THE PREPOSTEROUS BOLLOX OF THE SITUATION

“Stephen King knew he was an addict in 1975, when he was writing The Shining. It manifested in his writing, as part of what he was doing; hidden from everybody else, it was in him, and on the page. Back then, it was only alcohol. As he became more popular, wrote more, earned more, took more time away from his family to work, his addictions escalated. How could they not? He needed to hit deadlines, and he liked the taste of what he was addicted to. You can see it through his fiction: in Jack Torrance’s alcoholic self-pity, desperately scared of becoming what he’s destined to be, trying to hold his family together even as he shakes it apart; in Larry Underwood throwing his life (and money, and 15 minutes of fame) away on drink and drugs at the start of The Stand; in his short stories, tales of addiction and internal collapse and death. Then, in case all this passed you by, along comes Cujo: and in the giant, slobbering, seemingly unstoppable dog, we find the bluntest metaphor for addiction yet presented in King’s oeuvre…”