OK, first I have a confession and an apology to two fine men: Mr. Stephen King and Allen J. Holt.

More than a few years ago, when I was just a pretentious grad student of English, I found myself drunkenly accusing Mr. King of being a flashy contemporary writer whose ouevre wouldn’t stand the test of time. The heated debate took place after a heaping helping of gin at a campground in the armpit regions of a Florida summer. Stephen King’s defender? A comics- reading, genius-level-IQ-pop culture afficionado who was majoring in humanities and working in a record store.

I had read many of King’s novels, finding that wonderful combination of readability and intertextuality that runs through his fiction absolutely fascinating. I read the unabridged The Stand in a weekend of sleeplessness in my dorm at the University of Florida; but chewing on Faulkner, Fitzgerald, Morrison, Ellison, Melville, and other literary types made me an elitist. Surely KING couldn’t stand up to these greats?

And then I read The Gunslinger. A good read. But King spun the tale on from there, each book growing in maturity until this, the sixth book, the penultimate book in the Gunslinger Roland Deschain’s tale and the tale of the Dark Tower. I must say, I look forward to someday spending months on a hypertext version so I can follow the trail of references to get every iota I can out of this book.

SPOILER ALERT: What I loved most about Song of Susannah: The balls, the absolute audacity of the metafictional elements in this book, the willingness to not just insert himself as a key character, but give new meaning to “death of the author” in the semi-fictional diary entries, the complexity of the characters….

A phenomenal book. Mr. King, you are ruining me for so-called American literature. Thank you.

And one last note, that geeky defender? I married him!

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