The Thumbnail Book Reviews
by John Q McDonald --- 24 January 2005
by Stephen King
Mr. King is, of course, one of the most successful authors of our time. His books have sold millions and it seems almost all of them have been made into films. So, he's done quite well for himself. Twenty-five years ago, this reader picked up The Shining, but found he wasn't in King's target audience and put it down after thirty pages. However, an author as successful as King should have something to say about the process and the act of writing. And so, contemporary with his horrific near-death encounter with a van on a rural Maine highway, comes this small, energetic memoir. With this book, King adds his own matter-of-fact voice to the list of books for writers that comes out every year. In the first third of the book, he opens with a brief autobiographical sketch that highlights some of the events that led to his career. This part of the book is fast moving and highly entertaining. King's self-deprecatory language gains some appeal from the heights of popular literary success from which he writes. The vignettes are funny and sometimes touching, from his childhood encounter with poison ivy, to his mother's death, to his first successes in his art. The remainder of the book is King's own take on Strunk & White's The Elements of Style and well as his take on the profession of selling one's work. This section slows down the book, considerably. King professes to be most concerned with language here, and he does focus upon some key elements of good writing style that are outlined in greater detail in Strunk & White. King isn't trying to teach a writer to soar into the heights of Nobel-worthy writing (though, who knows what is possible?). He is simply trying to get the writers out there to pay close attention to the structure of their writing. While this might be much of a rehash of Elements..., King's approach makes it accessible and often funny. He has a friendly manner with encouraging words to authors about the selling of the work, always with a tone that implies "Don't get too wrapped up in your fantasy and it might just work out for you." In that is the core success of King's little book. In the closing pages, King tells the story of his terrible accident beside that Maine road. This part also appeared as an essay in The New Yorker. It has less to do with writing than perhaps writing's ability to help one heal. Overall, a serious, but entertaining book on the drudgery and joy of the art of writing.