Файл: The most outstanding American.pdf

Introduction. Biography of Stephen king

Stephen Edwin King was born in the fall of 1941 in the us state of Maine, in the city of Portland. The birth of a boy can be called a miracle. The fact is that Nellie Ruth Pillsbury-the mother of the future writer-was diagnosed with infertility by doctors. And when the woman married for the second time to the captain of the merchant ship Donald Edward king, the couple decided to adopt a boy. They named their adopted son David Victor. Two years later, Nellie suddenly became pregnant. The couple had a son, Stephen Edwin.

But a common child could not make the parents ' marriage strong. The head of the family had a reputation as a ladies ' man. As a sailor, he traveled all over the world. After world war II, Donald retired from the Navy and took a job as a sales agent, offering customers vacuum cleaners. Family life weighed heavily on him. When Stephen was 2 years old, his father disappeared from his life. The man left the house to buy cigarettes and disappeared. Mom told her sons that dad was kidnapped by Martians. According to some sources, the woman guessed that the" Martians " could be a pretty waitress from Connecticut.

Looking ahead, let's say that the film crew of one of the American TV channels, working on a documentary about the biography of Stephen king in the 1990s, found his negligent parent. As it turned out, he lived nearby, in the neighboring state of Pennsylvania, with a Brazilian wife and four children.

After her husband's escape, Ruth-a pianist by training-had a hard time. She took any low-paying job to support her sons. She worked as a saleswoman in a bakery or as a servant in rich houses. A woman in search of a good job moved from state to state. The family has lived in Indiana, Massachusetts, Wisconsin, and Connecticut. Eventually, she stayed for a long time in the town of West Durham, Maine.

Stephen King saw how hard it was for his mother, even though she never complained. He realized in his youth that the equal opportunity society is a myth for naive people. In fact, life is difficult and unfair.

As a child, Steve became an unwitting witness to a terrible tragedy: a peer who was hit by a freight train died before his eyes. King suffered a severe shock, after which the terrible images of death were erased in his memory for a while. They surfaced only a few years later, when he was told about the tragedy. Biographers of the writer claim that this event influenced his work and inspired him to write some works.

Stephen King's already poor health was undermined by frequent travel. He suffered from measles especially hard. Then there was strep throat, which turned into one of the forms of ear infections, untreatable with antibiotics. Three times the boy experienced hellish pain when his eardrum was pierced. Due to his illness, king spent two years in the first grade.

Perhaps all these difficulties in life and formed a dark perception of reality and tastes of the guy. He loved horror movies. A lasting impression on his psyche was made by the horror films "The Creature from the Black Lagoon", "The asylum", "I was a teenage werewolf", "The Palaces of Montezuma" and "The Sands of Iwo Jima". Stephen king in his youth was so impressionable that even watching the cartoon "Bambi" with a scene of a forest fire caused excruciating nightmares.

The guy's favorite books included the Hulk, Spider-Man, Superman, ray Bradbury novels, as well as the evil spirit comics Tomb of horrors and Tales from the crypt. Later, Stephen King admitted that he liked the feeling of fear and "the feeling of complete loss of control over feelings."

To distract himself from constant illnesses, the boy, encouraged by his mother, began to write. The pen test happened at the age of 7. Stephen king wrote a short story about the adventures of captain Casey. The source of inspiration was a comic about a brave captain. The boy simply retold what he had read. My mother praised the piece, but said that Steve could create something of his own. Soon the future writer presented to her court four small stories about a white rabbit. For each of them, his mother paid him the first " fee " of 25 cents.

His work and bibliography

From that moment on, Stephen king created without stopping. His first "bestseller" was a novel written on the basis of the film "the Well and the pendulum". The guy printed out his work in the amount of 40 copies on a hectograph.

---

In 1959, 18-year-old Stephen king, along with his brother David, began publishing an information Bulletin, which was called "Dave's Leaf". The guys distributed it using an old mimeograph and sold it for 5 cents to friends, neighbors, and relatives. David wrote local news, and Steve wrote film reviews and his own short stories. At the same time, Stephen king first read the works of Howard Phillips Lovecraft. He became the guy's favorite author. According to him, after reading the sinister stories of the collection "Lurking in the shadows", he had a feeling of "coming home".

In high school, Stephen King could not decide what to do next: go to University or volunteer in Vietnam to collect interesting facts for future creativity. He no longer doubted that the rest of his life would be connected with writing. The mother persuaded her son, who also had vision problems, to give up the trip to Vietnam.

King went to College, where he began preparing for University. He also got a job in a weaving factory. The job was necessary to earn money to study. Steve glued packages for the product and put them in containers. In between work, he drove away clouds of aggressive rats that were found in the basement. Later, these impressions became the basis for the story "Night shift".

In August 1966, Stephen entered the University of Maine, choosing the Department of English literature. At the same time, he studied at a teacher training College. Steve and Dave had a hard time, because my mother sent her sons only $ 5 a week for pocket expenses, while she was starving herself.

At the University, the future "king of horror" got married. After graduating with a bachelor's degree, he decided to make a living as a writer. But it did not generate revenue. So Stephen king and his young family subsisted on his modest earnings in the Laundry, his wife's student loan, and small royalties for the writer's stories published by magazines.

In the fall of 1971, Stephen king took a job as an English teacher at a school in Hampden, Maine. He continued to write, but seems to have begun to lose confidence in his literary abilities. One day, my wife found the manuscript of the novel "Carrie" thrown out by Steve in the trash. He threw out the draft, and did not finish work until the end. The wife read the novel and begged her husband to finish it.

In the winter of 1973, Stephen king's mother died. The woman did not live a year before the first success of her son. In 1974, one of the publishers took over the publication of the novel "Carrie" and paid the writer a fee of $ 2,500. Unexpectedly for Steve, readers liked the novel. Doubleday sold the copyright to another, larger publisher, NAL, for $ 400,000. Stephen king received half of the amount.

The writer left teaching and moved to the neighboring state of Colorado. His second successful novel, the Shining, was created here in boulder.

In the late 1970s, Stephen king worked under the pseudonym Richard Bachman. Some biographers of the writer claim that the publication of books under an assumed name was dictated by the novelist's self-doubt. It seemed to him that the success achieved was accidental. By repeating it under a different name, king wanted to make sure otherwise. The book Rage was published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman. But king withdrew it from sale after a juvenile delinquent who shot classmates in Kansas was found to have his novel.

The name Richard Bachman appeared under several other novels by king: "the Long walk", "Road works", "Running man" and "losing Weight". It is noteworthy that the last name Bachman was taken by the writer for "service" because he was a passionate fan of the well-known musical group "Bachman-Turner Overdrive" at that time.

Stephen had to give up his pseudonym after he was exposed by an attentive salesman of one of the bookstores in Washington. The novelist then announced that Bachmann had died of cancer.

In the 1980s and 90s, Stephen King's best books appeared. First of all, this is the novel "the Shooter", which became the first in the series "the Dark Tower". In 1982, in a record 10 days, he wrote a 300-page novel, the Running man.

In 1996, the book "The Green mile" was published. This is one of Stephen king's most beloved novels. A year later, the writer signed a contract with the publishing house "Simon & Schuster", which paid him an advance of $ 8 million for the novel "Bag of bones", and also pledged to give 50% of the proceeds from the sale.

---

In the summer of 1999, a writer walking with a dog was hit by a minibus. Stephen king was diagnosed with multiple fractures to his right leg, a broken hip, and head and lung injuries. The leg was barely saved from amputation. For a long time, the novelist could sit for no more than 40 minutes, after which the pain in the broken hip became excruciating. This event formed the basis of the 7th part of the series of novels "the Dark tower", and was also reflected in one of the films of the series "Royal hospital".

In 2002, Stephen upset his fans with the news that he was ending his writing career. It is still difficult for him to sit, which does not allow him to concentrate on another masterpiece. But to the great joy of fans, the novelist broke his promise to stop writing.

In 2006, hoax fan Stephen king announced that he had found Bachman's unpublished novel, blaze. In fact, it was his own manuscript from his student days, which had been kept at the University all this time.

From 2008 to 2016, Stephen king delighted readers with a collection of short stories " After sunset "and the novels" Duma Key"," Under the dome"," Doctor Dream"," Mr. Mercedes" and "Rebirth". In the summer of 2016, The "king of horror" presented the third part of the novel "Mr. Mercedes", which is called "Post passed".

In the same year, fans of the "King of horror" talent enjoyed watching a literary evening on the screens with the participation of two famous Writers-Stephen and George Martin. The meeting was held in the city of Albuquerque.

Personal life

As mentioned above, the novelist met his future wife Tabitha Spruce at the University. During those difficult years, they had a son, Joseph, and a daughter, Naomi. Later, a second son, Owen, appeared. Tabitha is no stranger to literary activity – the woman also tried to create, but her nine novels were not particularly in demand.

Stephen king's personal life with his beloved wife was happy. Together they went through many trials. At the beginning of family life - through poverty. Later, through the novelist's alcoholism and drug addiction. In 1999, a satirical newspaper published a letter purportedly written by Stephen king, in which he admitted that the period of writing the novel "Tommyknockers" had fallen out of his memory.

As it turned out, the 1980s were indeed marred by king's addiction to booze and drugs. To convince the writer who denied harmful habits to go to doctors, the family "collected" evidence: they dumped beer cans and packages of valium, cocaine, and marijuana found in the trash in front of him. Only then, after seeing all this "wealth" on the carpet with horror, did Stephen king recognize the disease and seek the help of specialists.

The first work written by him after recovery was the novel "Necessary Things".

Together with his wife, Stephen king owns three estates: in Bangor, Lovell and Sarasota. The latter is visited by the family in winter. It is located on the warm Gulf of Mexico in Florida.

Today, the writer and his wife have four grandchildren.

Stephen king's sons also took their first steps in writing. Naomi's daughter is not interested in writing. She is known for being in a relationship with theology teacher Tandeka.

In his spare time, Stephen king attends games of his favorite baseball team, the Boston Red SOx. In the 1990s, the couple sponsored the construction of the Mansfield stadium, and in 2014, the writer took part in fundraising for people who suffer from amyotrophic sclerosis.

Interesting facts about the writer

• Most of Stephen king's works have been adapted into films. The writer himself played short cameos in 14 films.
• The series "the Dark Tower" brings together all the works of the author.
• King has sold more than 350 million copies of his books.
• King's rule – at least one work per year. During his creative career, he wrote 55 novels, about 200 short stories and 34 novellas, as well as plays, screenplays and poetry collections.
• King set a writing "quota" of 2,000 words each day. It does not stop until it is completed. If you did not make the norm, make up for it in the following days
• King is a rock and roll fan. The kings have three radio stations in Bangor, Maine: WKIT-FM, WZLO-FM, and WZON-AM.
• King loves to screen his novels, so he often sells the rights to them for just $ 1, and both well-known and established Directors, and very young ones.
• King doesn't recognize cell phones. The writer expressed his phobias about mobile communication in the novel "mobile phone", written in 2006.
• Steven doesn't miss a single game of the Boston Red Sox baseball team.
• King is afraid of many things. One of them is air travel. He is also terrified of not being able to create and ... the number 13.
• The king estate looks almost like the Addams family home. Neighbors say you can't find a better home during Halloween.
• The writer's wife, Tabitha king, has also published several novels. Their sons, Joe hill and Owen king, also write, and Owen married a writer.
• King's autograph can only be obtained at an autograph session.

---