Stephen King finishes a story 45 years in the making in 'You Like It Darker'

NPR's Book of the Day

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Arts, Books

4.2 • 671 Ratings

🗓️ 12 June 2024

⏱️ 9 minutes

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Summary

You Like It Darker is a new collection of short stories by Stephen King — and as the author tells NPR's Mary Louise Kelly, one of those stories spent decades tucked away in a desk drawer before he gave it an ending. In today's episode,the two discuss the bigger questions of destiny and morality in that story and in much of King's work, and why the writer thought several of his best-selling novels would never see the light of day.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, it's Empire's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbaugh. The great Stephen King is on the pod today.
0:07.3	His new short story collection is titled You Like It Darker. And he spoke to NPR's Mary Louise Kelly about it.
0:13.0	But as you might expect, they do start talking about his back catalog and his long career as the horror writer of our time.
0:21.1	And he tells a story about what is my personal favorite King novel
0:25.4	and how it nearly never got published
0:28.1	because King thought no one would want to read it
0:30.9	because it was too awful.
0:32.4	You know, it crossed some sort of line.
0:34.9	Listen to him talk about that and how that book eventually got published
0:38.0	and how he thinks of his career now. That's after the break. In the U.S., national security news
0:44.6	can feel far away from daily life. Distant wars, murky conflicts, diplomacy behind closed doors
0:51.0	on our new show, Sources and Methods. NPR reporters on the ground bring you stories of real people,
0:57.4	helping you understand why distant events matter here at home.
1:01.0	Listen to sources and methods on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
1:06.7	Stephen King is out with a new collection of short stories,
1:10.7	as you might expect from the reigning
1:12.4	King of Horror, some are terrifying, some creepy, others laugh out loud, funny, and one of them
1:20.1	took him 45 years to write. The book is You Like It Darker. Hello, Stephen King.
1:26.3	Hello, how are you, Mary Louise? I am well,
1:29.3	thank you. I want to start by asking you about this story I just nodded to. It's titled The Answer Man.
1:37.5	You began it when you were 30. You finished it when you were 75. What the heck happened?
1:48.4	Well, I lost it. What happens with me is I will write stories and they usually get done and they don't always get done. And the ones that don't get
	...

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