Mister King

At six this evening, moving-weary of unpacking cardboard boxes of books and putting them completely out of order on shelves, I found among the collection, an unread Stephen King. I am not sure where I picked it up. Wasn't one I bought, but "found" somewhere. The cover of the paperback showed an old Buick, not a "Christine", but one with a grill that chilled. The chrome vents were like long lethal teeth and the jaw was undershot in its hungry, rude grin. The car colour was red. In the fifties, I had a potential boyfriend, Ron Fredrickson, who had a red Buick of the same kind as the title of the book. Ron was a short phase, but his car was never forgotten. At the time, his Buick, likely that of his parents, was ultimate luxury on four gorgeous, white-walled tires but best of all, it seemed to purr its pretty decor, you know, the little silver circles on the hood sides and the smooth, long lines that made it cruise on forever down the main street of my small town. What else could I do but sigh and abscond with the paperback book by King. I set about opening the cover of another of my favorite author's irresistible masterpieces. King is a living classic and his works are pure genius. His way of yanking you into his stories is magical, and to be so-yanked is a  reader's literary blessing. King isn't some smart-ass writer who grinds out inane junk that we often buy because we recognise a name and think, what do I have to lose? Just fifteen bucks worth of paper and words to forget when the last page is turned? No. With King, you enter his world. You watch his tale passing along and if you're lucky, you may step in. They are his characters who you meet, but also experience them personally somehow, that holds close, often too close, until they let you go on the last page. From A Buick Eight is such a book. Forgetting about dinner, I dropped into my recliner with easy listening music on in the background and have not risen until now, close to midnight, closing the book and returning to my reality. The book was published about a decade ago. Where was I? How did I miss grabbing it off the shelf immediately it hit the thing? The phrase, "I couldn't put it down", didn't occur to me until this minute, well after the first page. It's one of King's books that trods slowly, pulling you down the pathway of its characters and their ways, their actions and their thoughts in a way, you can't avoid. You are not shown their every move, you feel them. Your natural instincts come to the fore and pore-wise, you learn each individual on the pages, not by word but by sense. Stephen King must feel this also, but has the brilliance to get that down on paper. Uncanny. I love writing, but to elicit that kind of response from a reader, is just not my ability. That takes rare genius. I wanted to write to King and tell him how very much this tale meant to me. I found a huge number of sites on-line, and then decided he must know by sales alone, how much his Buick book was loved. Nay, respected. The manager of the King site said when writing fan mail, to address the famous but humble author, as Mr. King. No problem with that, Mister King, Master Writer.