What prompted the narrative device of a woman telling her life story to Stephen King?
SO’N: I knew that the book would follow a medieval form called the gallows broadside, in which a condemned killer tells his life story to a scribe of the court. Then, at the execution, the book is sold to the watching crowds. So, thinking about who the scribe of the court would be in this story, I decided that since the court was American mass culture, the scribe of that culture is Stephen King. RH: That’s a flattering role to be given, to be considered the voice of a culture. Did King see it that way? SO’N: He originally said, when he wrote me a letter, that he didn’t want his name to be used as a shorthand emblem for bad writing. I can see his reasoning, but that’s not the way that I was using it. But he later sent me a copy of his most recent book, a privately printed collection of six stories, and signed it, “To Stewart, your dear Stephen King,” and he said that he’d read The Speed Queen and liked it very much. RH: Reading the story, her enthusiasm towards what he’s been able to ac
SO’N: I knew that the book would follow a medieval form called the gallows broadside, in which a condemned killer tells his life story to a scribe of the court. Then, at the execution, the book is sold to the watching crowds. So, thinking about who the scribe of the court would be in this story, I decided that since the court was American mass culture, the scribe of that culture is Stephen King. RH: That’s a flattering role to be given, to be considered the voice of a culture. Did King see it that way? SO’N: He originally said, when he wrote me a letter, that he didn’t want his name to be used as a shorthand emblem for bad writing. I can see his reasoning, but that’s not the way that I was using it. But he later sent me a copy of his most recent book, a privately printed collection of six stories, and signed it, “To Stewart, your dear Stephen King,” and he said that he’d read The Speed Queen and liked it very much. RH: Reading the story, her enthusiasm towards what he’s been able to ac
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