stephen_king raze i think in some quarters it's still considered uncool to admit you're a fan. there are critics who dismiss what he does. "that isn't real writing," they say. or, "he's no hemingway." if any of those tasteless tastemakers had ever been abused children who found the friends they needed in the stories spun by others, maybe they would begin to understand the power of words beyond their lofty literary aspirations. when i was a boy who was made to feel small, the monsters i lived with gave me a hardcover copy of "desperation" for a christmas present, somehow not knowing it was more risqué than any of the_books_they_took_away. i'd never heard of stephen king. neither had my mother or stepfather. but they knew i liked spooky shit. "here," they said. "you've always got your nose in a book. read this." i tore through it in two days. then i devoured every other stephen king book i could get my hands on, from "salem's lot" to "bag of bones". some of them were overwritten. some went on longer than they needed to. none of that mattered. they gave me something to believe in. his characters were often wrestling with sinister forces beyond the scope of their understanding. they didn't always win. sometimes they didn't even survive. but they fought. the idea that the human heart could be eviscerated by unspeakable tragedies and keep beating helped give me the strength to go on when i wasn't sure i wanted to. there are a few books i've circled back to over the years. there's "firestarter". for all the complaints that king doesn't know how to write women, charlie mcgee is one of the best-crafted children in fiction. no one will convince me otherwise. her relationship with her father is the fulcrum around which everything else spins. just thinking about them is enough to make me tear up. there's "the long walk", which remains one of my favourite dystopian novels. i'm not sure any living teenager has ever been as articulate or self-aware as ray garraty and his fellow walkers. but those kids will always be real to me. there's "on writing". the nuts and bolts don't interest me so much. what bites into me is the two-part memoir that bookends the practical advice ("c.v." and "on living"). i think it's the best thing king has ever done. the events that inspired "carrie" have haunted the back of my brain for a quarter of a century. and then there's "insomnia". that might be the book of his that means the most to me. mixed reviews be damned. underneath all the supernatural stuff is the story of two lonely people transformed by the love they find in the lateness of their lives. it isn't their courage or their ingenuity that saves them in the end. it's the miracle of being born anew in each other's eyes. 260828 what's it to you? who go blather from