You guys want to see a dead body?

Nick and I live on a farm (actually it is a sheep farm) in Northern Franklin County KY. It takes us about 18 to 20 minutes to get to work, church, ect. This, with the exception of an occasional hay wagon or tobacco trailer, really isn’t too bad when you think about it. This picture is the view behind our house after a good hard rain. We both work for the State Library and so it is fitting for us to listen to sound recordings on our morning drive. Despite having so much in common, Nick and I differ somewhat on our choice of reading material so we must compromise. That is to say HE must compromise. He is more of a doctrinal, spiritual formation kind of reader and I like…well…fiction not to put too fine a point on it. Since he works in circulation, he gets to make the choices, a lot of times it is a book he has already read but thinks I would like. Needless to say, I have read things recently that I probably wouldn’t have picked up otherwise.

The problem with the library is that there are never enough copies of a book to go around. We have been reading the Stephen Fry Harry Potter series and have just finished Goblet of Fire and returned it when we realize that Order of the Phoenix is still checked out. Devastation and depression follow with a lot of pouting (I’m not really good on patience) so to console me Nick picks up The Body by Stephen King

Until I married Nick, you couldn’t pay me to read a Stephen King novel. My sister, Casy, reads King’s novels and loves them but she and I have very different personalities. She contemplated become a vet at one time, and doesn’t seem to mind if the walls bleed. I, however, couldn’t walk into our living room on Christmas morning because there was some really large blow up animal looking over the back of our sofa and instead of turning on the light to see what it was…I ran to get Casy. Did I mention that Casy is 4 years YOUNGER than me? I AM A CHICKEN…I know it and it is high time for the rest of the world to know it too. So being a chicken means that I don’t read Stephen King novels, and didn’t have any idea what they were about except that they were nightmares-for-a-week-because-something-is-under-your-bed scary.

As my husband and I really began to know each other (favorite movies, books, authors, likes, dislikes…) I mentioned that some of my favorite movies are Stand By Me (mostly because Wil Wheaton and River Phoenix are so great in it) and The Shawshank Redemption. He looked at me like I had grown a third head and said “but….you hate Stephen King” Now it was my turn…”what on earth does that crazy horror-monger have to do with this current conversation?” It was then that he tossed me an old, battered, well loved copy of Different Season. “Read it.” He said “I think you will like it.” It took me a week to get up the courage to read it, but once I did…WOW! I can’t believe what I had been missing.

Stephen King is such a gifted story teller that I began to understand why he was a best selling author. He is so articulate and descriptive (that is sometimes the problem) that you get the sense that you know that character or have known that person at one time in your life. I guess it just goes to show that you REALLY can’t judge a book by it’s cover…or it's author in this case.