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Description
This book combines approaches from science, literary theory, and philosophy to examine the canon of Stephen King’s fiction from a Darwinist hermeneutic perspective in one critical study.
James Anderson’s Excavating Stephen King is a welcomed addition to the ever-growing field of studies devoted to the work of the Master of the Macabre. Anderson is, above all else, a knowledgeable and refreshingly humble voice within the field (the conclusion to this text is worth the price of the entire book), and his genuinely unique approach to King’s creations allows us to see, with clear, specific, and exceptionally well-reasoned analyses, that being a Constant Reader is hardly an exercise in the “dumbing down of American culture,” as some snobbish critics have suggested. Indeed, with Anderson’s help, we are able to see King in a new light, and ourselves as well, which is to say that the spotlight Anderson provides here ultimately reveals a keen and critical understanding of the self. To put it another way, Anderson’s examination confirms King’s sentiments that “Life isn’t a support-system for art. It’s the other way around.
In the forty-six years since Carrie was published, Stephen King has had a prolific career, producing scores of novels and short stories. Critical books assessing his works started appearing in the early 1980s, and his stories started entering school and college curricula not long thereafter. Doctoral theses have been written about aspects of his work. Few books, though, have done as thorough a deep dive into literary criticism of King's novels as James Arthur Anderson has achieved in Excavating Stephen King. Although The Stand appears frequently in his analysis, Anderson covers the full range of King's works up to The Institute, including a thorough evaluation of the recent short story "Cookie Jar." He combines methods from the humanities and scientific fields such as neurology, evolutionary psychology, sociology and anthropology into a critical tool he calls Darwinist Hermeneutics. Even longtime fans of King's work may find themselves looking at his work in a different light after reading Excavating Stephen King.
James Arthur Anderson is professor of writing and literature at Johnson & Wales University’s North Miami campus.