Down East Pulls Back The Curtain On Stephen King Circa 1977

10,000 Magazines, #9,998
Down East, The Magazine Of Maine, November 1977
First published: September 13, 2012

Do you remember 1977?  I was four.  The magazine is fun because it reads like a home town paper of sorts.  Very professional and fun, it is full of local ads and happenings throughout Maine.

One reason I love the old magazines is because they capture a particular moment in time.  Prices, fashion and ads are all frozen in a 100 page time capsule.  It is strange to see ads that require you to write in – no websites advertised here!

The November, 1977 issue of Down East had an interesting article by Lois Lowry titled, “King of the Occult.”

With a picture of a young Stephen King sitting on the hood of his Cadillac, the caption reads, “Stephen King has written three best-selling horror novels that have made him a millionaire at thirty.  Now friends and critics wait to see if he can do it again.”

Lowry takes time to discuss King’s mother in some detail, “He called his mother Ma.  She brought him broken cookies from the bakery where she worked at night while he was sleeping; and told him, with a fervor that came from a combination of resolute fundamentalism and the staunch New England belief that grit and stubbornness bear fruit like aple trees in rocky soil, that he would someday be a success.”

She also discusses his reception in Maine:

“Maine natives are not effusive people; nor are they likely to look kindly on a blue-jeaned upstart who has written of their home territory in allegories heavy withe vil and permeated with the violent bizarre, and occult.  Nevertheless, they come clutching their books, to get a glimpse and the signature of the man who has prodded at the perimeters of their lives with his perceptions and  his pen.”

Now that’s interesting, since of the three books King had published up to that point, only two of them were set in Maine.  The Shining was set in Colorado.  Also, Carrie is not heavy on the Maine setting.  But Salem’s lot overshadowed all other works when it came to location.  The novel told what a small Maine town would be like if it was taken over by vampires.  But the novel wasn’t just a blood and guts horror novel, it told the story of a small town, and that is what really drives the story.  It is appropriate that the story bears the towns name.  Lowry writes, “Country life suits Stephen King.”

At the time of the article, King lived in Bridgton, Maine.  Lowry describes it:

“To meet him there, in a spacious, toy-strewn house filled with the high voices of children and the sunshine that reflects brilliantly from Long Lake, it is hard to believe that murderous creatures are brewing in his brain like newts in a cauldron.  It’s a placid, unostentatious kind of country living that reveals nothing of the lurking horrors of the mind that made it possible. 

It’s a hard house to find.  A visitor must know the landmarks, the right turn to make in the narrow, winding road that runs along the lake.”

Later in the article, Lowry says that the house Is for sale. King was headed to England, where the  filming of The Shining, starring Jack Nicholson, would be done.

(Check out the Down East article, “Stephen King Doesn’t Live In Bridgton Anymore”)

The article traces the story we now know pretty well – but never really get tired of – of King rising from nothing to becoming a best selling author.  The article also, almost off-handedly remarks that Stanley Kubrick has bought the rights for The Shining.  We all know how that came out!

I like these lines:

“Smile.  Wince.  Reach for a cigarette.  An asprin.  Turn on some country music and hum.  Tease Tabby.   Scold little Joe for riding his plastic Batmobile around the living room too noisily.  Stoke the yellow cat named Carrie.  Diaper the new baby who smiles in the sunny bedroom.  Downstairs, the typewriter waits.  The terrors and spooks   and nameless, faceless creatures are all down there in the study, waiting to be written.  And the public waits, the critics wiat, to see if he can do it again.”

See, the fun of this article is that we already know – yes he can do it again!  The people who inhabit the distant world of 1977 don’t even know about The Stand, The Shawshank Redemption, The Dead Zone or. . . the Dark Tower!

*** And wait a minute, did the article just reveal he had a cat named Carrie?  What's wrong with Church?  Church is a good name for a cat.

The article also discusses the issue of genre and typecasting.  “Shelly and Toker wrote successful horror.  So does King.  But what is it that distinguishes good horror from the old Tales From the Crypt” that you read with the kind of gleeful fear when you were a kid?”  For my money, and a lot of people’s I would venture to guess, we like King’s gleeful joy as he leads us through his stories.  Lowry quotes King, “All I am is the phosphorescent ghost at the funhouse.   I’m the guy who jumps out and yells ‘Boo!’”

Lowry rightly accesses King’s strength is his ability to combine the real and imaginary worlds.  Thus he takes issues we know and understand – alcoholism, small towns, little boys and mixes  them with freak-a-zoid things like vampires and haunted hotels.  King also says, “People grow up, and their need for fantasy remains.  You’re made a child again, through fear, and that’s a normal desire.”

About the fans, King had an easier time of it back in 1977 than he would through the 80's and beyond.  But still, even by then, the fans were starting to encroach on King’s personal life.   The article says,

King appreciates his fans, answers the letters they write him, and carries in his wallet a photograph of a young girl from the Southwest because she sent a note that touched him.  But he’s had his phone number changed, and the local operator tells countless people every day, “No, I’m sorry, we are not permitted to disclose that number,” because strangers call from all parts of the country to ask for money, interviews, help in finding a publisher for the 800-page novel they’ve written about werewolves, or advice on how to do away with the demonic neighbor who has caused their vegetables to succumb to root rot. 

Sometimes he opens his eyes wide behind the horn-rimmed glasses and realizes that Tabby is at home on the edge of the lake witht eh kids, listening to music, and he’s on a plane to at own whose name he has temporarily forgotten, to sign his name for people he’s never met, and to be interviewed for a magazine that will make him sound glamorous and oracular and start the stream of phone calls and unwanted guests all over again.”

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Here's a page my beloved mother-in-law scanned. . . and I have no idea why!  but I love that lady.