Lexington Books
Pages: 270
•
Trim: 6⅜ x 9⅜
978-1-4985-7278-1 • Hardback • November 2018 • $129.00 • (£99.00)
978-1-4985-7280-4 • Paperback • December 2020 • $47.99 • (£37.00)
978-1-4985-7279-8 • eBook • November 2018 • $45.50 • (£35.00)
Philip L. Simpson is provost of the Titusville campus and eLearning at Eastern Florida State College.
Patrick McAleer is faculty at Inver Hills Community College.
INTRODUCTION: Beyond Horror
PART I: Snapshots of King’s Craft
The Rehabilitation of Stephen King
by Tony Magistrale
Storytelling and a Story Told: Stephen King’s narrators in From a Buick 8, The Colorado Kid, and Blaze
by Michael Perry
Stephen King’s “Fair Extension:” Of Contemporary America
by Clotilde Landais
The Bazaar of Bad Choices: What it is to be Female in King’s New World
by Mary Findley
PART II: Ubiquitous Violence
Monsters At Home: Representations of Domestic and Sexual Abuse in Gerald’s Game, Dolores Claiborne, and Rose Madder
by Kimberly Beal
Razors, Bumper Stickers, and Wheelchairs: Male Violence and Madness in Rose Madder and Mr. Mercedes
by Rebecca Frost
Horrific Sympathies: The Comingling of Violence and Mental Illness in Stephen King’s Mr. Mercedes
by Hayley Mitchell Haugen
From Meat World to Cyberspace: The Psychopath’s Journey in Mr. Mercedes and End of Watch
by Philip L. Simpson
PART III: Reviving the Gothic
Gothic Recall: Stephen King’s Uncanny Revival of the Frankenstein Myth
by Alexandra Reuber
Travelling before the Storm: Shades of the Lightning Rod Salesman in Stephen King’s Gothic
by Conny L. Lippert
From Wonder to Horror: Stephen King’s Revival and Robertson Davies’s Deptford Trilogy
By Dominick Grace
PART IV: Contemporary Cornerstones
Time Ravel: History, Metafiction, and Immersion in Stephen King’s 11/22/63
by Stefan L. Brandt
In the Shadow of the Dark Tower: Stephen King’s Fantasy Epic as 9/11 Literature
by Jennifer L. Miller
Untangling the True Knot: Stephen King's (Accidental) Vegan Manifesto in Doctor Sleep
by Patrick McAleer
Bibliography
About the Editors
About the Contributors
This welcome collection of essays by top Stephen King scholars reaches beyond familiar texts and clichéd horrors to demonstrate the ongoing significance of King’s output in the twenty-first century. Readers will discover the importance of understanding King’s work within the complexity of real-world horrors, including school shootings, domestic violence, and serial killers. They will also learn more about King’s wide-ranging influences, his changing reputation in American letters, and the ways his work cannot be reduced to any one genre. It is essential reading, especially for those hoping to understand why Stephen King still matters.
— Carl Sederholm, The Journal of American Culture
Simpson and McAleer here cement their reputation as the world leaders in the study of contemporary Stephen King. This superb edited collection offers a series of perceptive and fascinating essays on King’s more recent, less horror-centric output, focusing on more marginal works such as Revival, From a Buick 8, and Bazaar of Bad Dreams, alongside crowd pleasers like Mr. Mercedes and 11/22/63. Together they provide a wide-ranging, often critical, but always significant study of modern King and make a vital contribution to our understanding of this American literary icon. Accessible, engaging, and insightful, this is a book that anyone who reads King in the twenty-first century should have on their shelves.
— Simon Brown, Kingston University London
Philip L. Simpson and Patrick McAleer’s new, edited scholarly collection, The Modern Stephen King Canon: Beyond Horror, is the single finest book about Stephen King’s recent work to have appeared in years. A number of expert King scholars have all contributed brilliant essays to this volume, and its coverage of King’s more recent literary efforts is exceptional. The book is well-conceived, well-organized, eminently readable, and it covers a range of topics and stories that will interest both the novice reader and the King aficionado. The Modern Stephen King Canon: Beyond Horror is a stand-out treasure on any Stephen King bookshelf.
— Gary Hoppenstand, Michigan State University