SK: What was your first encounter with Stephen King? Was it a book, film or himself?
BV: My first encounter with Stephen King happened during my freshman year at university, in 1979. There was a used bookstore about a mile from campus that I visited each weekend. Most of the books I bought were science fiction or fantasy, but I spotted a black paperback with a drop of red on the cover. It intrigued me, and I added it to that day’s purchases. I had a vague recollection of hearing good things about this book, ‘Salem’s Lot, but I knew little about the story and nothing at all about the author.
I was captivated by the book, so I sought out the other things he’d written, which in 1979 wasn’t a lot. But it was the beginning of a decades-long appreciation of his work.
SK: A few years ago you published The Stephen King Illustrated Companion. It contained reproductions of some very unique items like “The Drum”, a few pages of the first draft of The Shining and a lot of unique pictures and artwork. Was it hard to obtain permission to publish them? Was the idea of the book, the thing that those items were additions, helpful?
BV: The Stephen King Illustrated Companion came about as a result of my first book The Road to the Dark Tower. The American bookstore chain Barnes & Noble has a publishing division, and they were doing a series of readers’ companions to famous authors. Previous books were about Poe and Jane Austen. All contained “removable material” that enhanced the experience of reading the book. For example, the book about Poe had a faithful reproduction of his obituary from the New York Times, along with a number of other items.
Because of my work on the Dark Tower book, the publisher’s representatives contacted me about working on a readers’ companion for King. My job was to write the text. Acquiring the accompanying material was the publisher’s job. However, I put them in touch with King’s administrative assistant, who facilitated access to his archives at the University of Maine and some photo albums at his office. I also know a guy who has one of the most extensive collections of rare King items, and I put the publisher in contact with him, too. That’s where things like “The Drum” came from. I was in regular contact with the documents expert, giving him feedback on the material he discovered so that we chose things that would complement the text.
King had final approval over anything we drew from the archives to be included in the book, but he didn’t stop us from reproducing anything we wanted. His only editorial request was to have us edit out an address that was visible on one of the documents.
From my point of view, the included material is the most fascinating part of the book. I remember when the first copy arrived at my house. My wife and I must have spent an hour or more exploring it—and we didn’t read a single word of my text!
SK: You are a constant writer for Cemetery Dance. Besides the “News from the Dead Zone” column in CD magazine you are writing for Richard Chizmar’s project called “Stephen King Revisited,” where you are outlining origins of Stephen King’s books. The project is almost in a halfway to the end. Are there any plans for collecting these articles in a book – printed or ebook?
BV: I’ve been working with the gang at Cemetery Dance for about fifteen years now. In addition to the column in the magazine, there’s an online version at NewsFromTheDeadZone.com that I try to update every month or so. Brian Freeman (from CD) and I co-edited The Illustrated Stephen King Trivia Book, with illustrations by Glenn Chadbourne, too, which was a lot of fun—but also a lot of work! There’s a very cool electronic version of that now, with hyperlinks to my devilishly unhelpful “hints” and the answers.
We’re moving along with Stephen King Revisited. As far as where we are in the process, well, King keeps moving the goalposts, doesn’t he? With each new book he releases, we’ve got another one to add to the list! But, yes, we have discussed the idea that we would collect the essays into a book once we’re done. That’s a way off in the future, though.
It’s been an interesting project. I’m writing what we call “historical context” essays about each book, where I explore the inspiration for the novel or stories and what was going on in King’s life when he was working on it. I’ve discovered that some of the anecdotes pertaining to a given book have mutated over the years, so I’m trying to find interviews and essays from as close to the book’s publication as possible. I’m learning things I never knew before—or if I knew them, I’d forgotten. It’s a lot of fun.
SK: Hulu’s limited series based on 11.22.63 is about to end in a week. Did you like it? (so far)
BV: I was fortunate in that Hulu gave me access to the entire series a few weeks before the first episode was released, so I got to “binge” on it during a single weekend, which was a great way to watch it. I think it is very good. I know there are changes (we’ll talk about that below), but they were understandable and constructive changes, for the most part. Some adaptations that are slavishly faithful to the source material (Dreamcatcher, for example) don’t work very well, whereas some looser adaptations make major changes but still capture the essence of the novel. One that I mention from time to time is Dolores Claiborne, which is significantly different from the book in many fundamental ways, but I think it represents the book perfectly. So, yes, I liked it—I especially liked Sarah Gadon as Sadie—she’s a real charmer.
SK: There were changes in the story – some of them minor and some of them bigger. We all know Stephen King’s opinion about movies based on his stories. Most of the times he is giving a big benefit of trust to the filmmakers – like Under the Dome which was changed in almost every possible aspect. In your opinion – is it a good idea? Does it pay?
BV: One of the advantages 11.22.63 has is that it’s a limited series and not an ongoing series. That means that the creators had an end in sight, and a manageable story that they didn’t have to pump up or string along from season to season. Under the Dome had a pretty good first season, but it went downhill fast after that. I don’t know much about the inner workings of the show, but I believe the original showrunner left after the first season, which might be related to its decline. I stuck with the series until the end of the second season, but I quit after only one or two episodes of the third. The quality had dropped to the point where it was painful to watch.
There are different ways to tackle the Under the Dome kind of open-ended adaptation. Two that were successful in my mind were The Dead Zone and Haven, the latter loosely based on The Colorado Kid, and it’s probably no coincidence that the same creative people were behind both. What they did with those long-running TV series was to boil the story down to a core concept and then build outward from that solid foundation. That allows the show to develop organically. Very little of the source material survived, but they created entertaining programs. Under the Dome felt like they didn’t have a good core concept, so they were flailing around looking for a direction from week to week.
SK: We all know that we shouldn’t be afraid of changes. I agree on almost everything, like crossing out the Derry part for example. This one is often commented by fans of It who regret that this awesome connection was omitted, but this wasn’t very important for the story. But the bigger change was the character of Bill Turcotte, and this one is like a waterfall, that changed almost everything later. Was it good for the story?
BV: I agree about losing the Derry part of the story. It only meant something to people familiar with It. My belief is that visual adaptations (TV, film, whatever) have to appeal to an audience far larger than the readership of the books, so they can’t be tailored too closely to reader expectations. The number of people who watch a TV show or a movie is generally far larger than the number of people who read a particular book.
I can understand the need to expand Bill Turcotte’s role from a storytelling perspective. Much of the novel consists of Jake, by himself, doing things. That works on the page and inside a reader’s head, but it doesn’t play out so well on the screen. At first, Jake spends a lot of time talking to himself, and after a while that becomes very artificial and boring. Having Bill around gave Jake someone to talk to, to explain things to. It also meant that Jake’s journey was a little less frantic. Bill could be covering some of the things that Jake had to scramble to do in the novel when he was supposed to be in Jodie and Dallas at pretty much the same time! That being said, I didn’t feel all that bad when Bill’s storyline came to an end. His meddling was getting on my nerves!
SK: You wrote two books about “The Dark Tower” series. You studied it and all other connected to them inside out. In the end – were you surprised how he ended the story? (We can talk with spoilers)
BV: I had an interesting experience reading the final three books of the Dark Tower series. Because I was working on The Road to the Dark Tower with an aim of getting the book published shortly after the final book in the series, I had access to the first draft manuscripts of The Wolves of the Calla, Song of Susannah and The Dark Tower nearly two years before the final book was published. This was a stack of some 2500 sheets of paper weighing about 10 kg that showed up on my front porch one day! Reading a manuscript is different than reading a book. Pick up a sheet, read it, move it over to the other stack!
The day I finished the final book, I had about 100 pages left to go and I simply couldn’t stop. I have a day job, but I was late to work that day because I couldn’t stop—I had to keep going until the end. (King was happy when I told him that he’d made me late!)
I thought it was the perfect ending: both surprising and inevitable. I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. I do have some ideas about how Roland’s journey could conclude in a future journey, but to get to that point, he had to suffer this kind of a “defeat.”
Once I was finished, though, I had a dilemma: because no one else had read the book, nor would for a long time, I couldn’t talk about it with anyone—not even my editor! That was really hard.
SK: Some time ago Stephen King mentioned that “The Dark Tower” never left his mind. We all know that when he is saying something like this there might be a THING in his words. (Like in 2007 when he said that he would like to write a story about a man who goes back in time to save JFK). He said that he might have more stories to tell and he mentioned The Battle for Jericho Hill. In the books it was only mentioned but we were able to read about it in Marvels’ The Dark Tower comic book series. Do you really think that it is possible for him to tell the same story or is he going to surprise us with something new about it?
BV: I talked with him about that in the interview that you’ll find in The Dark Tower Companion. I was curious to find out how involved he was in the Marvel adaptations, and what I learned was that he spun out a bunch of story ideas for them at the beginning of the project, and was available for his research assistant, Robin Furth, to bounce ideas off, but at a certain point he stopped keeping track of their stories. He said, in particular, that he didn’t want to read what they did with the Battle of Jericho Hill because he didn’t want their version of the story to get inside his head in case he ever decided to write it himself. It became obvious from The Wind Through the Keyhole that he didn’t feel obligated to adhere to the stories created for Marvel. Some things in that book contradict the graphic novel adaptations. As for whether or not he will ever write another Dark Tower novel or story—only time will tell. I suspect he will.
SK: In two months a new book will be published: End of Watch, the final chapter in the Bill Hodges trilogy. I assume that you might already read it as an advanced reader. What are your thoughts about the series? (all three books. I’m aware that you can’t tell the plot of the newest one)
BV: I was delighted when I found out he was going to write a straight crime novel. I know that he reads a lot of books in that genre, and I’ve always enjoyed his non-supernatural crime short stories. I wasn’t disappointed by these books—they contain King’s trademark, which is a collection of terrific and memorable characters, plus some intriguing storylines that have allowed King to explore certain themes. The concept of a literary legacy in Finders Keepers, for example, or suicide in End of Watch (I’m not giving anything away by saying that: recall that King’s original title for the third book was The Suicide Prince!) I’m sad to see the series come to an end, but I’m delighted that King branched out into this genre. He dabbled with it in The Colorado Kid and Joyland, but he really embraced it here.
SK: Stephen King is usually publishing two books every year. By the time now we should already know something about his next book. Do you think there will be one or is he slowing down or taking a break?
BV: I know that he has written other things, but when they might be published has not yet been announced. I don’t think he’s slowing down at all. I’m not sure he can!
SK: There are some small hints that he and Peter Straub might collaborate once again. Personally – I would love to read another Jack Sawyer story. In his interview for Huffpost Books, Peter Straub said that they already have a good idea and the only thing is to find time. Considering no news about second book for 2016, do you think it is possible that they are already working on something?
BV: Based on interviews Peter Straub has given within the past month or so, I think it is unlikely they have started working on it. They have discussed it, and they have, as you say, the germ of the book’s idea firmly in place, but it could very well be a year or two before they find time to start working on it, and who knows what else will come along to interfere with their plans on that timeframe?!
SK: Black House was connected with “The Dark Tower”, but it was published before the last three books. Do you think it is possible that the third one will be linked to The Tower series?
BV: Black House was written during a period when just about everything King wrote had connections to the Dark Tower series—stories like Insomnia, Desperation, Low Men in Yellow Coats, and Rose Madder. So I think he was relieved when Peter Straub suggested that they tie the Dark Tower mythos into Black House because, as he said in an interview, he wasn’t sure he could keep it out. Those other books I mentioned, along with Black House, are interesting in that they introduce Dark Tower concepts before they appear in the novels themselves. The Crimson King and Breakers, for example, appeared in non-DT books first. Given Jack’s situation at the end of Black House, I think it is inevitable that Mid-World will play a significant part in the story, but it remains to be seen if the Dark Tower will, if you know what I mean.
SK: What is your most favorite Stephen King book?
BV: Picking favorites or creating “Top 10” lists has always been difficult for me. My mind doesn’t function that way. I could name a number of books for different reasons: ‘Salem’s Lot, which represented a huge leap forward from Carrie, in my opinion, but also because it was my first. The Shining because I think it is his best-crafted novel; everything in that book works. Or Bag of Bones, because—in addition to being a fine novel and representative of a change in direction for him—it was the first King book I read in manuscript. Or Blockade Billy because it has a character named after me in it! And I could pick others. I have an easier job picking my least favorite King books!
