Author | Stephen King |
---|---|
Language | English |
Genre | Coming-of-age story |
Publisher | Viking |
Publication date | 1982 |
Publication place | United States |
Media type | Print (Hardcover) |
Pages | 72 |
The Body is a novella by American writer Stephen King. The Body was published in King's 1982 collection Different Seasons and later adapted into the 1986 film Stand by Me . [1]
The story takes place during the summer of 1960 in the fictional town of Castle Rock, Maine. After a boy disappears and is presumed dead, twelve-year-old Gordie LaChance and his three friends set out to find his body along the railway tracks. During the course of their journey, the boys, who all come from abusive or dysfunctional families, come to grips with death and the harsh truths of growing up in a small factory town that does not seem to offer them much of a future.
Gordon "Gordie" Lachance reminisces about his childhood in Castle Rock, Maine. At that time, Gordie's elder brother Dennis (also known as Denny), whom his parents favored, had recently died, leaving Gordie's parents too depressed to pay much attention to him. In 1960, Gordie and his three friends − Chris Chambers, Teddy Duchamp and Vern Tessio − learn that a gang of hooligans led by John "Ace" Merrill have accidentally discovered the dead body of a missing boy named Ray Brower, who was hit by a train. Because the gang found the body while driving a stolen car, they elected not to report the body to the police. The boys get the idea to find the body "officially" so that they may become famous. In preparation for the expedition, Chris steals a gun from his father, and the boys camp out in a nearby field.
Over the course of the narrative, the adult Gordie recalls his first published story, Stud City, about the life of a simple man named Edward "Chico" May whose older brother also died. He has a girlfriend, Jane, whom he does not have particularly strong feelings for. Chico knows that his stepmother Virginia slept with his brother before he died, but he hesitates to tell his father about it. One day, Chico has a fight with his father over Virginia and leaves the house.
Along the way, the boys trespass at the town dump and are chased by Chopper, the dump custodian Milo Pressman's dog. Teddy gets into a verbal skirmish with Milo when the latter insults Teddy's father (a WW2 veteran who was given a "Section 8" medical discharge for trauma related to the Normandy invasion) by calling him a "loonie". Gordie and Vern are nearly run over by a train while crossing a trestle. While at a resting point, Gordie tells his friends another story, "The Revenge of Lard-Ass Hogan", in which the titular Davie "Lard-Ass" Hogan exacts vengeance on the town locals for ridiculing his wide girth by downing a whole bottle of castor oil before engaging in the town's annual pie-eating contest and vomiting on the previous year's champion, which causes a chain reaction that nauseates the entire audience. The next morning, the boys stumble upon a small pond and partake in a swim, but jump out in horror when they find that the pond is teeming with leeches.
After a thunderstorm, the boys finally find the dead body. The body of Ray Brower was discovered to be mangled by the train while attempting to escape the locomotive's path. Ace's gang arrives shortly after. During an argument, Chris pulls the gun on the gang and forces them to leave, but Ace promises reprisals. Tired, depressed and fearing retaliation, the boys decide there is nothing more to be done with the body and return home. Subsequently, one of the gang members reports the body as an anonymous tip, and the gang members severely beat all four boys. The four friends eventually drift apart, but Gordie and Chris remain close. Chris decides to prepare for higher education, and with Gordie's support, they both graduate from the University of Maine. In the present day, Gordie tells how he learned of Chris's death after he was fatally stabbed while trying to stop an argument in a restaurant, about the deaths of Vern and Teddy (in a house fire and car accident, respectively), about his successful writing career, and about his recent visit to Castle Rock, where he found that Ace has become an alcoholic and a worker at the town's mill.
The Body was published in King's 1982 novellas collection Different Seasons . [1] It incorporates two earlier short stories by King: "Stud City" (published in Ubris in 1969) and "The Revenge of Lard-Ass Hogan" (published in The Maine Review in 1975).
In Lisa Rogak's unauthorized biography Haunted Heart: The Life and Times of Stephen King, a friend of King's, George McLeod, claimed that King had cribbed the idea for The Body from a short story McLeod had been working on, [2] but these claims are disputed by King. McLeod requested a portion of the royalties from The Body and Stand by Me ; King refused. McLeod sued, which ended their friendship. [2] Since then, King has refused his fans' requests to read their manuscripts for advice; King has explained that he is concerned that there may be further accusations of plagiarism. [3]
The Body was adapted into the 1986 film Stand by Me . [1] The screenplay, by Bruce A. Evans and Raynold Gideon, was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.
Stephen Edwin King is an American author. Widely known for his horror novels, he has been crowned the "King of Horror". He has also explored other genres, among them suspense, crime, science-fiction, fantasy and mystery. Though known primarily for his novels, he has written approximately 200 short stories, most of which have been published in collections.
Different Seasons (1982) is a collection of four Stephen King novellas with a more dramatic bent, rather than the horror fiction for which King is famous. The four novellas are tied together via subtitles that relate to each of the four seasons. The collection is notable for having three out of its four novellas turned into Hollywood films, one of which, The Shawshank Redemption, was nominated for the 1994 Academy Award for Best Picture, and another, Stand by Me, was nominated for the 1986 Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.
Stand by Me is a 1986 American coming-of-age drama film directed by Rob Reiner. Based on Stephen King's 1982 novella The Body, the film is set in the fictional town of Castle Rock, Oregon in 1959. Stand by Me stars Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, and Jerry O'Connell as four boys who go on a hike to find the dead body of a missing boy. The film's title is derived from the 1961 song of the same name by Ben E. King.
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Castle Rock is a fictional town appearing in Stephen King's fictional Maine topography, providing the setting for a number of his novels, novellas, and short stories. Castle Rock first appeared in King's 1979 novel The Dead Zone and has since been referred to or used as the primary setting in many other works by King.
Derry is a fictional town in the U.S. state of Maine that has served as the setting for a number of Stephen King's novels, novellas, and short stories, notably It. Derry first appeared in King's 1981 short story "The Bird and the Album" and has reappeared as recently as his 2011 novel 11/22/63.
Needful Things is a 1991 horror novel by American author Stephen King. It is the first novel King wrote after his rehabilitation from drug and alcohol addiction. It was made into a film of the same name in 1993 which was directed by Fraser C. Heston. The story focuses on a shop that sells collectibles and antiques, managed by Leland Gaunt, a new arrival to the town of Castle Rock, Maine, the setting of many King stories. Gaunt often asks customers to perform a prank or mysterious deed in exchange for the item they are drawn to. As time goes by, the many deeds and pranks lead to increasing aggression among the townspeople, as well as chaos and death. A protagonist of the book is Alan Pangborn, previously seen in Stephen King's novel The Dark Half.
Thinner is a horror novel by American author Stephen King, published in 1984 by NAL under King's pseudonym Richard Bachman. The story centers on morbidly obese lawyer Billy Halleck, who, driving carelessly, kills an old Romani woman while she is crossing the street. He escapes legal punishment due to his connections, but the woman's 106-year-old father then curses Halleck to physically waste away, and the lawyer must find a way to undo the curse. King, who was overweight at the time of the novel's writing, created the novel’s outline following an annual medical examination.
Don't Back Down is the sixth studio album by the American punk rock band the Queers, released in August 1996 by Lookout! Records. The band and Lookout! president Larry Livermore, who served as executive producer, sought to balance the sounds of the Ramones and the Beach Boys, and enlisted the help of former Queers guitarist JJ Rassler and Cub singer Lisa Marr. The album's title track is a cover version of the Beach Boys song of the same name; it also features covers of the Hondells' "Little Sidewalk Surfer Girl" and Hawaiian punk band the Catalogs' "Another Girl". The album produced the band's first music videos, for "Punk Rock Girls" and "Don't Back Down".
"Chattery Teeth" is a short story by American writer Stephen King. It was originally published in Cemetery Dance and was later collected in Nightmares & Dreamscapes.
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The Maine Campus is a weekly newspaper produced by the students of the University of Maine in the United States. It covers university and Town of Orono events, and has four sections: News, Opinion, Culture and Sports. It serves the 20,000 students, faculty and staff of the university. Founded in 1875, it is one of the oldest surviving papers in Maine. Only The Bowdoin Orient, founded in 1871, The Bates Student, founded in 1873, and the Sun Journal, founded in 1847, are older.
"Three Kings", alternatively spelled "3 Kings", is the 15th episode in the seventh season of the American animated television series Family Guy. It originally aired on Fox in the United States on May 10, 2009. The episode is split into three segments, parodying films based on three Stephen King stories: Stand by Me, Misery and The Shawshank Redemption.
According to books by Tyson Blue, Stephen J. Spignesi, and Rocky Wood et al., there are numerous unpublished works by Stephen King that have come to light throughout King's career. These allegedly include novels and short stories, most of which remain unfinished. Most are stored among Stephen King's papers in the special collections of the Raymond H. Fogler Library at the University of Maine, some of which are freely accessible to the library's visitors. However, others require King's permission to read. Additionally, there are a number of uncollected short stories, published throughout King's long career in various anthologies and periodicals, that have never been published in a King collection.
Rockaway is an American 2017 drama directed and written by John J. Budion.
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