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As an author, King not only focuses on things that go bump in the
night but he also throws in things that go bump in our psyches. Man
and his dog? In a King novel, it's Cujo, a rabid beast who won't settle
for a Milk-Bone. Man and his car? Christine, a car with an unlimited
warranty for evil. A fan's admiration for an artist? It's all Misery
to King.
King started on the road to scary stories early, becoming something
of a connoisseur of '50s horror films. His interest was first piqued
by a collection of fantasy novels that had belonged to his father. (Daddy
deserted the family when Stephen was a tot.)
King started writing when he was still a child, and as a teenager
he sold a couple of short stories to a mystery magazine. But it wasn't
all blood and guts: the young Stephen also played in a rock band and
for his high school football team. After completing his education, King
briefly taught high school English.
When Carrie pushed him into the big time, King was just 27 years
old. His brand of storytelling captured the public imagination right
away, and he proved he was no flash in the pan with his next two books,
'Salem's Lot, a modern vampire story, and The Shining, about the queen
mother of haunted houses.
Besides living a quiet family life in Maine, King has resurrected
his youth long enough to form a band, the Rock Bottom Remainders, with
fellow authors Dave Barry, Amy Tan, Robert Fulghum, Matt Groening, and
Roy Blount Jr. In June 1999, King was out for a walk near his home and
was severely injured when the driver of a minivan lost control of his
car. He suffered a broken hip and a punctured lung, but since then has
resumed writing and keeps his fans informed of his recovery on his official
Web site.
| Richard Bachman
"Richard Bachman" was created to keep the book market from being
oversaturated with Stephen King titles. But King himself has said:
"Richard Bachman began his career not as a delusion but as a sheltered
place where I could publish a few early books which I felt readers
might like. Then he began to grow and come alive, as the creatures
of a writer's imagination so frequently do.
I began to imagine his life as a dairy farmer; his wife, the
beautiful Claudia Inez Bachman...." Bachman's true identity remained
a secret for many years, until a bookstore clerk did a little research
and discovered who Bachman really was.
Bachman's official biography: he was born in New York, but his
early years are a mystery. As a young man, Bachman served a four-year
stint in the Coast Guard, which he then followed with 10 years in
the merchant marine. Bachman finally settled down in rural central
New Hampshire, where he ran a medium-size dairy farm. He did his
writing at night (he suffered from chronic insomnia) after the cows
came home. Bachman and his wife, Claudia Inez Bachman, had one child,
a boy, who died in an unfortunate, Stephen King-type accident at
the age of 6.
He apparently fell into a well and drowned. In 1982, a tumor
was discovered near the base of Bachman's brain; tricky surgery
removed it. Bachman however, didn't live long after that, dying
suddenly in late 1985 of cancer of the pseudonym, a rare form of
schizonomia.
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