Yeah, that’s not creepy at all.
But it does illustrate why King has special standing in his new novel, “Finders Keepers,” to examine the reader-writer relationship, which is increasingly a two-way street. What does a beloved writer owe his fans? Who’s the boss, especially in an era when disenchanted disciples can cyberstalk, tweet their fury at a less-than-cordial encounter or even self-publish fan fiction?
King of course has worked this territory before, most notably in “Misery,” with a writer essentially enslaved by his No. 1 fan. But whereas Annie Wilkes was nuts, if you’ll excuse the clinical term, fans are not necessarily fanatics. The desire to establish a bond with a beloved writer is a form of communion — or so said Martin Amis, who has acknowledged he did precisely that with Saul Bellow.
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