Bruce Willis to Star in Stage Version of Stephen King’s “Misery”

It’s always fun when a high powered screen name heads to Broadway. But this production? This sounds golden all the way through. From The Hollywood Reporter:

[Bruce] Willis will make his Broadway debut opposite stage veteran Elizabeth Marvel (Other Desert Cities, House of Cards) in the play written by two-time Academy Award winner William Goldman (The Princess Bride, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid), who also wrote the screenplay for the 1990 Rob Reiner film that starred Kathy Bates in her Oscar-winning turn as Annie Wilkes.

Willis will play the housebound romance novelist Paul Sheldon, who becomes a prisoner of his unhinged "Number One Fan" Wilkes (Marvel) after she rescues him from a car accident and learns that he plans to kill off her favorite fictional character.
Will Frears (Omnium Gatherum) has signed on to direct the play, which is scheduled for a limited run in the fall at a theater to be announced.

Misery will be produced by Warner Bros. Theatre Ventures' Mark Kaufman and Castle Rock Entertainment's Martin Shafer and Liz Glotzer. Raymond Wu also is producing.

The play is scheduled for a limited run this fall. You want tickets? You’ll be able to order them from the play’s web site here.

Stephen King Tweeting

It hardly seems like it should be news. And yet.

On December 6th, iconic author Stephen King (Carrie, The Shining) uttered his first tweet:

“No longer a virgin,” King tweeted. “Be gentle!”

“On Twitter at last,” he tweeted later that day, “and can’t think of a thing to say. Some writer I turned out to be.”

Within 90 minutes, King had 30,000 followers. A few days later, nearly 175,000 followers.

King’s most recent novel, Dr. Sleep, was published by Scribner in September.

You can follow Stephen King on Twitter @StephenKing

Stephen King: Twilight is “Tweenager Porn”

As Stephen King’s 56th novel, Doctor Sleep, reaches a King-hungry audience, the master storyteller talks to The Guardian about, among other things, the work of some of his peers.

Stephen King, the prolific and best-selling patriarch of the horror novel, has used a rare interview to express disdain for modern pretenders to his title, dismissing the Twilight franchise as "tweenager porn" and calling The Hunger Games dull and derivative.

More predictably, King, who is about to release his 56th novel, is less than impressed by Fifty Shades of Grey, although he does have praise for JK Rowling's "fabulous" non-Harry Potter debut, The Casual Vacancy and compared her style to that of the late Tom Sharpe.

In an interview in the Guardian's Weekend magazine, the 65-year-old author said he had read Twilight, among other modern titles, out of professional interest, and had been underwhelmed. "They're really not about vampires and werewolves. They're about how the love of a girl can turn a bad boy good."

"I read Twilight and didn't feel any urge to go on with her. I read The Hunger Games and didn't feel an urge to go on. It's not unlike The Running Man, which is about a game where people are actually killed and people are watching: a satire on reality TV.

So that’s some of what he didn’t much care for. But what does he like?

King declared himself a fan of the "amazingly good" Donna Tartt, but criticised her workrate. "She's dense, she's allusive. She's a gorgeous storyteller," he said. "But three books in 30 years? That makes me want to go to that person and grab her by the shoulders and look into her face and say: 'Do you realise how little time you have in the scheme of things?' "

Scribner published Doctor Sleep on Tuesday. The long-awaited sequel to The Shining has largely drawn glowing reviews. In her New York Times review of the book, Margaret Atwood began:

“Doctor Sleep” is Stephen King’s latest novel, and it’s a very good specimen of the quintessential King blend. According to Vladimir Nabokov, Salvador Dalí was “really Norman Rockwell’s twin brother kidnapped by gypsies in babyhood.” But actually there were triplets: the third one is Stephen King.

Stephen King Uneasy About the Future of Reading

From the sound of things, Stephen King is about to enter what could well be one of the busiest stages of his professional life.

Stephen King (right) with T-Bone 
Burnett and John Mellencamp for
Ghost Brothers of Darkland County.

A new novel, Joyland, will be published by Hard Case Crime next month. King’s sequel to 1977’s The Shining, Doctor Sleep, will be out in September.  A much talked about television  miniseries based on his 2009 novel Under the Dome will premiere on CBS June 24th starring Mike Vogel (Pan Am, Clovefield), Dean Norris (Breaking Bad), and Rachelle Lefevre (A Gifted Man). Plus his musical-theater collaboration with T-Bone Burnett and John Mellencamp, Ghost Brothers of Darkland County, opened last month in Atlanta and will begin a US tour in the autumn. Meanwhile, a companion album featuring Elvis Costello, Sheryl Crow, Roseanne Cash, Taj Mahal and others will be released June 4th.

In a recent interview in Parade Magazine, Ken Tucker asked King is he felt that reading occupied the same importance for today’s kids as it has in years past. King said he didn’t think so and, in fact, that he was uneasy about some aspects:

No, absolutely not. I think it’s because they’re so screen-oriented [TVs, computers, smartphones]. They do read -- girls in particular read a lot. They have a tendency to go toward the paranormal, romances, Twilight and stuff like that. And then it starts to taper off because other things take precedence, like the Kardashian sisters. 

I did a couple of writing seminars in Canada last year with high school kids. These were the bright kids, Ken; they all have computers, but they can’t spell. Because spell-check won’t [help] you if you don’t know through from threw. I told them, “If you can read in the 21st century, you own the world.” Because you learn to write from reading. But there are so many other byways for the consciousness to go down now; it makes me uneasy.

Asked what books he’s currently recommending, King replied:

The new Kate Atkinson, Life After Life, is a terrific read. And I go back to Agatha Christie in the summertime; I love those. There’s also a hard-boiled mystery called Gun Machine [by Warren Ellis]. Of course, I have to mention my son Owen’s new novel, Double Feature, which is very, very funny, and it’s a bighearted book. And my son Joe [who writes under the name Joe Hill] has a new [vampire] book out called NOS4A2. It pulls you in and keeps you in.

You can read the full interview here.

E-Book? Just Say “No”

It’s interesting that, even though he was a pioneer in getting his books to market electronically, Stephen King has actively delayed e-book versions of his new book, Joyland, from shipping on the book’s June 2013 publication date. From Slashgear:

Stephen King is shunning ebooks in favor of traditional print runs for his new novel, Joyland, the outspoken author has revealed, confirming he has “no plans for a digital version.” King – whose new book is released in the US from June 4, though as a printed title only – specifically retained the digital publication rights so that physical copies could be prioritized. 

“Maybe at some point [there'll be an ebook]” King told the WSJ, “but in the meantime, let people stir their sticks and go to an actual bookstore rather than a digital one.”

Meanwhile, the e-book edition of Doctor Sleep, the long-awaited sequel to The Shining, is scheduled to go on sale the same September 2013 day as the hardcover.

Under the Dome Teleplay Will Deviate from Original

Stephen King fans waiting anxiously to see the mini-series based on King’s 2009 novel, Under the Dome, had best expect riffs on the original.

Brian K. Vaughan, one of the show’s executive producers, says that King had given them “his blessing early on to expand the scope for the series.” From Entertainment Weekly:

“He told us, ‘Really use the book as a jumping off point. Use the characters, use the themes, but don’t be afraid to go to new places.’” said Vaughan. In fact, Vaughan joked that during one of King’s visits to the writer’s room, the author was “really supportive of some things we changed from his book which I thought he was going to stab me for.”

Under the Dome looks at life in a small American town that becomes inexplicably sealed off from the rest of the world by a giant, transparent dome.

The series will premiere June 24th and stars Mike Vogel (Pan Am, Clovefield), Dean Norris (Breaking Bad), and Rachelle Lefevre (A Gifted Man).

King’s The Stand Will Be Feature Film

Stephen King’s post-apocalyptic 1978 novel, The Stand, is generally thought to be one of the author’s most accomplished works. It is sprawling, epic and, according to many people -- including the author -- pretty much unfilmable as a standard feature-length picture. As King told The Hollywood Reporter, when plans to make The Stand as a feature were first released early in 2011,

The author said it would be impossible to make it as a two-hour movie and suggested it would likely be better as a trilogy. 

"Historically speaking, movie studios blow the budget on things like this, so maybe it’ll be fun to look at," King said. "The dough certainly isn’t going to me, although if it is a trilogy, and if it makes a lot of money, I might be able to buy a chicken dinner at Popeye’s. Great slaw!"

Fast-forward almost two years and we find that Ben Affleck -- “Filmmaker of the Year” -- has been tapped as the director for this project. He talked about it in a recent GQ interview.

Affleck is also working on an adaptation of Stephen King’s The Stand, struggling to condense its epic nature into a manageable form. “Right now we’re having a very hard time,” he says. “But I like the idea -- it’s like The Lord of the Rings in America. And it’s about how we would reinvent ourselves as a society. If we started all over again, what would we do?”

According to The Huffington Post, The Stand isn’t Affleck’s only book-to-film project right now:

While he waits for “The Stand” to get into shape, Affleck is certainly keeping himself busy. He signed up to direct an adaptation of Dennis Lehane’s novel “Live By Night” in October; that film will probably be his next feature. He’s also still working on a script with Matt Damon about mobster Whitey Bulger.

Meanwhile, it seems likely that King isn’t holding his breath on seeing the movie version of his book.

King referenced a quote that Stand readers will recognize: “M-O-O-N, that spells ‘you probably won’t see this anytime soon.’ And when you do, Woody Allen won’t be directing it. Or Molly Ringwald.”

Fiction: 11/22/63 by Stephen King

As I write this, it is the 48th anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and I have just finished reading Stephen King’s new novel about a man who goes back in time to try to stop Lee Harvey Oswald from firing the three bullets that would change the world, 11/22/63 (Scribner). What a ride!

When high school teacher Jake Epping is convinced by a dying friend to step into the past, he has no idea how much he’ll actually change it -- and what those changes will mean to the rest of the world.

It’s no secret that King knows how to weave a tight story in short form, and of course many of his novels are classics. But some of his books are, well, daunting. There was The Stand, as brilliant as it was long. It, which exhausted me before I finished. Under the Dome, 2009’s examination of the population of a small town when a strange dome is lowered over it, trapping them inside. And now there’s 11-22-63, which, at almost 900 pages, approaches epic status.

So what does happen when a guy steps back in time from 2011 to 1958, with the goal of stopping Kennedy’s assassination? For King, it involves five years of life beforehand, proving Oswald’s lone-gunman status. But five years is long enough; Jake can’t just sit around, marveling at how life was simpler then, with none of the modern conveniences. No, what Jake must do is build a life -- to pass the time and to understand it. And it’s that life, really, and how it shuffles with his weaving himself into Oswald’s life, that this book is really about.

The frame is the events of Dealey Plaza -- but the picture inside that frame is something quite different. This is an adult novel that speaks of real relationships, real love; the dialogue and cultural touchstones feel like vintage King. No one is better at zeroing in on the detail that gets us to ooh and aah and maybe even shed a tear as we remember. But this goes beyond it. Far beyond.What’s so wonderful is King’s take on what happens when changes are made in the past. An early subplot has Jake insinuating himself into the family of a man he knows in 2011, making changes to that man’s tragic story. It’s a test, of course, Jake’s dry run: What will happen when he makes changes in the past… and how will they affect the future?

The JFK aspect of this book, for all the hype, is the smallest part of it. Is it cool to see what happens? Well, yeah. We’re all suckers for all things JFK. Does Jake get to stop Oswald? I’m not telling. But this book isn’t really about Oswald and JFK; it’s about a man who agrees to undertake a world-changing mission, then comes to understand how that mission changes his own life -- and possibly the lives of everyone on the planet -- and possibly the existence of the planet itself.

11-22-63 is a surprisingly layered, complex story about the small part we all play in this thing called life. It’s also about the idea that each part may not be as small as we think it is; each one may, in the end, be a tiny, though essential, factor in the future we all share. In a way, it’s that tale about the butterfly that flaps its wings in Iowa and causes a tidal wave in Japan (there are countless variations) -- except each one of us, in turns out, is a butterfly. ◊

Tony Buchsbaum, a contributing editor of January Magazine and Blue Coupe, lives in central New Jersey with his wife and sons. These days, he is writing his second novel. Again.

Stephen King Announces Shining Sequel

I was a teenager the first time I read The Shining, Stephen King’s masterful story about madness and magic in a remote Colorado hotel.

Now before you pipe up with a comment, if your experience of The Shining comes from the film of the same title starring Jack Nicholson, just hold your horses. It’s the book we’re talking about here: the film was a different animal and, like many others, I think I would have liked the movie better if it had a different title. That movie didn’t have much to do with the book I loved. It was an interesting psychological portrait. Well acted, sure. But the story was a bit damp.

But the book? The book scared the hell out of me. I remember closing my eyes sometimes as I read it, as I would have in a film. It didn’t work, though. Close your eyes in a movie and the sound can fill in the blanks. With a book, though, the virtual reality disappears. If you want the story to continue, you have to open your eyes again. I was something like 17-years-old and in perfect health, but there were moments in that reading when I felt as though I might have a heart attack.

Now according to The Guardian, 30-some years after the first publication of The Shining, Stephen King has announced that a sequel might be in the works:

Speaking to an audience of fans in Toronto about his new novel Under the Dome, King divulged that he’d begun working on a tentative idea for a follow-up to The Shining -- first published in 1977 -- last summer.

Danny, he said, was certain to have been left “with a lifetime’s worth of emotional scars” after his experiences at the Overlook, where his father was possessed by the hotel, tried to kill him and his mother and eventually died.

Since I think it’s possible even I have scars from just reading the book (and I’ve never been able to look at a hedge maze in quite the same way) I’m sure Danny Torrance will have been scarred as well. It will be massively interesting to see how King handles this idea and how, also, he’s matured as a writer. He was terrific then, but he’s a master craftsman now.

Don’t get your hopes too far up, though: according to King, the Shining sequel is far from a done deal:

King attempted to calm expectations about the sequel, telling the Toronto audience that he wasn’t “completely committed” to it, and adding: “Maybe if I keep talking about it I won’t have to write it.”

Stephen King to Enter the Twilight

Early in 2010, Vertigo will publish a five book series of graphic novels told by dark overlord Stephen King and short story writer Scott Snyder.

The series will feature American cowboy vampire Skinner Sweet and was originally conceived of by Snyder who had approached King for a blurb and ended up with a co-author.

“I love vampire stories,” King told The Guardian, “and the idea of following the dark exploits of a uniquely American vampire really lit up my imagination. The chance to do the original story -- to be ‘present at the creation’ – was a thrill. I owe big thanks to Scott Snyder for letting me share his vision, and sip from his bucket of blood.”

The Guardian points out that King is only the most recent author to add the graphic novel to his list of mediums.

Scottish crime writer Ian Rankin and twist-in-the-tale novelist Jodi Picoult have both recently dabbled with comics, but although his bestselling books The Stand, The Talisman and the Dark Tower series have been adapted into graphic novels, the American Vampire series will be the first original comic-book writing King has done.

The Guardian’s story adds much detail and is here.

King’s Short Treats

As someone who is surrounded by books, I have to prioritize my reading carefully. Unfortunately some books get left behind on my To-Be-Read pile when a favorite author’s work arrives on my doorstep.

One writer whose new releases automatically leap to the top of my TBR pile as soon as the postman calls is Stephen King. I have collected his work since I was an adolescent and was amused to see how much his older works are worth because, according to Books and Magazine Collector, he is the third most collectable author in the United Kingdom. The new issue Books and Magazine Collector devotes a lengthy section to collecting Stephen King first editions.

While at the Harrogate crime fiction festival earlier this month, I was graciously invited to celebrate Peter Robinson’s 21 years of Inspector Banks at a cocktail party hosted by Hodder and Stoughton, Robinson’s British publisher. While sipping chilled chardonnay with Robinson, we remarked at how fortunate we had both been when at a party specially organized by the same publisher to celebrate Stephen King’s release of Lisey’s Story back in 2006, King himself had come over to talk to us. It had been a very special moment, during which we discovered that King is a fan of Robinson’s Alan Banks series. I also discovered that I lost the ability to speak coherently in the presence of King.

I have been recently enjoying more from King than I had expected; after Lisey’s Story we had the “lost” Bachman book Blaze. Earlier this year we had the wonderfully creepy Duma Key. This fall we can expect another King work, a collection of short stories called Just After Sunset. The Hodder and Stoughton team know of my fascination for all things King and were kind enough to send me a proof volume of his new collection containing four of the stories as well as a new introduction and afterword from King himself. Just After Sunset is the fifth collection of short stories from King. It collects work that has been published at various publications in the past.

The sampler sent to me contained four stories that I hadn’t read, so to celebrate this treat considering that the weather was so good this weekend, I took out a bucket of ice into my garden and filled it with bottles of beer, and put on my reading glasses, seated myself on a reclining chair and read through the samples. These are my thoughts:

“Willa” is a creepy little story about the victims of an Amtrack rail crash in a small town in Wyoming. While the passengers wait for a recovery train to take them away from the station that they appear stranded upon, David searches for his fiancé, Willa, who has left the station and gone to a bar in town. The premise of this story is signposted early on, but this doesn’t detract from the tale because it really is an examination as to the continuity of life after death. Willa is an interesting tale of love, and how it may remain alive after death.

“The Gingerbread Girl” is a full blown Stephen King horror novella and one that makes the pages fly by as it is a tense tale of survival and madness. Emily and Henry are a loving couple whose relationship disintegrates after their infant child dies. To cope, Emily takes up running, not just jogging, but serious running at every possible opportunity. She leaves her husband and moves into her Father’s beachside holiday home, where she encounters a serial sex-killer and finds that perhaps her running has got her into deep trouble; trouble that could cost her life. However, Emily is not a quitter and perhaps something in her ability to run may save her life. Part horror, part chase thriller, and part a peak at how people cope with grief, this little tale packs a satisfying punch. Reminiscent of Gerald’s Game in terms of style and motivations.

“Mute” was my favorite story from this samplerr. A morality tale about a traveling salesman who picks up a mute and deaf hitchhiker and passes the time by telling him about how his wife left him for an older man, and how she left him in debt and with a compulsion to buy underwear and lottery tickets. This is a throwback to King’s early style, more pulp than literary, and bloody great fun with a killer ending -- literarily.

“Ayana” is somewhat like “Willa” in that it is also an examination of what may happen between the transition between life and death. When a young girl passes a healing touch to an old man dieing of pancreatic cancer, a chain of events occurs that may indicate that life is far more mysterious than the death that awaits us all. A haunting tale that lingers in the mind.
I would add that I enjoyed previously “Stationary Bike” which was released as an audio novella as well as the post 9/11 novella “The Things They Left Behind.” But as for the others, I’ll have to wait for November to read them all. However from reading this quartet of samples, I know the wait will be well worth it.

But if waiting until November for these stories seems unbearable, why not read one of them online at The New Yorker. The publication here offers up “Harvey’s Dream” from 2003.

Review: Duma Key by Stephen King

Today, in January Magazine’s fiction section, contributing editor Ali Karim reviews Duma Key by Stephen King. Says Karim:

I was about a quarter of the way into Stephen King’s Duma Key and feeling a sense of growing dread and dark foreboding when I came upon this passage spoken by the elderly property owner Elizabeth Eastlake. It serves as a taste of what Edgar Freemantle might experience upon relocating himself to Florida, to an idyllic beach-front residence called Duma Key:

“Edgar, one is sure you’ll make a very nice neighbour, I have no doubts on that score, but you must take precautions. I think you have a daughter, and I believe she visited you. Didn’t she? I seem to remember her waving to me. A pretty thing with blond hair? I may be confusing her with my own sister Hannah -- I tend to do that, I know I do -- but in this case, I think I’m right. If you mean to stay, Edgar, you mustn’t invite your daughter back. Under no circumstances. Duma Key isn’t a safe place for daughters.”

The hairs on the back of my neck bristled and a chill fell upon the room and I swear I thought the lights dimmed for a second. The first thought that came into my head was: “some books are dangerous.” Trust me, Duma Key is one such book.

The full review is here.

Review: Blaze by Richard Bachman, foreword by Stephen King

Today, in January Magazine’s fiction section, Linda L. Richards thinks about Blaze by Richard Bachman. Says Richards:

I hadn’t intended on reviewing Blaze, Richard Bachman’s posthumous novel. Not because it isn’t a good book -- I pretty much knew that it would be -- but because, on a certain level, there’s just no point in reviewing a novel by Stephen King or, as is the case here, a novel closely associated with him.

See, nothing I say or do here will alter your decision with regards to Blaze. You’re either already a big King fan and have read Blaze or ordered your copy or, at most, are waiting for the book to come out in paper. Or you’re one of those tight-lipped types who were warned about cholesterol when you were 12 and thus avoid it. You were told there were things that were better for you. And while King novels, like stuff with cholesterol, might be delicious, the possible downside haunts your joy, so you don’t stand in that line. And, either way, my words won’t alter your resolve. You’ll either read this and nod your head in agreement or toss your hair in indignation. I’m fine with either reaction. Or both. But, either way, most of the time I figure my energy is better spent telling you about books you might not have gotten wind of, rather than those you come to with predetermination.

The full review is here.