Friday, October 15: Bandersnatches
LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION?
by Steven Steinbock
I was recently scouting locations. I’m lucky that I happen to live in a region that is very evocative of fictional crime. When they’re not thinking about lobsters and lighthouses and L.L. Bean, people associate Maine with Stephen King, Jessica Fletcher, and Dark Shadows.
So I studied Google Maps for a while, then hopped in the car and drove around my little village of 8,000 souls. I took a field trip to an old cemetery overlooking Casco Bay. I took pictures and thought about the people whose names appeared on the weathered stones and I dreamed.
I like Stephen King, but I couldn’t call myself a fan of his increasingly overlong novels. You could argue that his style is too common, and that his unrestrained writing needs an editor. You could also make the case that those are the traits that make King and his writings so popular. You could make either one of those cases, but I won’t. Not in this venue. Not today, anyhow. A few years back I re-read Salem’s Lot,. I hadn’t read it since it first appeared in paperback back in the mid-1970s, at a time in my life when I’d never been east of Wyoming. Anyhow, during this re-reading, I was surprised at the familiar place names. No fooling, according to the geographical clues in the book, I live within easy walking distance of the undead town of Jerusalem’s Lot.
(In a map on his own website, King places Jerusalem’s Lot much further north and west. But it’s interesting that in the book itself, he describes all the towns surrounding my little village, but never mentions it by name. It makes one wonder. . .)
If you’re not a fan of Stephen King – or even if you are but have never tried his short stories – I urge you to pick up Skeleton Crew, a nice collection of his tales. It includes two of my favorite King stories, and the two that I think best evoke the culture and geography of Maine. Neither story is especially scary, in fact both are pretty gentle, and one of them is downright sweet. “Mrs. Todd’s Shortcut” takes that great Maine truism – You can’t get there from here (pronounced “yuh cahn’t get theyah from heyah”) – and takes it to metaphysical extremes. “The Reach” is a story of love that transcends time and tells of an elderly island resident who has never set foot on the mainland until she decides to walk across the frozen “reach.”
But as I was saying, I was scouting for a location. I needed to write a climactic sequence that began in a quiet, isolated spot from which the bay could be seen. It was a pretty, sunny day. I was walking among the tombstones and dreaming a way. I came away with an arsenal of names, a sense of the geography and topography, visual images, and practical details.
In the next week or two I’ll share some photos and describe for you what I found.
IN CASE OF MADNESS
This very afternoon (Friday, 10/16 4:30pm) several of your Criminal Briefniks are gathering on a stage to take part in a panel with the inscrutably off-topic title In Case of Madness. It’s happening in San Francisco at Bouchercon.
I’ll be there with James Lincoln Warren, Melodie Johnson Howe, Robert Lopresti, and Angela Zeman, as well as Tim Wohlforth and Jill Amadio. Our topic is short stories, but we’ll likely wander into the topic of madness at some point. Rob’s name has been mangled so many times that it’s a wonder he isn’t suffering an identity crisis.
Hope to see you there.
This reminds me of what actress Anna Kendrick recently said Jay Leno about her home state Maine. She said, “Whenever I tell people I am from Maine, I invariably get one of two things: ‘Do you know Stephen King?’ or ‘I have summered in Maine!'” LOL
I’d love to visit Maine some time. Seems like a very beautiful, peaceful, and relaxing place… if you don’t wander into Stephen King land by accident, of course.
*what actress Anna Kendrick recently said on Jay Leno…
Ah, the madness. Maine is full of loons… but then I love loons. They’re so haunting.
Judging from the (blank) map, you live in the middle of nowhere?
Maine truly IS beautiful–I love it there (except in the winter).
I was delighted at the mention of “Mrs. Todd’s Shortcut.” It’s the King story that has always remained the most vivid in my mind. That and “The Last Rung of the Ladder” (from NIGHT SHIFT) are my two favorite King shorts.
Don’t like KIng’s novels, but his short stories… “Quitters Inc” is in my top 50 stories.
As for the panel, I am sure we will be brilliant, and if I am not, blame “Richard” Lopresti, whoever he is.
Yeah, I agree, SKELETON CREW and NIGHT SHIFT are brilliant!!!
I especially liked “The Mist,” “Word Processor of the Gods,” “The Jaunt,” “The Raft,” and “Survivor Type” from SKELETON CREW and “Quitters, Inc.,” “I Know What You Need,” “Strawberry Spring,” “Sometimes They Come Back,” and “One for the Road” from NIGHT SHIFT.
Now that you mention the small cemetery in our town I must walk it to see how much it resembles the place in Salem’s Lot. And you know how much my commute resembles the shortcut as well as the mist. Mr King sure knows how to write about what he knows;) And speaking of Mr King I think the “Dead Zone” is my favorite novel of his. And the tv series was pretty good from the few episodes I watched.
Mrs Todd, I hope you didn’t forever bury Steve’s Wench. I very much liked her.
Here in Kansas we all get asked about Dorothy. AND “Mrs. Todd’s Shortcut” was called (in The Year’s Best Horror Stories Series 13″)by editor Karl Edward Wagner “further proof that King stands to become an important regionalist as well as a horror writer.”
Thanks for liking the wench Velma; does her little old heart good. She is on vacation at the moment like Steve. She will return on Nov 11th when he returns to Stephen Kingland;)