My Favourite Stephen King Book

I’ve been reading Stephen King’s books since I was barely a teen. I’ve read them all, some of them a lot more than once, and I reckon he’s a fine writer by any comparison with anybody.

As I will have doubtless mentioned elsewhere. It’s not a blind love I have for his writings. I like some of the books a lot more than I like some of the others. Generally I prefer the books with a small cast of characters and an intimate setting rather than the ones with a huge cast of characters and far-reaching scenarios. I think that’s where he shines, if you’ll pardon the pun. 

My eldest son likes Stephen King too. I got him a few books a few years back and he seems to have taken to them. He’s read ‘The Shining’ and ‘Salem’s Lot’ and ‘The Stand’, the classic ones. I had been saving up my favourite one to give to him when we were going off on holiday for a few days last week. I ordered it in my excellent local bookshop, Castle Books, but it didn’t arrive before we set off so I just got to pick it up today. That was my fault, I left it a little too late to get it in time.

So, this afternoon, I collected the book in its neat new-edition cover and I got as far as the bird-poo ridden bench in the park before I had to stop and take it out of its bag and have a good look at it. 

My favourite Stephen King book.

I decided I would just read Chapter One, while I was sitting there. I’m still on holidays until Monday, although the feeling is fading fast now, so why not a little read?

I opened the book but Chapter One was not Chapter One at all but rather an introduction to the book by the great man himself. I read that instead. I was both pleased and surprised to find that Stephen King’s feelings about this strange dark book are almost exactly in accordance with my own feelings. As I read his introduction, I agreed with everything he was saying. Or almost everything.

The stand-out line in this introduction was this, "I was horrified by what I had written."

Wait.

I haven’t told you what this favourite book of mine is, have I? Silly me.

It’s ‘Pet Sematary’.

It’s probably an unusual choice, I’m not really sure. People tend to go more for the big ones, the ‘Stand’s and the ‘It’s. I like those too, thought not as much as the smaller ones (see above). But this one hit me and hit me hard. I’ve only ever read it once, although I may read it again now that we’ve got a spanking new copy in the house.

I think the circumstance of my read it may have something to do with why I regard it so highly. Let me tell you a bit about that for a minute.

I was at a house party in Kensington W8. It was 1984, I reckon. I wasn’t much good at parties back then and, yes, some things never change. At some point it was resolved that my friends and I were not going home (someone must have ‘pulled’ or something) (not me, obviously). At around one am, I claimed myself a white leatherette armchair and settled in for the night. It soon became clear that I would not sleep much so I turned my attention to the bookshelf that adjoined the armchair. 

There is was. ‘Pet Sematary’. The first King book in a long time that I had not bought immediately on publication. I had seen it in the shops, of course, but I had thought it looked a bit naff and I didn’t get the obvious misspelling of the title. I put it on the long finger. But here it was, a free read. I would try a few chapters and perhaps, at worst, it might send me off to sleep. 

Some hope.

I read all through the night. Long after everybody was up and cooking breakfast, I was still reading. I remained removed and utterly anti-social until I had finished the whole damn thing in one long sleepover of the soul.

Why did I like it so much?

Easy.

I couldn’t believe how far he had went. I didn’t think it was possible to take the story along a charted course that was so potentially dark that it wasn’t necessary to veer off an some point. To look away. But it never does. The book never looks away.

In his introduction, which I read in the park just this afternoon, King obviously felt the same. He locked the book up, resolving that it probably would not be published, at least not in his lifetime. His notes on the writing of the book confirmed why he has been an inspiration to me. For all the pulp horror elements of this story, it is grounded firmly in reality and genuine terror. The formative events in the book very nearly happened or actually did happen. I often go on about the ‘drop of blood’ that a writer needs to make the writing true. Stephen King practically opened a vein to write this one.

And still it’s not perfect. On that Sunday morning in Kensington, as I blew all chances of a free breakfast, I found the final act a little over-dramatic and unconvincing. It didn’t matter so much though, the impact had been made with the unfolding of the dark path that took me there.

At the end of the day it's just good old-fashioned pulp horror at its best. But, still, there is something else. Something lurking behind all the B Movie Shenanigans.  Something dark as hell. Something possibly true.

So, yeah, Pet Sematary is my favourite. I wonder what John will make of it?

I’ll let you know.

What Charlie Haden’s Song Means to Me

Charlie Haden died the other day. He was one of the greatest double bass players the world has seen. He will be sorely missed.

I wouldn't pretend to be an expert on the music of Charlie Haden. Mostly, I enjoyed his work with Pat Metheny on the ‘Beyond the Missouri Sky’ album which Warren Bennett put me on to some time back and for which I am grateful.

But the thing for which Charlie will always mean most to me is the song he sang for his Mum and Dad.

Charlie would have been the first to say that he was not a great singer. I think his vocal chords were actually damaged by a childhood disease and this meant that he had lifelong difficulty in maintaining pitch in his voice. As a result, he only seemed to sing when he needed to. All I know is, when his heart demanded it, he didn’t shy away from singing the song he wanted to sing for his Mother and Father.

He sang his own version of the Folk/Spiritual ‘Poor Wayfaring Stranger’ on one of his albums ‘The art of the Song’ with his Quartet West. I heard it a few years ago on John Kelly’s afternoon show on Lyric FM. It was a song that was only half-familiar to me before I heard Charlie’s version. In my head, it was a moderately upbeat Appalachian Country style number. It also had a 'Down South Spiritual' feel to it with its 'Going Over Jordan' sentiments. It had never really meant anything to me. Until Charlie came along. Charlie’s version struck me deep and has never stopped doing so ever since.

Here’s the reason why;

In her latter couple of years, after her second stroke, my own Mum was confined to her wheelchair. I used to drive to Sligo most every Saturday and visit her in the care home where she needed to live.

On those Saturdays, weather permitting, we would try and get out and about a bit. Nothing complicated, like hauling in and out of cars, we would usually just wheel off around the laneways surrounding the care home. It became a well worn route. I think I tried to stay on the same roads to avoid the unknown, the high kerb or the rough path that would only cause some stress for Mum. We kept it simple.

This one time, thought, we took a different route, just for a bit of variety I guess. This new route took us over the bridge and down to the docks. I thought it might be nice to see the boats and such, to gaze into the water.

But I hadn’t thought hard enough about it. The implications of where we would end up that day. We stopped for a moment by the black water and suddenly Mum was very animated. She made a solid effort to actually get herself out of her chair. She struggled hard with the impossible task. When I asked her what was up, I saw there were big tears in her eyes. Then I saw where she was looking.

I hadn’t remembered that we could see my Granny and Grandad’s house from down here on the dockside. Up, across the water, on the raised area everybody called The Bank. Mum’s childhood home, the place where her own Mum and Dad had lived all their lives. Both of them had ended their days, many years before, in the same home where Mum now had to live. But Mum didn’t remember any of that at this moment. To her, they were still up there, on the Bank, waiting for her to come. 

“It’s all right Mum,” I said, “let’s head on back now.”

What Mum said, perfectly naturally, stays with me.

“I won’t be long,” she said, “I’m only going up The Bank, to see Mammy and Daddy. I’m only going over home.”

A short time after that, she was gone over for real. I evoked this moment when I spoke at her funeral. I felt I ought to. She had made a wish on that day and perhaps there’s some hope somewhere that it was subsequently granted.

I never connected her words with the ‘Wayfaring Stranger’ song at that time. I only did that on the day I heard Charlie Haden dedicate his singing to his own Mother and Father. It struck home, even though Mum wasn’t quoting any song that day. She was only talking in the way she always used to talk. Saying it in her natural way. She only wanted to go over home.

So the song evokes that poignant thing for me. Not just any version of the song though. Just the one where Charlie’s thoughts are undeniably with his late Mum and Dad as he sings it.

For me, this all goes towards proving something that I've always held to be true. If you make something, and you put a piece of your own heart and soul into it then the people who find that thing will also find a part of their own heart and soul inside of it.

Goodnight Charlie. 

Thanks for the thing.