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Hearts in Suspension
Stephen tweeted that a new non-fiction book titled HEARTS IN SUSPENSION will be published in the fall of 2016. It is a collection of essays by Stephen and others about his time as a student at the University of Maine.
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This book also includes four installments of King’s never-before-reprinted student newspaper column, “King’s Garbage Truck.” These lively examples of King’s damn-the-torpedoes style, entertaining and shrewd in their youthful perceptions, more than hint at a talent about to take its place in the American literary landscape.
Hearts in Suspension is scheduled to be published November 7, 2016.
Press release
Stephen King will launch his newest book, “Hearts in Suspension,” at the University of Maine on Nov. 7 with a reading of the book and discussion of his student days at UMaine during the turbulent Vietnam War era, followed by a conversation with his former classmates and friends who were at UMaine with him during this time and who co-authored the collection.
The event begins at 7 p.m. in the Collins Center for the Arts. Doors open at 6 p.m., with all ticket holders required to be in their seats by 6:45 p.m.
Tickets are free and available according to the following timeline: Members of the University of Maine community can register for one ticket each with a MaineCard at the CCA box office, during normal box office hours, 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Oct. 12–14. Members of the public can register for two tickets per person online or at the CCA box office beginning Oct. 17.
All tickets are general admission and will be available for pick up, with photo ID, at the Collins Center for the Arts box office beginning at 1 p.m. Nov. 7. For further ticket information or to request a disability accommodation, call 207.581.1755.
The 373-page “Hearts in Suspension,” published by the University of Maine Press, a division of UMaine’s Fogler Library, marks the 50th anniversary of King’s enrollment at UMaine — fall 1966. In the years that followed, the escalating Vietnam War and social unrest nationwide, especially on college and university campuses, had “a profound impact on students of the period and deeply influenced King’s development as a writer and a man,” according to the publisher on the book’s dust jacket.
The volume includes a reprint of “Hearts in Atlantis,” which tracks the “awakenings and heartbreak” of his fictional counterpart, Peter Riley, during his first year at UMaine. The novella is accompanied by King’s new essay, “Five to One, One in Five,” in which he reflects on his undergraduate years, creating “a revealing portrait of the artist as (a) young man and a ground-level tableau of this highly charged time.”
Along with photographs and documents of this era at UMaine are four installments of King’s student newspaper column, “King’s Garbage Truck.” The columns, reprinted for the first time, are described by the publisher as “lively examples of King’s damn-the-torpedoes style.” The entertaining and shrewd youthful perceptions “more than hint at a talent about to take its place in the American literary landscape.”
The book also features essays by 12 of King’s classmates and friends, including Jim Bishop, one of King’s college English teachers and the book’s editor. As a sophomore, King enrolled in a writing workshop taught by Bishop and English professor Burton Hatlen, where the young author’s talent was validated and where he connected with other student writers. The group of dedicated young writers continued to meet in the semesters following the transformational class.
In addition to Bishop’s essay and his introduction to the book, there are other personal narratives reflecting on the UMaine student experience by Michael Alpert, David Bright, Keith Carreiro, Harold Crosby, Sherry Dec, Bruce Holsapple, Frank Kadi, Diane McPherson, Larry Moscowitz, Jim H. Smith and Philip Thompson. Bright was the editor of the student newspaper, Crosby was King’s freshman roommate and Moscowitz was the head of the SDS chapter on campus. All were with King in the anti-war movement and bear witness to “a formative time in their lives and a defining moment in the country’s history,” according to the publisher on the book’s dust jacket.
“Hearts in Suspension” is dedicated in memory of Hatlen and two of King’s other inspirational professors at UMaine: Edward “Ted” Holmes and Edward “Sandy” Ives.
Copies of “Hearts in Suspension” will be for sale at the Collins Center following the event, and available at bookstores nationwide after Nov. 7. Copies may also be pre-ordered now from the University of Maine Press website: umaine.edu/umpress/forthcoming-books/hearts-in-suspension
King has published more than 50 books. He is the recipient of the 2003 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, and the 2014 National Medal of Arts. Earlier this year, the Stephen E. King Chair in Literature was established at UMaine by a generous gift of $1 million from the Harold Alfond Foundation.
“You know, it turned out to be a very good book. I had my doubts, but it was good. It’s also a hell of a look at the way college used to be 50 years ago. It’s changed a lot,” King said. “The book is a University of Maine Press book, and I want them to sell as many copies as they can because then they can fund other projects.”
The writing prompt provided to the essayists proved to be a tough assignment, Bishop said.
“I tentatively suggested, after our first meeting [with King] that we invite some of his fellow refugees from the ’60s to try to recapture what it was like for them, coming of age smack in the middle of that turbulent time,” Bishop wrote in his introduction to the book.
The writers agreed to take part, but admitted they sometimes struggled with the assignment.
“Those folks are tasked with trying to dredge up all of those actual memories from that period, and to then somehow put them into words,” Bishop said. “That’s just a difficult task. We were fortunate. They responded to the call.”
Even King said recapturing the times in his essay was challenging.
“[My college years] were such a blur of classes, homework, events, card games, drinking at Pat’s [Pizza], that I thought to myself, ‘I can’t really recapture it,’” King said. “But as a writer, I know that there’s a kind of hypnosis that kicks in. And if you can find a place to start, a lot of times the act of writing itself will open things up. And that’s what happened with me. The more I wrote, the more I remembered.”
Even a half-century removed from their college days, the essays resonate, and reflect an era during which King and his peers thought they were going to change the world.
Anti-war and civil rights protests were a common bond for many of the essayists, as the Vietnam War raged, student protests were held nationwide, and the rural Orono campus struggled with this emerging new reality.`
Among the most powerful essays: Diane McPherson’s “Impressions,” during which she intersperses poignant and often hilarious memories of her time at UMO. In addition to talking about King, she introduces us to one down-on-his-luck student, painting a verbal picture of a … unique individual.
“One resident of the cabins was a scrawny, gentle, long-haired ascetic named Clifford C., who subsisted on cat food sandwiches,” McPherson wrote in her essay. Before graduation, Clifford married a woman — her name was Kat, believe it or not — and the wedding provided for equally stunning imagery plucked deftly from the era: “The wedding festivities seemed to take most of a day, probably because (rumor had it) the punch was spiked with LSD.”
Another highlight: Jim H. Smith’s “How Young Jimmy Met the Old Necromancer in a Hall and Got a Ringside Seat to the Graveyard Shift.”
Smith seems to have stepped back in time seamlessly, reflecting on Orono, the place, during that stage of his life.
“It was the place where, little more than a month after [Jack Kerouac’s] demise, I learned that my number in the first Vietnam War draft lottery was 224, sufficiently high, as things played out, to save me from getting my ass shot off in the jungles of Southeast Asia,” Smith wrote. “And, it was the place where I met Stephen King.”
King’s original roommate, Harold Crosby, and his Maine Campus editor David Bright are part of the talented panel of essayists, which also includes Bishop, Alpert, McPherson, Smith, Philip Thompson, Keith Carreiro, Sherry Dec, Bruce Holsapple, Larry Moscowitz and Frank Kadi in “Hearts in Suspension.”
Also included: A couple pages from Moscowitz’s FBI file, and a few “King’s Garbage Truck” columns, which he wrote for the campus newspaper.
In all likelihood, most readers won’t have heard of these writers, several of them published poets, journalists or novelists; each adds a distinctive voice, and illustrates a different sign of the times … or side of King.
“They were a very talented group, and they were part of a communal energy of the time as well. You can’t overstress the kind of energy that was happening then, for better or worse,” Bishop said. “There were dark sides to that energy, and there were really brilliant light sides to that energy … you take their natural talent, plus that kind of communal energy, and it was really powerful stuff.”
Bishop, who read two of King’s as-yet-unpublished novels when the author was still a student at UMO, said one trait stood out even then.
“Steve was just a very, very dedicated writer. He was probably a dedicated writer at 8 years old and I picked him up at 18,” Bishop said. “How many students do you see that are that dedicated? You just don’t. There are lots of talented kids and lots of good writers. I’ve had quite a few in the time I’ve taught. But I don’t think I ever had anyone who was that dedicated to their craft.”
In “Hearts in Suspension,” King shines, delivering the reader to a place many have never been — on a college campus in the ’60s — but describing it so well that you feel like you’re watching a documentary. Known as a fiction writer, the author again proves (as he did in “On Writing”) that his nonfiction work is also top-notch. His autobiographical essay, “Five to One, One in Five,” reads just like a King novel … without the rabid St. Bernards, vampires and assorted boogeymen.
King, as the old saying about good writing advises, “shows.” He doesn’t “tell.” And his warts-and-all approach to his own foibles as a young man means his drug use, drunken binges and assorted missteps are all fair game. As are the revelations that came during his four years on campus: King arrived in Orono as a Goldwater Republican, and left as a left-leaning activist with an entirely new view on society, and the life he wanted to lead.
On Monday, nine of those 12 — Moscowitz, McPherson and Holsapple are unable to attend — will join King on the Collins Center for the Arts stage at UMaine for a conversation that will serve as a book launch event. King will also read from the book and have a discussion about his college days in Orono.
Bishop said the essayists share a common emotion as the event approaches.
“Everybody has said how nervous they are,” Bishop said. “Just meeting these people [again], it’s like time-lapse photography. Suddenly, all of these people that you have a picture of when they were close to 20 are approaching 70. It’s a little freaky, but we are looking forward to it.”
And King?
“I’m scared. I’m scared. And it isn’t like I think something’s going to go wrong. I don’t think anything’s going to go wrong,” King said. “But I’ve got to tell you, I’m a little bit scared to see how my old college running buddies look now, and I’m a little bit scared for how they’re gonna look at me, and see the way that I look now.”
The latest Stephen King book Hearts in Suspension has been on shelves for a little more than a month now.
The book’s editor Jim Bishop gave a talk at the Bangor Public Library Thursday night about the road to publication.
Bishop was King’s professor during his freshman year at the University of Maine.
In addition to editing he also wrote an essay that’s in the book which details what life was like on campus in the late 1960’s.
He talked about getting the world renowned author on board and open to taking part in events like the book launch that was held at the Collins Center for the Arts in November.
Bishop calls it the culmination of years of work.
He said once King turned in his essay it helped him to find the way he needed to approach things.
“It almost had a language of its own and an ethos of its own” Bishop said Thursday night. “You had to not only get back 50 years and reconstruct 50-year-old memories you had to put yourself back or try to put yourself back into that way of seeing, that way of thinking, that way of speaking, that way of relating.”
Bishop says that the book has been extremely well received and that sales have been solid out of the gate. Still plenty of time for all of you Christmas shoppers.