title: Bare Bones: Conversations on Terror With Stephen King
author: Stephen King
description: "My soul must be very black, indeed," observes King, virtuoso of horror fiction, but these 30-odd interviews do not lay bare his soul. They do, however, reveal some interesting things about his insomnia and persistent fears (he hates darkness), his literary sources, work habits (he writes two hours a day, seven days a week) and how his scary novels are linked to his childhood insecurities and feelings of inadequacy. The interviews, conducted by various journalists over the past decade, originally ran in media ranging from Penthouse to the Baltimore Sun. Shrugging off critics who dismiss his work as derivative, King explains his fascination with the horrific and calls himself a good writer, not a great one. His comments on his novels and their movie adaptations are often astute, as when he interprets Carrie as a parable of women's consciousness or pans Stanley Kubrick's frigid direction of The Shining. <BR>Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.
zlib_text: Raves for the Work  
  
  
  of Stephen King!  
  
  
    
  
  “Excellent, psychologically textured…Stephen King is so widely acknowledged as
  America’s master of paranormal terrors that you can forget his real genius is
  for the everyday.”
  
  > > > > > > —New York Times Book Review
  
  
  “Mr. King makes palpable the longing and regret that arise out of calamity,
  and deftly renders the kindness and pettiness that can mark small-town life.”
  
  > > > > > > —The Wall Street Journal
  
  
  “The author is not only immensely popular but immensely talented, a modern-day
  counterpart to Twain, Hawthorne, Dickens.”
  
  > > > > > > —Publishers Weekly
  
  
  “Extraordinarily vivid…an impressive tour de force, a sensitive character
  study that holds the reader rapt.”
  
  > > > > > > —Playboy
  
  
  “Stephen King is superb.”
  
  > > > > > > —Time
  
  
  “A thoroughly compelling thriller.”
  
  > > > > > > —Esquire
  
  
  “Don’t start this one on a school night, kids. You’ll be up till dawn.”
  
  > > > > > > —People
  
  
  “A big, serious, scary novel…King is at the top 