Mancandy Monday: Stephen King

You know what I love about Stephen King? It's not the beard, in case you were wondering. I mean, I'm sure by now you know I have some kind of perverted beard fetish. And he does look better with the beard, as you can see from this handy diagram full of maths and stuff:

But it isn't that. There are so many men with full bushes for me to choose from, should I feel the pull of fecund hairiness. No, my love for Stephen King stems purely from the fact that more than any other writer, he makes me believe.

I mean, think about it. No really, just think about what some of his stories are about. Here, I'll create a handy list of them.

1. A car that comes alive and kills people.

2. A shit weasel.

3. A cellphone signal that turns everyone into rabid crazy murderer zombie things.

4. God is, like, a giant turtle.

5. A magical Kindle. Yeah, that's right. As in, the ebook reading device.

I swear, all of these things happen in his books. They really and honestly happen or are a part of actual published novels of his. I'm not lying. I'm not even exaggerating a little bit. I mean, I was going to say a "haunted Kindle" but the Kindle in his story is not actually haunted - it just shows you books from a parrellel dimension. So I think "magical" covers it.

And yet, I totally bought the premise. I didn't want to. I started reading it thinking: he's gone too far, here. This is ridiculous even for him. And then halfway through I did this big, disbelieving laugh because God-dammit. He only went and had me believing in an ebook reading device from another dimension.

The man is a legend. And if there's one lesson I've taken away from any writer, it's the lesson he's taught me. It doesn't matter who or what you write about, as long as you make it real. You can tell a story about a woman who falls in love with a goat, as long as every word that comes out of her mouth and every move she makes is consistent, grounded, believable. As long as she thinks before the reader does: God this is weird.

Because that's what people do. If a reader thinks God this is weird, than fook knows how weird the character would find it. And that's the beauty of Stephen King. He gets there before the reader does. Before you even know the characters should be doing something, he has them do it, or feel it, or experience it.

Like at the end of Desperation when the kid unfolds that little note, and everything in me is thinking man, God is cruel. Everything is cruel and awful and endless, and nothing will ever be good again. In my own life I'm thinking that right now, because although I haven't seen my family killed by a demon inside a man-skin, things just seem very bleak and full of casual cruelty.

And then I read the note. And it says:

God is love.