Stephen King has occasionally raised a rueful protest against being typed as a horror writer - even with the consolation of being the best-selling horror writer in the history of the world. But, as he disarmingly reminds us, there is worse literary company than Love-craft, Leiber, Bloch, Matheson and Jackson. 'I could, for example, be an "important" writer like Joseph Heller and publish a novel every seven years or so, or a "brilliant" writer like John Gardner and write obscure books for bright academics who eat macrobiotic foods and drive old Saabs with faded but still legible GENE McCARTHY FOR PRESIDENT stickers on the rear bumpers.' Instead of which he is the 'King of Horror' who had his face on Time, 6 October 1986 (the only author in that year to receive the honour), who sold over 1.2m American hardback copies of It (1986-87's best-selling novel, and a personal best for King) and who now rates $3m advances. He cries, in other words, all the way to the bank. Or, as he puts it, 'I don't give a shit what they call me, so long as I can sleep at night.'

LRB 21 April 1988 | PDF Download