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Lawnmower Man Lawsuit: How Stephen King Took on Hollywood

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Stephen King is a prolific author who has published a staggering amount of successful writing. This is not an issue that plagues too many authors. However, his success brings other issues. Namely, a lot of his work goes to the big screen, and a lot of his work gets poorly adapted. Often, the story that is presented in cinema looks nothing like the book it came from. In this post, we examine the strange tale of “The Lawnmower Man” adaptation lawsuit. There are no signs of a short story here; only a movie that wanted to use King’s name to draw in audiences.

The Short Story: “The Lawnmower Man”

Let us begin with the source material:

The short story “The Lawnmower Man” was first published in Cavalier in 1975. Later, it appeared in Stephen King’s dynamite short story collection Night Shift. It tells the story of Harold Parkette, a middle-aged man who hires a new company to mow his lawn. After the new lawnmower man arrives, he upsets Harold with some of his innovations in lawn service. These innovations include eating grass, paying homage to the Greek god of the wild Pan, and a bunch of other weird stuff.

But the lawnmower man was the true obscenity.

The lawnmower man had removed his clothes–every stitch. They were folded neatly in the empty birdbath that was at the center of the back lawn. Naked and grass-stained, he was crawling along about five feet behind the mower, eating the cut grass. Green juice ran down his chin and dripped into his pendulous belly. And every time the lawnmower whirled around a corner, he rose and did an odd, skipping jump before prostrating himself again.”

After Harold sees this, he faints. When he wakes, the lawnmower man, still naked, explains that the Great God Pan is the true innovator (“God bless the grass.”) by killing two birds with one stone, by making money for “other operations.” Harold, terrified, retreats inside and calls the police. During the fumbling conversation, the lawnmower man bursts in with his mower and advances on Harold.

“Now if you was just to show me where you keep your sharpest butcher knife, we could get this sacrifice business out of the way real painless …”

Harold is devoured by the lawnmower, and the detectives on the scene are unable to make heads or tales of his death.

The Film: The Lawnmower Man (1992)

The film was released in 1992 and is a science-fiction thriller directed by Brett Leonard. It tells the tale of Jobe Smith (Jeff Fahey), who is intellectually disabled, and Dr. Lawrence Angelo (Pierce Brosnan). Dr. Angelo wants to help Jobe by giving him a higher intelligence by using virtual reality. His experiments increases Jobe’s intelligence, but also fuels his lust for violence and ultimately his desire to dominate cyberspace. The movie was originally titled CyberGod, which is actually a great title and makes more sense than The Lawnmower Man.

The Adaptation Disconnect

Yet, the only similarity between the short story and the movie is that they both (at some point) feature a person and a lawnmower. Unfortunately, tenuous is the only word that accurately describes the relationship between the film and the King’s work.

Furthermore, it would seem that the adaptation part of turning “The Lawnmower Man” story into a film was the least of production’s concern. New Line Cinema, the studio in charge of releasing the film, and the director, Brett Leonard, featured nothing from the story outside of the few aforementioned elements. As such, a court found the company in the wrong for using King’s name.

As stated in an Entertainment Weekly article:

“In 1992, a New York court issued an injunction against New Line’s use of King’s name to sell the film. In a later settlement the studio also agreed to pay the writer $2.5 million in damages” (Davidson).

Yet, the saga did not end there, either. New Line Cinema still released the movie with King’s name on the packaging. King found this out by using “a team of private investigators.” As stated by writer David Rollinson in “The Lawnmower Man Redefines the Term ‘Loosely Adapted.’”:

“A judge slapped New Line Cinema with contempt of court, diverting all film profits from May of 1993 to King himself, as well as fines of $10,000 a day until the offending VHS covers were changed. While no final sum has been disclosed, King has stated he was very happy with the outcome” (Rollins).

The company seemed determined to keep Stephen King’s name on the packaging for marketing purposes. One might conclude that the quality of the film spoke to such ardent efforts.

Conclusion

There is a long history of studios taking advantage of writers and their works.

Consider the following list:

  1. Isaac Asimov’s novel I, Robot was turned into a shoddy 2004 mess with action galore.
  2. Eragon, an epic fantasy novel series with depth, was turned into cliche-extravaganza in 2006.
  3. The Giver by Louis Lowry was turned into a 2014 teen romance that undersold the complex of the original work.

Unfortunately, artists are treated unfairly when their works have been commodified to an unhealthy degree—such as most of Stephen King’s work. Nevertheless, these types of grievances can be expected when your name and content have been used on a Funko Pop figurine.

Then again, it is nice to see the artist can win out against the machine from time to time.

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Stephen King’s Richard Bachman: Life, Death, and Pseudonym

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Writerly pseudonyms have benefitted the writing community since the inception of publishing. In fact, the colloquial “pen name” comes from using pseudonyms. Consider: J.K. Rowling used the name Robert Galbraith following Harry Potter’s success; Agatha Christie used her own name for her mystery novels, while she used Mary Westmacott for her romance novels. In this post, we are going to talk about horror icon Stephen King’s famous pen name (as there are a spat of upcoming films), Richard Bachman.

Richard Bachman’s Background

At some point in his career, Stephen King became enamored with a possibility: what if I could release similar novels under a different name? The idea was to test the theory of talent vs luck. In King’s eyes, was he really talented as a horror author, or was he in the right place at the right time? Another issue King addressed with Bachman dealt with common publishing practices at the time: authors usually only published one novel per year to avoid saturation. Bachman solved this issue as King now had the opportunity to write and publish more novels each year. And, Bachman did just that.

Initially, King adopted the name Gus Pillsbury, which came from his maternal grandfather. However, that name was figured out fairly quickly, and so he dropped it.

As King put it: “The name Richard Bachman actually came from when they called me and said we’re ready to go to press with this novel, what name shall we put on it? And I hadn’t really thought about that … so they said they needed it right away and there was a novel by Richard Stark on my desk so I used the name Richard … and what was playing on the record player was ‘You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet’ by Bachman Turner Overdrive, so I put the two of them together and came up with Richard Bachman.”

A Richard Bachman (fictional) Biography

Richard Manuel, a friend of Stephen King and “the insurance agent of Kirby McCauley,” who was King’s agent. According to lore, Claudia Inez Bachman took this photo of the fictious author.

Richard Bachman, as King explained, was a farmer-turned-writer who lived in New Hampshire with his wife, Claudia Inez Bachman. Unfortunately, they had a child who died after falling into a well and drowning. In later interviews, King revealed that Bachman’s face had become ravaged by cancer, which prevented him from public appearances and made him “one ugly son of a bitch.” Bachman also survived a brain tumor that had to be removed from the base of his brain, but still eventually succumbed to “cancer of the pseudonym.” Which, as we know, is not a real disease, but rather a play on Bachman’s very existence. As such, Bachman’s death had a lot to do with King being outed as the writer behind the pseudonym.

In his lifetime, Bachman wrote eight books. These included:

  1. Rage (1977)
  2. The Long Walk (1979)
  3. Roadwork (1981)
  4. The Running Man (1982)
  5. Thinner (1984)
  6. The Bachman Books (1985, collection)
  7. The Regulators (1996)
  8. Blaze (2007)

Revealing Bachman

A Washington D.C. bookstore clerk, Steve Brown, stumbled upon the real identity of Richard Bachman after noticing many similarities between Bachman’s books and King’s. Particularly, he was reading an advanced copy of Thinner (1984). His curiosity took him to the Library of Congress, where he checked the copyrights on Bachman’s novels. Kirby McCauley’s name appeared, who was King’s agent, and then King’s name appeared alongside Rage, Bachman’s first book. After sending a “letter detailing what (he) had found,” for the master of horror, Brown was contacted by King himself.

“This is Steve King,” the author stated over the phone while Brown was at work. “Okay, you know I’m Bachman, I know I’m Bachman, what are we going to do about it? Let’s talk.”

According to Brown, they spent multiple nights discussing the situation over the phone. Brown noted that King kept his sense of humor the whole time. With the ruse revealed, King’s Bachman books now feature the dual names, or “King writing as Richard Bachman.”

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Stephen King’s The Running Man: Surveillance and Survival

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Survivors on an island, survivors in a house, drama in paradise, and Joe Millionaires. Reality TV is at its best when it’s laced with drama and suspense. What will happen on this episode? What will happen next time? So pervasive is television in American markets that these types of questions have been asked long before reality television got its start on the airwaves. But, could it be possible that networks would take this idea one step further in the coming decades? Stephen King’s The Running Man, a novel (and soon-to-be film adaptation), explores what this violent scenario might look like in execution.

Summary of Stephen King’s The Running Man

Originally published in 1984, The Running Man is set in the far off future of 2025, and tells the story of Ben Richards. Ben is a man in his late 20s who lives in Co-Op city under a dystopian US government. His life is ruthlessly oppressed, his daughter is terminally sick, and his wife has turned to sex work to make ends meet. Ben, meanwhile, turns to the Games Network to enlist in one of the shows to attain money for his family. After physical and mental testing and an interview with showrunner Dan Kilian, Ben is selected to participate in the Running Man–a popular game on the network.

The rules for the game are as follows:

  • Contestants win 100 dollars for every hour they stay alive/not captured.
  • An additional 100 dollars for every police officer/Hunter that they eliminate.
  • Winners receive one-billion dollars if they stay alive for 30 days.
  • Contestants are given a video camera and $4,800 before they leave the studio.

Without giving away too much, Ben embarks on a violent adventure through the world of the dystopian government, in which the impoverished live and breath in pollution and watch propagandistic television enabled by their leaders. At every turn, Ben is confronted by law enforcement, hunters, and betrayal. Does he survive the Running Man? You will have to read it (or watch it) to find out.

Conclusion

Much like The Long Walk, Richard Bachman’s The Running Man is a televised circus of violent proportions. The contestants are forced to survive in a dangerous and unwinnable situation and are pushed to their extremes. As such, we see humanity at its basest and barest form–brooding and visceral. The story critiques media consumption habits and pushes it to the most Dionysian limits. People are hunted, people are shot, and people are killed. This is not a kind world, but none of Bachman’s worlds are that kind to begin with, whether we look at the aforementioned The Long Walk, or his other works, like Roadwork, or Rage. If you are interested in reading this book, be prepared for some brutal confrontations and aggression.

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Stephen King’s The Long Walk: A Harrowing Journey of Sacrifice

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The thought of walking a 5k is miserable to some people, but walking endlessly until only one of you remain? Well, that would be a nightmare. However, what if your prize is anything that you choose? Money? Love? Richard Bachman (author Stephen King‘s famous alter-ego who died due to cancer of the pseudonym) executed this idea during his freshman year at the University of Maine in 1967. That story came out as Stephen King’s “The Long Walk.” It is also a story straight from King’s distinct Bachman-voice. These stories are a bit more violent, and a bit more pointed. Currently, the production company Lionsgate is producing a film directed by Francis Lawrence, which is due out Sept. 12, 2025. But what is this story about, and what does it say about who we are as a society?

Summary of Stephen King’s The Long Walk

The setting of the story is the United States under a totalitarian regime. The regime televises the titular “Long Walk.” It is a filmed contest in which 100 men walk along US Route 1 until only one remains. The rules for the game are as follows: contestants must walk at least 4 miles per hour; the escort soldier give three warnings if they drop below that speed for 30 seconds. The soldiers shoot and kill the contestant on the fourth.

Stephen King’s “The Long Walk” centers around Ray Garraty from Androscoggin County, Maine. He enters the walk and begins to get to know the people around him. Slowly, we learn more about the desperation of each contestant. We also learn why they have come to be in the “Long Walk” themselves. Nevertheless, the soldiers kill the contestants ruthlessly as the walk continues. Much infighting occurs throughout the day and night. Garraty befriends a number of walkers. The walk only fuels some of the others. The winner, as it stands, receives the prize of his choosing. This grand, open-ending prize pushes the contestants into the literal long walk. Throughout the story, alliances are made and broken, and friends sacrifice themselves to save each other.

Conclusion

Bachman and Roadwork

I initially read Bachman when I read a novella called “Roadwork.” It had all the markings of a good King story. It featured well-drawn characters, including the protagonist Barton Dawes. As well, the story is a compelling narrative in which municipality and highway construction imposes its imminent domain on the hero’s home. The events in the novel result in a final standoff between the protagonist and police. It posits the question as to whether villains are made or created.

The other element that Roadwork has is a certain amount of raw grittiness that other King stories simply don’t have. As it were, Roadwork is a political story about government overreach and the place of citizens in the US. While King has mentioned that he wrote the story about his mother’s death, one can only assume King’s political activism (and late night with road cones) played into the perspective of this novel. Therefore, we can see Bachman as a sort of soapbox for King to speak about issues in which he believes. In this way, he can remark about controversial issues and write about taboo subject matter (school shootings and the like).

The Long Walk Themes

In a similar vein, Stephen King’s The Long Walk has an air of violence and punchy discourse that cuts the reader to the bone. As it relates to this style of storytelling, the overused expression “unflinching” is fitting. Some critics–and the author himself–have pointed out that the book seems to mirror the Vietnam War. Think about the death marches and senseless sacrifice through violence.

Meanwhile, the book itself is a critique of sensationalism and viewership in the age of entertainment and TV. The reader can imagine the enthralled audience at home throwing their hands up and celebrating as each contestant falls to the ground and is shot (circa Bachman’s other novel The Running Man). After all, the television during the late 1960s (and modern media) were evolving in ways moral sensors felt unbecoming. As I get older (and more prudish), I see some of these arguments in a new light. If copulation and physical aggression are already on the platter, how far do we really have to go to show violence, bloodshed, and death?

Outside of the moralizing, it’s a great story worth reading from the king of horror.

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Ghost Story Conventions in Stephen King’s ‘Salem’s Lot’

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As a connoisseur of the strange, I dabble in many forms of odd things. From folklore to legend, from ghost stories to little red men on telephone poles. I have read a fair amount of the weird. When I listened to Salem’s Lot by Stephen King (and read “Jerusalem’s Lot” and “One for the Road”), I felt as though there was this great haunting happening to the town of Salem’s Lot. The spirits of the dead are restless and all that. In this post, we are going to analyze ghost story conventions in Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot.

What makes a ghost story?

Ghost stories are defined by a variety of conventions. Some of these conventions include the use of suspense, fear, atmosphere, the supernatural, psychology, and elements of Gothic literature. As pointed out by some sources, ghosts can offer two key plot devices as well: revenge and exposition.

If you think about the Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson, you get a great sense of suspense. Things go bump in the night and the ghosts are out. The characters constantly inspect and suspect the house of ill-will. Yet the reader is left to wonder right up until the very end whether real haunts were present. The ghosts in this case, are expository as they enable character development through their existence (or nonexistence?). Classic suspense.

Fear and atmosphere fit well within the suspense of the novel as well. In another Stephen King novel, The Shining, the characters are plagued by horrific visions of violence and the macabre. These visions include ghosts in forbidden rooms and walls of blood. Granted, they are also surrounded by the contrast of the ominous amenities of a grand hotel. Nonetheless, the ghosts act a revenge mechanism, as the house has unfinished business, and will perhaps always have unfinished business.

Moreover, in Bram Stoker’s short story “The Judge’s House,” psychology and the supernatural join forces. Both forces join together in a Gothic home where the spirit of an evil judge lurks in the corpus of rats and eventually as a manifestation of his former self. The haunt is real here, and his vengeance isn’t exactly logical. It’s a more pointed form of violence from the afterlife.

All of these elements contribute to the ghost story. Fear, suspense, the supernatural, Gothic elements–all of these features heighten the experience of a ghost story.

How a classic vampire novel fits the ghost story structure

There are many ghost story conventions in Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot. In fact, it fits all of these elements and speak more to ghostly visitations than of vampiric bloodlust.

For instance, if we were to take the previous conventions and apply them to King’s novel, they would fit right in line. Suspense, for example, is executed throughout as chapters that almost act as asides from the main story; each one telling short vignettes about particular residents of Salem’s Lot (some of which fall prey to vampires, and some fall prey to their own sin and guilt). As such, we get a glimpse into the psychology of the town. Many of the residents harbor resentments and fears that go much deeper than just superficial angst. Some of them abuse their children–or each other–while others have affairs or hide perversions that are too taboo breaking for a small New England town.

“The town has a sense, not of history, but of time, and the telephone poles seem to know this. If you lay your hand against one, you can feel the vibration from the wires deep within the wood, as if souls had been imprisoned in there and were struggling to get out.”

Continuing, fear is pervasive throughout the novel–and I don’t mean the reader’s fear–but the characters themselves. Ben Mears is afraid of the Marsten House, which struck fear into his heart when he was but a boy. The Marsten House itself embodies the Gothic castles of yore, such as the Haunted Palace from Edgar Allan Poe’s poem of the same name–or even the Usher House from “Fall of the House of Usher” by the same author.

Only the trees, and in the distance, where those trees rose against the sky, the peaked, gabled roof of the Marsten House.

He gazed at it, fascinated. Warring emotions crossed his face with kaleidoscopic swiftness.

“Still here,” he murmured aloud. “By God.”

He looked down at his arms. They had broken out in goose flesh.

Furthermore, Jason Burke, who acts as a de facto Van Helsing, suffers a massive heart attack in a fight against the local gravedigger, Mike Ryerson. The fear in Burke’s soul drives the encounter and the ghostly visage of Ryerson causes Burke’s ultimate downfall.

Likewise, the atmosphere and supernatural elements set the stage for ghastly encounters with vampires throughout the book. The darkness that pervades the a majority of the scenes cooperates with the monstrous antagonists and supernatural elements, such as when Mike Ryerson is overcome by the vampire child Danny Glick, who attacks him as the dark evening grows closer.

Conclusion

What does this all mean? By understanding the ghost story conventions in King’s Salem’s Lot as a ghost story, rather than an overt vampire novel, we can tie the narrative to a history of storytelling that goes back centuries. Therefore, the novel is not merely a horror novel about vampires doing evil things, but rather an homage to stories from the past.

King’s adept use of these ghost-story conventions tie the book down into a haunting and desperate battle between good and evil. As mentioned, The Shining continues this trend of engrossing storytelling that utilizes fear, suspense, psychology, atmosphere, and supernatural elements that haunt us during reading…and long after.

Works Cited
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Stephen King’s ‘Fairy Tale’: Book Review and Bildungsroman

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Heavy spoilers for Stephen King’s Fairy Tale

It’s difficult growing up. It’s even more difficult when you have man-eating giants and skeletal wizards to contend with. In Stephen King’s Fairy Tale, a young boy named Charlie Reade ventures into a land of make-believe. There, he learns about loss and hardship, ultimately transforming from a young boy into a full-grown adult.

Previously, we discussed the concept of bildungsroman. This is a fancy way of saying “coming of age” when we are discussing a story. In this post, we will examine the conventions of a bildungsroman. Then, we will see how it compares to Stephen King’s novel about shoes on a line, reverse-aging dogs, and rather large crickets.

Plot Summary
Before the Fantasy

The novel begins with Charlie Reade reeling from the death of his mother and his father’s (George) fall into alcoholism. The first section of the novel establishes Charlie as a caring yet frustrated child. His father is absent from a crucial moment of trauma mending. Eventually, Charlie’s father gets the help he needs, and they move on with their lives successfully.

One day, Charlie meets old man Bowditch, who is a cantankerous misanthrope that lives by himself in his old house in town. After helping the man after a bad accident, Charlie tends to Bowditch’s dog, Radar. The dog is a large, albeit aging, German Shepherd. Charlie begins to love Radar and insists on caring for him, and he also discovers that Mr. Bowditch has access to a great deal of golden pellets, which have set the old, cranky man for life.

After Mr. Bowditch dies of a heart attack, it is revealed through a recording to Charlie that Mr. Bowditch has been able to go through a portal of sorts in his backyard. Here, he can voyage to another world called Empis—one of fantasy and horror.

During the Fantasy

Charlie, fearing for Radar’s age and health, decides to take the dog to this land for healing. Similarly, Bowditch was able to use a huge, magical sundial to reverse years of his own life (living until he was 120 years old). In this new land, Charlie saves Radar but is captured by an army of undead monsters, known as “night soldiers.” He is taken to Deep Maleen where he is subjected to torture. Afterward, he is forced to fight his fellow captives in gladiatorial combat. Charlie is able to escape during a pivotal tournament after discovering his lineage as one of the princes and heroes of Empis.

After reconvening, Charlie and his new group of friends venture back into the city to destroy a source of evil so powerful that it could consume all of Empis and possibly the real world.

The Conventions of Bildungsroman

A bildungsroman has a straightforward component: the story must feature a person who travels from inexperience to experience. As such, the main characters do not need to be a child, but that is often the easiest way to change from youth to adulthood. For example, think about King Arthur as a boy transformed into King Arthur the man.

As the School of Writing, Literature, and Film for Oregon State University writes, “While the Bildungsroman is also often labeled using slightly different terminology—like ‘the novel of education’ or the ‘coming-of-age novel,’ the essence of the Bildungsroman is the process of the main character forming his or her own self through whatever degree of freedom and individuality they can wrest from forces that are larger than them” (Schwartz).

What this means is that some learning has to happen in order for the protagonist to change into their older, wiser self.

“Fairy Tale” as bildungsroman

Keeping it simple, the story of Charlie Reade is one of growth and exploration… and exploration in a literal sense. In the beginning, Charlie is lost and confused, as his mother was tossed away by fate (having been hit by a truck while on a walk to get dinner for her family), and his father is a hopeless alcoholic. Here, Charlie is in his infantile state of seeing the world. He can’t comprehend his mother’s death, and he struggles with anger toward his father even though he loves him.

Strangely, the story works as a double-bildungsroman (if that’s a thing), as the narrative arc of Charlie grappling with his father’s alcoholism shows a great change between both of the characters; in fact, I almost thought it would make a fantastic book by itself if it was just this section of the novel up until the death of Mr. Bowditch.

Regardless, even as Charlie travels to this new world through a tunnel, the reader sees a change in the landscape—and Charlie’s perception of the world.

Excerpt

From the novel:

I reached the opening and saw the ceiling overhead was now earth, with fine tendrils of root dangling down. I ducked under some overhanging vines and stepped out onto a sloping hillside. The sky was gray, but the field was bright red. Poppies spread in a gorgeous blanket stretching left and right as far as I could see. A path led through the flowers toward a road. On the far side of the road more poppies ran maybe a mile to thick woods, making me think of the forests that had once grown in my suburban town. The path was faint, but the road wasn’t. It was dirt but wide, not a track but a thoroughfare. Where the path joined the road, there was a tidy little cottage with smoke rising from the stone chimney. There were clotheslines with things strung on them that weren’t clothes. I couldn’t make out what they were.

I looked to the far horizon and saw the skyline of a great city. Daylight reflected hazily from its highest towers, as if they were made of glass. Green glass. I had read “The Wizard of Oz” and seen the movie, and I knew an Emerald City when I saw one.

Charlie has already changed from a naive boy who couldn’t believe in fantasy and magic, and now a revelation has given him new insight into himself and the world around him. If it was possible to see the Emerald City, it was certainly possible to see other outlandish things in the land of Empis. That shows a change in character. Thus, when Charlie faces down an angry man-eating giant, we can believe his fear, and we can also believe his resolve.

Later in the novel, Charlie leads his friends to safety and back into the jaws of chaos with his newfound heroism and desire to fix a broken land that was once beautiful and serene.

Conclusion

The big takeaway here is that a bildungsroman causes change in a character. The character is typically youthful, though this can be contested, and they eventually grow into their mature self through trials and tribulations. Charlie starts as a child of 17 and eventually becomes a man and hero of a magical world. Stephen King’s Fairy Tale naturally fills the void of expectation between childhood and manhood. Bildungsroman fulfilled.

Works Cited

Collis, Clark. “Read an Exclusive Excerpt from Stephen King’s Forthcoming Novel Fairy Tale.” Entertainment. Jan. 24, 2022. Web.

King, S. (2022). Fairy Tale. Scribner.

Schwartz, Sam. “What is a Bildungsroman? | Definition and Examples.” Oregon State University. March 4, 2024. Web. https://liberalarts.oregonstate.edu/wlf/what-bildungsroman-definition-examples

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Stephen King’s ‘The Stand’: An Exploration of Cibola

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A violent plague crippling society has been a horrific premise in fiction for a long time. In reality, Bird flu, swine flu, Ebola, and Covid-19 were all very real disease-related issues that mirrored fictional illness. In Stephen King’s The Stand, there is a great deal of misery when his disastrous flu attacks society. However, in this post, we are going to set aside the plot-related elements of the novel(mostly), and instead focus on a subject that comes from one of the most interesting characters in the book—The Trashcan Man. As such, we are going to talk about Cibola, or the Seven Cities of Gold.

A Brief Synopsis of the Novel

The plague in Stephen King’s disaster-novel The Stand (1978) wreaks a great deal of havoc on society. When it’s all said and done, it reduces the population from 99% to merely 1% in only a month. The survivors, climbing their way out of the apocalypse, find themselves plagued by peaceful/horrid dreams. These dreams are of an old woman who calls herself Mother Abigail or the dreams feature the supernaturally evil Randall Flagg. Mother Abigail instructs them to venture to Hemingford Home, Nebraska, for a new start. But Flagg is everywhere and goes by many names—The Dark Man, The Midnight Rambler, Old Creeping Judas, or (my personal favorite): The Walking Dude. In other books, he is known as Walter Padick (his supposed birth name) and Walter O’Dim.

Randall Flagg and His Followers

Flagg is a nefarious villain, one of magic and foresight. He is capable of killing people with the snap of his fingers (or sending flying electric balls of light). And, he can travel vast distances in little time. He also has a great aptitude for choosing his followers, which may be a critical flaw. One such follower is Lloyd Henreid, a murderer and born tagalong. Flagg, The Walking Dude, releases Henreid shortly before he starves to death on a maximum security prison block. Of course, it wouldn’t be Stephen King if Henreid had not already turned (slightly) cannibal for survival.

But perhaps the most enigmatic character in the novel is that of The Trashcan Man. Donald Merwin Elbert. Trash, as he is known mostly throughout the book, is mentally disturbed. He lives to watch the world burn (literally). His youth was plagued by bullying and typical nastiness at his odd behavior. This behavior was ostensibly inherited through his father’s genes. His father, gunned down by the local Sheriff, shared his pained psychology. Trash would later spend time in Terre Haute, Indiana, where he received electroshock therapy.

After the plague, Trash is on a mission to find The Dark Man, who resides in Las Vegas. Flagg’s society has established itself there and the Trashcan Man travels to find him.

King writes of this journey:

“He came staggering and flapping up a long upgrade, the heat of the sun stewing his stomach and baking his brains. The interstate shimmered with reflected radiant heat. He had been Donald Merwin Elbert once; now he was Trashcan Man forever and ever, and he beheld the fabled City, Seven-in-One, Cibola.”

A paragraph later: “He stood, swaying in his rags, looking down at Cibola, the City that is Promised, the City of Dreams.”

What is Cibola?

Cibola, or the Seven Cities of Gold, was a 16th-century legend that hinted at the existence of literal lands of gold. Rumors of these cities existed. Some sources state that they were, “somewhere in the southwest of North America” and could be “comparable to the better-known mythical city of El Dorado” (Mark).

In The Stand, and in Trash’s brain, the city of Cibola—not many cities but just Seven-in-One—exists in the Mojave desert and would, of course, be the most sought-after place in the world, as not only was it a land of gold and promise, but the lair of his master, Flagg. My life for you!

Additionally, the sojourn to Hemingford Home, which would relocate to Boulder, Colorado, or even the voyage to Las Vegas, acts as a journey for the characters in the novel, much in the same way Spanish explorers ventured to find a land of gold to fund armies and warfare. In the novel, warfare and destruction of the same variety (total) would be inevitable. Trashcan Man’s sole purpose, as instructed by Flagg, was to find and retrieve the Old World weapons (guns, mines, and bombs). Then, he would bring them back to Vegas and they would use them against the Boulder Free Zone.

In reality, attempts to find the Cities of Gold were fruitless, as even in 1540, Antonio de Mendoza, the viceroy of Spain, sent Francisco Vazquez de Coronado “to search of the cities,” but he only found “Indian settlements—including the Zuni Pueblos” (Britannica).

Such is the way of legend, and even though Trash believes in his discovery in the novel, he has a momentary realization that can only be likened to the Spanish explorers of the 16th century: “What if Cibola had been a mirage?”

Conclusion

Whether you are critical of the end of Stephen King’s The Stand or not, it is a book of wonderful invention. It does so much legwork in the way of establishing the world. And, frankly, before the characters hit Hemingford Home, Nebraska, the book is startlingly horrifying and beautiful in the way one would expect and desire of post-apocalyptic fiction. With that in mind, the addition of elements like Cibola and the Trashcan Man himself creates a lived in world where such interesting machinations can fall in line easily. The fact that Cibola is layered in mythos and actually relates to the story’s theme of finding home in a chaotic world. Similarly, King has dabbled in many interesting themes over the years, but perhaps never one so fruitful with mythology.

Works Cited

Editors. “Seven Cities of Cibola.” Britannica.

King, Stephen. The Stand. Doubleday, 1978.

Mark, Joshua. “Cibola – The Seven Cities of Gold and Coronado.” World History Encyclopedia. May 11, 2021. Web. https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1754/cibola—the-seven-cities-of-gold–coronado/

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“The Dead Zone” by Stephen King: Alienation and Recovery

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In talking about books written by Stephen King, I think there is some trepidation when it comes to listing one’s favorites. There are just so many great novels in his horror canon. Nonetheless, I am always quick to point out The Dead Zone (1979) by King as one of my favorites. I read it when I was in my early 20s. I remember staying up night after night reading it until I had completed it in a sad, bleary-eyed mess. It was a fantastic experience.

I think it is an important book.

With that said, in this post, I am going to summarize the novel and provide my overall thoughts near the end.

Synopsis
The Beginning

The novel opens with a young Johnny Smith falling and hitting his head on the ice while skating. This accident causes him to see a future accident. In his vision, a man gets his face burned with battery acid after jumping his car. This comes to fruition, though nobody thinks twice.

Meanwhile, somewhere else in the US, bible salesmen Greg Stillson thinks about his future (and dreams of power). Then after a bout of annoyance with a barking dog, he savagely beats it to death. It is a rough scene:

“Sometimes he wondered if he was going crazy. Like now. He had meant to give the dog a burst from the ammonia Flit gun, drive it back into the barn so he could leave his business card in the crack of the screen door.

Come back some other time and make a sale. Now look. Look at this mess. Couldn’t very well leave his card now, could he?

He opened his eyes. The dog lay at his feet, panting rapidly, drizzling blood from its snout. As Greg Stillson looked down, it licked his shoe humbly, as if to acknowledge that it had been bested, and then it went back to the business of dying.”

(The Dead Zone | Stephen King)

Fast forward to 1970, Johnny Smith teaches English at a high school in Maine. He is also dating one of the other teachers at the school, Sarah Bracknell. They both go on a date that ends in a spectacular showing of Johnny’s latent ability. He wins a “Wheel of Fortune” carnival game multiple times. This upsets the game manager, and so Johnny and Sarah leave.

After taking Sarah home, Johnny is involved in a car accident and falls into a four-year coma. After he awakes he discovers that he can touch people and see events, typically tragedies, in their future. He has a revealing interaction with one of his nurses during the proceeding passage:

“He was still gripping her hand, looking into her face with’ a faraway, dreamy contemplation that made her feel nervous. She had heard things about Johnny Smith, rumors that she had disregarded with her own brand of hard-headed pragmatism. There was a story that he had predicted Marie Michaud’s boy was going to be all right, even before the doctors were one hundred percent sure they wanted to try the risky operation.

Another rumor had something to do with Dr. Weizak; it was said Johnny had told him his mother was not dead but living someplace on the West Coast under another name. As far as Eileen Magown was concerned, the stories were so much eyewash on a par with the confession magazines and sweet-savage love stories so many nurses read on station. But the way he was looking at her now made her feel afraid. It was as if he was looking inside her.”

(The Dead Zone | Stephen King)
The Middle

After Johnny’s ability becomes known, the press wants to capitalize on his “gift.” They inundate him with interviews, but he begins to reject his newfound fame by becoming more reclusive. After a tabloid prints a story on Johnny that dismisses his ability, Johnny believes he can resume his old life. However, the local sheriff, Bannerman, asks him if he can help solve a slew of serial-killings. Johnny is able to adeptly solve the case, which results in a shocking climax.

We cut to the door-to-door salesman (Greg Stillson) who is now the mayor of Ridgeway, New Hampshire. He has found success through making violent threats and other illicit activities against his enemies. Stillson later wins a seat in the U. S. House of Representatives while Johnny is teaching as a tutor in Ridgeway. Johnny decides to meet Stillson, as he has made a hobby of meeting elected officials. During the rally, he has a psychic vision that the vicious, dog-killing politician will eventually cause worldwide nuclear chaos.

“There was the sense of flying – flying through the blue – above scenes of utter desolation that could not quite be seen. And cutting through this came the disembodied voice of Greg Stillson, the voice of a cut-rate God or a comic-opera engine of the dead: ‘I’M GONNA GO THROUGH THEM LIKE BUCKWHEAT THROUGH A GOOSE! GONNA GO THROUGH THEM LIKE SHIT THROUGH A CANEBRAKE!’

‘The tiger,’ Johnny muttered thickly. ‘The tiger’s behind the blue. Behind the yellow.’

Then all of it, pictures, images, and words, broke up in the swelling, soft roar of oblivion. He seemed to smell some sweet, coppery scent, like burning high-tension wires. For a moment that inner eye seemed to open even wider, searching; the blue and yellow that had obscured everything seemed about to solidify into … into something, and from somewhere inside, distant and full of terror, he heard a woman shriek: ‘Give him to me, you bastard!’”

(The Dead Zone | Stephen King)
The End

Johnny decides to take matters into his own hands to stop Sillson. He buys a rifle with the intent to assassinate the prospective politician before he can do harm. However, his plans fail, and he is mortally wounded, but no before Stillson undoes his career with a fatal mistake. Before dying, Johnny touches Stillson and learns that he has prevented the violent future he saw in his premonition.

“Stillson got up abruptly, and with the last bit of his strength Johnny reached out and grasped his ankle. It was only for a second; Stillson pulled free easily. But it was long enough.

Everything had changed.

People were drawing near him now, but he saw only feet and legs, no faces. It didn’t matter. Everything had changed.

He began to cry a little. Touching Stillson this time had been like touching a blank. Dead battery. Fallen tree. Empty house. Bare bookshelves. Wine bottles ready for candles.”

(The Dead Zone| Stephen King)

The book closes with letters from Johnny to his father and other loved ones that detail his motives and rationale. It also features a brief narrative including Sarah, who visits Johnny’s grave and makes peace with his death. It turns out that Johnny’s headaches were caused by a tumor that gave him only a few months to live. Feeling too passive with his psychic gift, he decides to take action. So, according to Johny, there was no alternative to killing Stillson.

Overall thoughts

I love The Dead Zone by King for its pacing. The reader gets to live with Johnny Smith and his strange psychic gift. As some critics have pointed out, there really is not an antagonist for most of this novel. Instead, it relies on the themes of “recovery” and alienation for a large chunk of the story. All of this adds to the pacing of the story. The slowness of it (the day-to-day of the novel) feels a bit truer in regards to a story about suffering.

Additionally, The Dead Zone is both a supernatural and extremely human experience. There could not be more pathos in regards to the character of Johnny. He spends much of the book in quiet contemplation, wondering why he was given the gift of second sight. This confusion causes him great psychological harm. It also puts him in strange situations, including solving murders committed by a serial killer, and saving students from a catastrophe. Johnny isn’t running in and kicking down doors. Rather, he is focused on the emotional impact of his psychic powers. It seems as though he save those around him but with great cost to himself.

Works Cited

King, Stephen. The Dead Zone. Viking Press, 1979.