Gardening for a New Generation of Horror in Secret Window

Abstract

When first released, Stephen King’s collection of four novellas entitled Four Past Midnight (1990) received mixed reviews. The works ranged from the strong to the mediocre and continued well-known themes from King’s oeuvre. However, one work stood out amongst the rest: Secret Window, Secret Garden. Though not a masterpiece, King returned to a favorite theme, that of the author haunted by fame or personal demons. The Shining, Misery, Bag of Bones, Lisey’s Story, The Dark Half, Tommyknockers, and ’Salem’s Lot are all notorious for having characters that are authors, most of whom are seldom depicted in a favorable light. Secret Window, Secret Garden, would join that list. The genesis of the story is worth quoting. King found a window in one of his homes and looked out. That window looks down on a little brick-paved alcove between the house and the attached sun porch. It’s an area I see just about every day … but the angle was new. My wife had set half a dozen pots out there, so the plants could take a little of the early November sun, I suppose, and the result was a charming little garden which only I could see. The phrase which occurred to me was, of course, the title of this story. It seemed to me as good a metaphor as any for what writers—especially writers of fantasy—do with their days and nights. KeywordsFavorite ThemeHorror FilmHorror MovieNorth American LiteratureDark HalfThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.