Stephen King: The Second Decade, Danse Macabre to The Dark Half

The popular success of Stephen King's novels is, of course, a fact beyond dispute. Perhaps because of his popularity, however, he has been denigrated or ignored by most literary critics and scholars. A previous volume in Twayne's United States Authors Series, Joseph Reino's Stephen King: The First Decade, Carrie to Pet Sematary (1988) redressed the balance for King's works published between 1974 and 1983. In the present work, Tony Magistrale takes a critical look at the novels and non-fiction of King's second decade, devoting extended analyses to King's study of the horror genre, Danse Macabre, and to the novels published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman. Magistrale shows that King cannot be confined to the reductive categories of genre fiction. Rather, the master of the macabre has drawn on many literary traditions from both high culture and low culture in the composition of his novels. Moreover, Magistrale makes a convincing case that King's art has a depth and subtlety rarely found either among "serious" or "popular" writers, and that his work is characterized by an astute knowledge of fundamental American mythys and archetypes.Especially notable features of this book include the extensive interview with Stephen King that makes up the bulk of the first chapter, and the author's insightful and well-informed analysis of the "gothic inheritance." Stephen King: The Second Decade is an important revaluation of a fascinating writer, and will appeal to students and scholars of American literature and popular culture.