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Owen King
Shining alone
By CELIA McGEE
Sunday, June 19th, 2005
Owen King is giving his dad a great Father's Day present. His publisher, Bloomsbury USA, has just released early copies of his first book, "We're All in This Together."
Advance word on the novella and four short stories is excellent. The reviews should be good. There have been comparisons to Richard Russo.
And blessedly not - yet - to Owen's dad, Stephen King.
"My parents are proud of me, just like anybody's," says King, 26. "And they wish they could protect me - from, like, getting bad reviews. My grandmother said she really liked it, because there were so few nasty words."
Though that isn't entirely accurate, her amused grandson says he and Bloomsbury "have made a really strong effort to present the book on its own terms, and let it sink or swim" without invoking his famous parent.
"It's not a genre book. I don't expect it to zip off the shelves in massive quantities. I'm not out to make a buck." He lives in Brooklyn. In an apartment.
He's even wearing a short-sleeved, buttoned-up-the-front shirt with "Geek" embroidered over his heart.
That takes either self-confidence or a sense of humor. Or both.
That element of the absurd threads through his writing, King agrees, whether it's a quote from Donald Rumsfeld copped from a press briefing, a heart-sick man's encounter with an angry emu or a freaky scene on a talk show.
With Rumsfeld "there's definitely a dark humor about him," King says. "It's weirdly beautiful the way lies just roll off his tongue. We live in such a divided country and time right now."
Maybe that's why King is drawn to notions of forgiveness and redemption in his stories. "People have to find common ground to solve all the hatred," he says.
Wholesome values like that were embraced a lot during his childhood growing up as the second son of America's premier - and possibly richest - master of horror.
"My parents helped out with Little League, they drove carpool," he says. "They're very much part of their community" in Bangor, Maine.
His brother, Joe, is a writer, and together they're working on a screenplay of "Fadeaway," a basketball murder mystery. Owen played championship ball at Bangor High. His sister is a Unitarian minister.
Still, "it'd be grotesque to pretend that I haven't had advantages," he says. "But it'd be repulsive if I trafficked in some sort of ... if I traded on my name."
He and his fiancée, also a writer, just bought a new, bigger Cobble Hill apartment.
It's in a deconsecrated Catholic church.
Okay, okay - it does sound like something out of Stephen King.
By CELIA McGEE
Sunday, June 19th, 2005
Owen King is giving his dad a great Father's Day present. His publisher, Bloomsbury USA, has just released early copies of his first book, "We're All in This Together."
Advance word on the novella and four short stories is excellent. The reviews should be good. There have been comparisons to Richard Russo.
And blessedly not - yet - to Owen's dad, Stephen King.
"My parents are proud of me, just like anybody's," says King, 26. "And they wish they could protect me - from, like, getting bad reviews. My grandmother said she really liked it, because there were so few nasty words."
Though that isn't entirely accurate, her amused grandson says he and Bloomsbury "have made a really strong effort to present the book on its own terms, and let it sink or swim" without invoking his famous parent.
"It's not a genre book. I don't expect it to zip off the shelves in massive quantities. I'm not out to make a buck." He lives in Brooklyn. In an apartment.
He's even wearing a short-sleeved, buttoned-up-the-front shirt with "Geek" embroidered over his heart.
That takes either self-confidence or a sense of humor. Or both.
That element of the absurd threads through his writing, King agrees, whether it's a quote from Donald Rumsfeld copped from a press briefing, a heart-sick man's encounter with an angry emu or a freaky scene on a talk show.
With Rumsfeld "there's definitely a dark humor about him," King says. "It's weirdly beautiful the way lies just roll off his tongue. We live in such a divided country and time right now."
Maybe that's why King is drawn to notions of forgiveness and redemption in his stories. "People have to find common ground to solve all the hatred," he says.
Wholesome values like that were embraced a lot during his childhood growing up as the second son of America's premier - and possibly richest - master of horror.
"My parents helped out with Little League, they drove carpool," he says. "They're very much part of their community" in Bangor, Maine.
His brother, Joe, is a writer, and together they're working on a screenplay of "Fadeaway," a basketball murder mystery. Owen played championship ball at Bangor High. His sister is a Unitarian minister.
Still, "it'd be grotesque to pretend that I haven't had advantages," he says. "But it'd be repulsive if I trafficked in some sort of ... if I traded on my name."
He and his fiancée, also a writer, just bought a new, bigger Cobble Hill apartment.
It's in a deconsecrated Catholic church.
Okay, okay - it does sound like something out of Stephen King.
Comments
I hope the book becomes available in the UK, might be interesting to read.
He had a better writing foundation than his father.
I expect remarkable things from Owen King!
Thanks for the info. I've been waiting for his book since last year after they announced he'd signed with a publisher.
I agree with rache, Owen sounds very down to earth.
He will also be at Northshire Bookstore in Manchester, VT on July 22nd.
From a recent interview: "In the interest of full disclosure, I have to concede that by bucolic Maine town standards, my own family is as peculiar as any. My parents, Stephen & Tabitha King, are both authors, and during daylight hours, my father actually dozes in a large, leathery cocoon suspended from the rafters of the barn." He then adds a footnote, which reads, imply, "Kidding."
According to the publisher, "From the 26-year-old scion of literary giant Stephen King comes a compelling, imaginative debut collection of four short stories both creepy and heartfelt, plus a compassionate novella about a 15-year-old son of a single mother. " Owen King grew up in Bangor, Maine. He is a graduate of Vassar College and holds and M.F.A. from Columbia University. His stories have appeared in Book Magazine and the Bellingham Review. He is the recipient of the John Gardner Award for Short Fiction.
Something Owen said which i found interesting was that he sees the ending first, or roughly the direction he wants things to go in...and that's how I see things too. I find it difficult to fathom writing something from scratch and not knowing how it will end up.
I always know my endings in whatever I write...the really gem is the journey before the end.
Lin
Can't find what? Owen's book? Try here.