Just After Sunset King, Stephen

Annotation:
The "king of horror" offers up a collection of wonderfully conceived and devilishly executed short stories. Stephen King's ability to cook up a fiendish conceit is legendary, and these shorter works, which have appeared previously in The New Yorker, Playboy, Esquire, and elsewhere, prove his talent for taking a Twilight Zone style premise--a cursed saloon, a mute hitchhiker, a portable lavatory that acts as a ghastly womb--and firing it to a white-hot heat in the crucible of his imagination.

Author Bio

Stephen King

Born in 1947, Stephen King has become a household name all over the world. His mother raised him and his brother after their father deserted the family in 1950. In high school, King began to write short stories, his first published work appearing in 1968. He attended the University of Maine, graduating with a B.S. in 1970. Up until his first novel appeared, King had worked in an industrial laundry, as a janitor, as well as an English teacher. CARRIE, his debut, was met by a largely indifferent public in 1974. It wasn't until two years later, after King's second novel 'SALEM'S LOT and the filmed version of CARRIE, that King became a major player in the horror field. THE SHINING, his 1977 haunted hotel novel, began a litany of bestsellers, including THE STAND, THE DEAD ZONE, PET SEMETARY, DOLORES CLAIBORNE, and many others. King's work is regarded as instrumental in bringing about a resurgence of interest in horror fiction in the 1970s and '80s. An extremely high percentage of King's voluminous literary output has been filmed, with varying degrees of success, but all serving to carry the name of Stephen King far and wide. He has written nonfiction, given lectures, acted in films, and continues to produce huge novels nearly every year, all of which become instant bestsellers. As an bizarre sidenote, during the summer of 1999 while walking along a back road in Maine, King was struck and seriously injured by a minivan whose driver apparently lost control of the vehicle while being distracted by his dog--thus creating exactly the kind of news item that might have inspired several of King's own novels.

Praise

"[King] is a tireless storyteller...And simple, everyday situations became his open portals to fantasy and horror...[A] succinct, fast-moving collection...you can read...on a dark and stormy night and shiver." - Janet Maslin 11/05/2008

"Like epidoses from THE TWILIGHT ZONE, many of the stories hinge upon 'a small but noticeable hole in the column of reality.' As King writes, '[I]t's how we see the world that keeps the darkness beyond the world at bay.' And as he tells the reader, 'I hope at least one of [the stories] keeps you awake for a while after the lights are out.'" 09/01/2008

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Just After Sunset Stories (Paperback)

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