Song of Susannah - Stephen King [168]
November 27th, 1991
Remember me saying that I’d get bitched at about the ending ofWaste Lands? Look at this!
Letter follows from John T. Spier, of Lawrence, Kansas:
November 16, 91
Dear Mr. King,
Or should I just cut to the chase and say “Dear Asshole”?
I can’t believe I paid such big bucks for a Donald Grant Edition of your GUNSLINGER bookThe Waste Lands and this is what I got. It had the right title anyway, for it was “a true WASTE.”
I mean the story was all right don’t get me wrong, great in fact, but how could you “tack on” an ending like that? It wasn’t an ending at all but just a case of you getting tired and saying “Oh well, what the fuck, I don’t need to strain my brain to write an ending, those slobs who buy my books will swallow anything.”
I was going to send it back but will keep it because I at least liked the pictures (especially Oy). But the story was a cheat.
Can you spell CHEAT Mr. King? M-O-O-N, that spells CHEAT.
Sincerely yours in criticism,
John T. Spier
Lawrence, Kansas
March 23, 1992
In a way, this one makes me feel even worse.
Letter follows from Mrs. Coretta Vele, of Stowe, Vermont:
March 6th, 1992
Dear Stephen King,
I don’t know if this letter will actually reach you but one can always hope. I have read most of your books and have loved them all. I am a 76-yrs-young “gramma” from your “sister state” of Vermont, and I especially like your Dark Tower stories. Well, to the point. Last month I went to see a team of Oncologists at Mass General, and they tell me that the brain tumor I have looks to be malignant after all (at 1stthey said “Don’t worry Coretta its benine”). Now I know you have to do what you have to do, Mr. King, and “follow your muse,” but what they’re saying is that I will be fortunate to see the 4th of July this year. I guess I’ve read my last “Dark Tower yarn.” So what I’m wondering is, Can you tell me how the Dark Tower story comes out, at least if Roland and his “Ka-Tet” actually get to the Dark Tower? And if so what they find there? I promise not to tell a soul and you will be making a dying woman very happy.
Sincerely,
Coretta Vele
Stowe, Vt.
I feel like such a shit when I think of how blithe I was concerning the ending ofWaste Lands. I gotta answer Coretta Vele’s letter, but I don’t know how to. Could I make her believe I don’t know any more than she does about how Roland’s story finishes? I doubt it, and yet “that is the truth,” as Jake sez in his Final Essay. I have no more idea what’s inside that damned Tower than…well, thanOy does! I didn’t even know it was in a field of roses until it came off my fingertips and showed up on the screen of my new Macintosh computer! Would Coretta buy that? What would she say if I told her, “Cory, listen: The wind blows and the story comes. Then it stops blowing, and all I can do is wait, same as you.”
They think I’m in charge, every one of them from the smartest of the critics to the most mentally challenged reader. And that’s a real hoot.
Because I’m not.
September 22, 1992
The Grant edition ofThe Waste Lands is sold out, and the paperback edition is doing very well. I should be happy and guess I am, but I’m still getting a ton of letters about the cliffhanger ending. They fall into 3 major categories: People who are pissed off, people who want to know when the next book in the series is coming out, and pissed-off people who want to know when the next book in the series is coming out.
But I’m stuck. The wind from that quarter just isn’t blowing. Not just now, anyway.
Meanwhile, I have an idea for a novel about a lady who buys a picture in a pawnshop and then kind of falls into it. Hey, maybe it’ll be Mid-World she falls into, and she’ll meet Roland!
July 9th, 1994
Tabby and I don’t fight much since I quit drinking, but oboy, this morning we had a dilly. We’re at the Lovell house, of course, and as I was getting ready to leave on my morning walk, she showed me a story from today’s LewistonSun. It seems that a Stoneham man, Charles “Chip” McCaus-land, was struck and killed by a hit-and-run