Book Review: Caroline Bicks visits with Monsters in the Archives

Cover Photo Courtesy of Hogarth/Random House

After Caroline Bicks was named the University of Maine’s inaugural Stephen E. King Chair in Literature, she became the first scholar to be granted extended access to King’s private archives.  For any writer, this would be a dream come true, and Bicks herself was thrilled.  In her book, Monsters in the Archives: My Year of Fear with Stephen King (Hogarth, 2026), Bicks examines the stories behind five of King’s early books.

 Bicks chooses to review the following books: Pet Sematary, The Shining, Night Shift, 'Salem’s Lot, and Carrie.  Each chapter of her book focuses on one of these books, and she often spends considerable time talking about the background and inspirations behind these stories.  For me, it was interesting to find out that Pet Sematary is based partially on real events from King’s own life.  As explained in his 2001 edition of Pet Sematary (and relayed in this book), he and his family once lived in a home next to a busy highway. Just like Church, the family pet in the novel, their real life pet Smucky was killed on the road. King even relays that his toddler son had wandered towards the highway – a memory that King himself at least partially has forgotten as he does not recall whether his son was grabbed by an adult or turned away on his own. Another influence was the years he grew up in rural Maine. The small town of Durham was the influence for Jerusalem’s Lot – the town in 'Salem’s Lot. And King explains that many of the stories found in his short story collection, Night Shift, were written when he was working at Bangor’s New Franklin Laundry. Anyone familiar with this collection knows that “The Mangler” is a short story about an industrial laundry machine that turns into a killing machine!

Many readers of both King’s novels and Monsters in the Archives would be most interested in the content changes in his writing process, and yes, Bicks finds lots of changes from King’s early drafts to the final copies.  For instance, in one of the original drafts of Pet Sematary, King included Louis’ colleague named Steve in the main character’s efforts to bury his wife. Indeed, Steve stays until the bitter end and the final chapter saw the two playing cards together waiting for the return of Louis’ wife. Those who have read Pet Sematary know that Louis is very much alone as he buries his wife and waits for her return. Another interesting discussion focuses on Carrie, which was once a short story, before it became a novel. Bick reveals that the original story was about 98 single pages, too long for a short story but not quite novel length.  King expanded this story to include newspaper articles, bogus scientific essays, and interviews from some of the book’s characters to expand on both length and content.  Finally, Bicks spends considerable time talking about the revisions that King made to the famous scene in The Shining where young Danny finally ventures into the very haunted Room 217 in the Overlook Hotel.

Still, for me, I found the small editing changes that King worked through when writing his books as the most interesting. Through specific examples, we learn of King’s cheerful banter and discussions with editors.  Bicks notes, “These editorial back-and-forths also reveal something about King’s writing process that I wouldn’t have appreciated otherwise: how much attention to the would effects of his word choices.”  For instance, in a scene taken out of Pet Sematary, he defends his choice of the spelling of a character’s stutters. In another example, Bicks explains that a simple word choice from “eased” to “urged” helps set a scene in ‘Salem’s Lot. Sometimes, there are title changes. For instance, in the archives, the short story “Children of the Corn” was titled “Nebraska Death Trip” – a title that is crossed out in the drafts. (I want to say, much like Bicks notes, that I actually am a little bit fond of this title). Throughout all of these explorations, Bicks often includes illustrations and photos of the drafts to help clarify her points of explorations.

Throughout the entire book, Bicks remains a strong narrative voice.  She does not merely leap from book to book, analyzing the archive’s contents. Instead, she relays her travels to sites found in King’s books. She discusses how she re-reads some of the books (including adding delightful descriptions of the different covers). She talks about some of her discussions with King himself. Sometimes, she even looks at the films based on King’s novels. And as a Shakespeare scholar, she also can’t resist making some comparisons between King’s books and Shakespeare’s plays. In essence, Monsters in the Archives is a story about a writer exploring the inner mind of another writer and recording her observations and personal stories.

 All in all, Bicks’ book is a reminder of the challenges of the writing process. Yes, fans of King will love this book simply because of the discussions of some of his books.  For me, however, Monster in the Archives is a great companion to King’s book On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. One book is part memoir, part writing craft instruction, while the other book shows a scholar’s admiration for this craft.