Bradbury, Ray (Vol. 29) | Stephen King (essay date 1981)
Stephen King (essay date 1981)
SOURCE: "Horror Fiction," in Stephen King's Danse Macabre, Berkley Books, 1981, pp. 241-360.
[In the excerpt below, King places Bradbury's fantasy fiction in the tradition of American naturalism, adding that the early collection Dark Carnival contains the author's best horror stories.]
It might be worth remembering that Theodore Dreiser, the author of Sister Carrie and An American Tragedy, was, like Bradbury, sometimes his own worst enemy . . . mostly because Dreiser never knew when to stop. "When you open your mouth, Stevie," my grandfather once said to me in despair, "all your guts fall out." I had no reply to that then, but I suppose if he were alive today, I would reply: That's 'cause I want to be Theodore Dreiser when I grow up. Well, Dreiser was a great writer, and Bradbury seems to be the fantasy genre's version of Dreiser, although Bradbury's line-by-line writing is better and...
[The entire page is 773 words long]
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