Fans are the double-edged sword to creative people, everyone knows that. Actors, artists and poets makes a living (occasionally a good one) because the fans like and purchase their work, which is great. Develop a big enough fan base and an artist will encounter those who want to thank him or her personally. A smaller group than that will mistake their enthusiasm as the basis of a personal relationship. Gain enough popularity and the artist will face fans that expect to control his/her life and work. Take this to the extreme and the artist will certainly die.
Stephen King covered this in his novel, Misery but he gave Annie Wilkes a few bits of leavening humor. What other professed lover of words would cut herself off from expressions of anger, so her profanity is limited to words like "cock-a-dooty"? As destructive and strange as Annie is, at times she's also comical. That endearing shade of grey is missing from King's newest novel about toxic fans, Finders Keepers. It suggests admiration may be the most dangerous response in the world.
At odds are two readers of a twentieth-century novelist. Both readers are young males when they find their author's most-lauded works, a series of novels reminiscent of John Updike's "Rabbit" series. The younger man loves the structure of the books, the style, and the weave of fiction and autobiography that pulls each individual tale. The elder identifies with the series protagonist in the way Mark David Chapman glommed onto Holden Caulfield and judges the world by his internalized champion's standards. Two young men from damaged backgrounds, years apart and unknown to each other, but both obsessed with a writer's unpublished stories but with a difference: the elder man wants to keep the stories for himself; the younger man would share them with the world. The world is safe when the first fan hides the manuscripts until the younger man inadvertently finds them.
This problem falls into the hands of Bill Hodges, King's retired detective of Mr. Mercedes. It falls to Bill and his friends to piece together the disjointed story, find the manuscripts, and rescue their custodian before the murdering maniac can tear them all limb from limb. If King has improved one aspect of his writing over the years it is pacing and Finders Keepers is a genuine page-turner.
So look out for the book, if you are interested. And you are especially moved by someone's work, politely tell them, and then move on. Don't expect them to be pals or your Jedi Master. They are artists with their own lives and work and besides, they've learned to be careful of fans. Among the adoring who just want to shake some creator's hand, stands the maniac armed with a gun.
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