released an extraordinary hardcover tome that delves deeply into several of King’s lesser known works particularly from 2009 – 2013. It’s called…deep breath…Stephen King’s Contemporary Classics: Reflections on the Modern Master of Horror. It is a collection of essays written by various authors and examines books such as Dr. Sleep, Duma Key, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, Joyland, Under the Dome and others. The essays are scholarly and thought provoking. Each author takes on the project with a great deal of passion which comes through in their writing. . . .The book will surely be of interest to fans of King, especially hardcore fans. . . . [It] will interest people who like to tear a story apart and see how and why it works. . . .If you must own all things King then you must add this hardcover book to your collection. I dare say even Mr. King will be astonished when he sees how his stories have been inspected, dissected and examined. Who knows, he may even learn a bit about himself and what must be going on inside his mind! All kidding aside this is an insightful set of essays to read and discuss with your fellow King fans. Stephen King’s Contemporary Classics will get you thinking. * Scared Stiff Reviews *
Table of ContentsIntroduction Section I: Contemporary “Classics” Chapter 1 “‘Ordinary Miracles: Stephen King’s Writing (and Painting) a ‘Way Back to Life’ in Duma Key” Hayley Mitchell Haugen Chapter 2 “Narrative Structure in Under the Dome” Jennifer Miller Chapter 3 “‘There’s No Place Like Dome’: An Assessment of the Adaptation of Stephen King’s Under the Dome into a Primetime Drama” Tamara Watkins Chapter 4 “Reading Joyland and Dr. Sleep as Complementary Stories” Clotilde Landais Section II: Modern Horrors Chapter 5 “Failure Is Indeed an Option: Pride, Prophecy, and Roland Deschain’s Perpetual Quest for the Dark Tower” Patrick McAleer Chapter 6 “Trisha McFarland and the Tough Tootsie: Coping with Fear in The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon” Matt Holman Chapter 7 “‘Morality’: Stephen King’s Most Disturbing Story?” Philip L. Simpson Chapter 8 “In Search for the Lost Object in a Bad Place: Stephen King’s Contemporary Gothic” Alexandra Reuber Chapter 9 “A Different Breed: Serial Killers in the Works of Stephen King” Rebecca Frost Section III: Stephen King and Writing Chapter 10 “How to Draw a King: Duma Key, a Blues Aesthetic, and the American Artist” Michael Perry Chapter 11 “It Lurks Beneath the Fold: Stephen King, Adaptation, and the Pop-up Text of The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon” Carl H. Sederholm Chapter 12 “Bachman’s ‘Found’ Novels: The Regulators, Blaze, and Author Identity” Kimberly Beal Chapter 13 “King’s Toolbox—for Writing and for Life?” Mika Elovaara Chapter 14 “The Blue Diamond” Steph Post Bibliography Index About the Editors and Contributors
