His father abandoned his family when King was very young, and his mother moved around the country before settling back in Maine-this time in the small inland town of Durham. King was born on September 21, 1947, in Portland, Maine. “People forget,” he said, “I’m a real person.” The day before, the same paper had printed his home address in its business section, and fans had been driving by all morning to get a peek at the world-famous author.

It was a hot, sunny morning and King sat on his front steps in blue jeans, white sneakers, and a Tabasco hot sauce T-shirt, reading the local newspaper.

The house lies at the end of a sandy key, and looks-by virtue of a high vaulted ceiling-something like an overturned sailboat. Although he was still frail, he was back to writing every day, and by night he would take his manuscript to Fenway Park so that he could edit between innings and during pitching changes.Ī second interview session with King was conducted early this year at his winter home in Florida, which happens to be within easy driving distance of the Red Sox’s spring training compound in Fort Myers. “The bursas were sticking right out, like little eyes.” The interview was held in Boston, where King, an avid Red Sox fan, had taken up temporary residence to watch his team make its pennant run. “The orthopedist found all this infected tissue and outraged flesh,” said King. Six pounds of metal that had been implanted in King’s body during the initial surgery were removed shortly before the author spoke to The Paris Review, and he was still in constant pain. He was lucky to have survived the accident, in which he suffered scalp lacerations, a collapsed right lung, and multiple fractures of his right hip and leg. Stephen King began this interview in the summer of 2001, two years after he was struck by a minivan while walking near his home in Center Lovell, Maine. Interviewed by Nathaniel Rich & Christopher Lehmann-Haupt Issue 178, Fall 2006

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