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New unauthorized biography
Haunted Heart: The Life and Times of Stephen King by Lisa Rogak. Coming in January.
Comments
No thanks.
On Writing was enough of the man's life story for me.
John
http://www.lisarogak.com/
John
I'm quoted twice, and she uses extracts from my interviews with Tabby and Owen on Onyx Reviews, too.
Haunted Heart: The Life and Times of Stephen King Lisa Rogak. St. Martin's/Dunne, $25.95 (304p) ISBN 978-0-312-37732-8
Though critical studies of his vast oeuvre abound, King—the bestselling author of the 20th century—has not been the subject of a book-length biography until this strictly serviceable study. Rogak (The Man Behind The Da Vinci Code) doesn't probe her subject or his work too deeply. Rather, she strings together the best-known facts of his life with workmanlike efficiency: his family's early abandonment by his father; the author's triumph over an impoverished childhood; his perseverance and prolificacy as a writer; his determination, despite his comfort with genre fiction, to be regarded as more than a horror writer; his struggles with alcohol and drugs; his generosity toward other writers; the accident that nearly killed him in 1999. Rogak structures her text primarily around the chronology of King's scores of books and their film adaptations. Though she interviewed some of King's friends and colleagues, much of the book is derived from secondary sources. Her text is repetitive and cliché-ridden, but the facts she marshals will serve King fans not familiar with his life. 8 pages of b&w photos. (Jan.)
In the introduction to this unauthorized biography of one of the most prolific and commercially successful writers of our time, Lisa Rogak tells an anecdote about the trip she took to Bangor, Maine, where Stephen King resides, and a discussion she had with King's assistant about the book she planned to write.
All the while, she writes, King was eavesdropping outside the door. He never stepped forward to acknowledge Rogak's presence or introduce himself.
The incident pretty much sums up Rogak's Haunted Heart: The Life and Times of Stephen King.
King is always present in the book, but he's hovering on the sidelines.
He's not the living, breathing center of an obviously ambitious book that doesn't quite capture the essence of a compelling literary phenomenon.
Fans of King — and they are legion — will soak up this well-researched biography. But they shouldn't count on learning anything new. It's straightforward in its presentation of key events in King's life but lacks new insights or information.
Rogak relies primarily on secondary sources for The Haunted Heart. Her book is laced with a few fresh comments from longtime friends or former acquaintances (the guy who used to mow his lawn, for example), but they add nothing to the mix.
Rogak does conjure some cinematic images — the teenage King, cigarette dangling from his mouth, pounding away on the typewriter in an attic room; the challenges he faced in his adjustment to almost instant wealth and fame; and his battles with alcoholism and drug addiction.
But she overworks references to King's impoverished childhood, his feelings of being abandoned by his father and the fact that people from his past always remember him with his nose in a book.
Rogak, who also wrote The Man Behind the Da Vinci Code: An Unauthorized Biography of Dan Brown, never gets to the heart of the man who has written some of the more iconic novels of our time, including The Shining, Cujo and Carrie.
That task should be left up to King himself. For now, his novels and the illuminating On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, his 2000 non-fiction title in which he pulls back the curtain, at least a little bit, on his creative process and writing chops, will have to do.