Stephen King's Modern Macabre

Patrick McAleer co-chairs the Stephen King Area of the Popular Culture Association. He has published many articles on King and teaches English at Inver Hills Community College in the Twin Cities, Minnesota. Michael A. Perry is an associate professor of English at Rockford University in Illinois. He has presented papers connecting Stephen King to Toni Morrison, Mark Twain and Ambrose Bierce.

“Intriguing…engaging…McAleer and Perry have succeeded in paving the way for new scholarship on Stephen King’s modern writing. The editors should be commended in particular for complicating the outdated notion that King is primarily a horror writer.”—Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts

• Table of ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: A More Subtle Macabre (Michael A. Perry and Patrick McAleer)Part I. King in the World AroundFantasy in Fiction: The ­Double-Edged Sword (Jennifer Jenkins)King Me: Inviting New Perceptions and Purposes of the Popular and Horrific into the College Classroom (Michael A. Perry)A Taste for the Public: Uncle Stevie’s Work for Entertainment Weekly (Scott Ash)The World at Large, America in Particular: Cultural Fears and Societal Mayhem in King’s Fiction Since 1995 (Mary Findley)Part II. Spotlight on The Dark TowerRoland the Gunslinger’s Generic Transformation (Michele Braun)“Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came”: The Heroic Aspects of the Gunslinger (T. Gilchrist White)Riddles Wrapped in Mystery Inside Enigmas: ­Anglo-Saxon Literature as the Key to Unlocking the Ending of The Dark Tower Series (Jennifer D. Loman)A Rose, a Stone, an Unfound Door: Metaphor and Intertextuality in The Dark Tower Series (Georgianna O. Miller)Part III. Writing into the MillenniumSurvival of the Sweetest: Little Miss Bosox and the Saving Grace of Baseball in The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon (Abigail L. Bowers and Lowell Mick White)More Than Just Ghost Lore in a Bad Place: Mikael Håftröm’s Cinematographic Translation of 1408 (Alexandra Reuber)“Born in Sin”: Millennial Anxiety in Storm of the Century (Philip L. Simpson)The Fallen King(dom): Surviving Ruin and Decay from The Stand to Cell (Patrick McAleer)“The Word Pool, Where We All Go Down to Drink”: The Irresistible Pull of Language in Lisey’s Story (Jennifer Alberico)BibliographyAbout the ContributorsIndex