Author Caroline Bicks is giving Constant Readers an all access behind the scenes look at Stephen King's private archives in her new book, Monsters In The Archives: My Year of Fear with Stephen King. Bicks is the University of Maine’s inaugural Stephen E. King Chair in Literature, and the first scholar to be granted extended access by King to his private archives.
Inside the archives are bonafide treasures — manuscripts that document the legendary writer’s creative process, most of them never before studied or published. Bicks spent a year exploring King's archives, diving into his early drafts, hand-written revisions and speaking with the author about the changes in pursuit of one question: Why does his writing continue to haunt us after we’ve closed the book?
Described as part literary master class, part biography, part memoir, and part investigation into our deepest anxieties, Monsters In The Archives is authorized by Stephen King himself and informed by interviews Bicks conducted with the author, making this unlike anything ever published about the master of horror. It’s also a story about an English professor facing her childhood fears and getting to know the man whose monsters helped unleash them.
We have an exclusive sneak peek inside the pages of a fan favorite, with a very different version of the iconic Carrie White, featuring devilish alien-like horn bulbs sprouting from her temples. Significantly different from the telekinetic teenager that became a horror icon in 1974.
Read on for a look at some of the passages from King's early manuscripts and how Carrie transformed through various drafts.
