BANGOR, Maine — Killer clowns and man-eating St. Bernards can seem almost like old friends next to the real-life boogeyman of the coronavirus.
Stephen King has been writing scary stories from his home in Bangor for more than 40 years. He says he's not surprised to see readers embrace his dark sensibilities during dark times in their own lives.
King shared his insights with Stephen Colbert on the episode of CBS's "The Late Show" that aired Wednesday, May 6. The interview was part of the promotional push for King's new collection of stories, "If It Bleeds."
"You read it," King said of his horror novels, "and the situations are even more horrible than being under house arrest with no toilet paper. When you finish, you close the book and you've hit a place to put your fears for a little while. You've been able to say, these problems are much worse than my problems. And then you close the book and you can go to bed and sleep like a baby."
As far back as 1978, King wrote about a cataclysmic flu outbreak in "The Stand." Colbert asked King to compare his fictional pandemic to the real thing.
"People will come along and say through their little masks, 'I feel like I'm living in a Stephen King story.' My response is," said King, "I'm sorry for that!"
King said he is fending off the coronavirus by wearing his own little mask on the rare occasions when he ventures out of his house. That gave Colbert the idea to ask, if King had to endure a quarantine with one of his characters, who would be the worst?
"It's not even close. I wouldn't want to be quarantined with Annie Wilkes," King admitted, referring to the villain of "Misery." "She would think that I was a cock-a-doodie brat. And then she would say, 'Stephen, I have a wonderful idea for a book, and I want you to write it. Or I'll cut off your foot.'"
The discussion strayed beyond King's own work to other books that he likes to read when he needs inspiration or hope. Both Stephens pointed to "The Lord of the Rings" as a personal favorite. King credits its focus on an unlikely hero who succeeds against impossible odds with helping to teach him how to write.
"It's particularly good in times like these," King enthused. "And I think you and I would both say to people who are getting fed up with being quarantined, it's a good place to go. It's a good place to put your heart for quite a long time because there's a lot there."
For the rest of us who are looking to bottle up our fears between the covers of a good book as we ride out the coronavirus pandemic, there are plenty of Stephen King stories from which to choose.
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