Talk Stephen King: Dedication To Doctor Sleep

Do you pay much attention to book dedications? Sometimes I do. But King often dedicates to people that I have no idea who they are. His dedication unfortunately does not stir any need on my part to rush out and discover who these people are. I liked the dedication to Tabby at the beginning of The Stand. And he once dedicated a story to his brother David, and I liked that. But I am usually in such a hurry to get into the book that the dedication is just something to skim by.

Steve Newton at Vancouver'sstraight.com was pretty excited about the dedication to Warren Zevon in Doctor Sleep.

Newton wrote,

I got a kick out of the horror master’s dedication of the book. He sent it out to singer-songwriter Warren Zevon, who I’ve always felt was one of the most underrated rockers of all time.

How cool is that?

When I was playing my primitive brand of rhythm guitar with a group called the Rock Bottom Remainders, Warren Zevon used to gig with us. Warren loved gray t-shirts and movies like Kingdom of the Spiders. He insisted I sing lead on his signature tune, “Werewolves of London”, during the encore portion of our shows. I said I was not worthy. He insisted that I was. “Key of G,” Warren told me, “and howl like you mean it. Most important of all, play like Keith.” I’ll never be able to play like Keith Richards, but I always did my best, and with Warren beside me, matching me note for note and laughing his fool head off, I always had a blast.