The Istoriaphile’s Corner

Fans are the double-edged sword to creative people, everyone knows that.  Actors, artists and poets makes a living (occasionally a good one) because the fans like and purchase their work, which is great.  Develop a big enough fan base and an artist will encounter those who want to thank him or her personally.  A smaller group than that will mistake their enthusiasm as the basis of a personal relationship.  Gain enough popularity and the artist will face fans that expect to control his/her life and work.  Take this to the extreme and the artist will certainly die.  Stephen King covered this in his novel, Misery but he gave Annie Wilkes a few bits of leavening humor.  What other professed lover of words would cut herself off from expressions of anger, so her profanity is limited to words like “cock-a-dooty”?  As destructive and strange as Annie is, at times she’s also comical.  That endearing shade of grey is missing from King’s newest novel about toxic fans, Finders Keepers.  It suggests admiration may be the most dangerous response in the world.  At odds are two readers of a twentieth-century novelist.  Both readers are young males when they find their author’s most-lauded works, a series of novels reminiscent of John Updike’s “Rabbit” series. The…