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Pet Sematary

3.75 of 5 stars 3.75 · rating details · 136,962 ratings · 2,233 reviews

"Sometimes dead is better...." When the Creeds move into a beautiful old house in rural Maine, it all seems too good to be true: physician father, beautiful wife, charming little daughter, adorable infant son -- and now an idyllic home. As a family, they've got it all...right down to the friendly cat.

But the nearby woods hide a blood-chilling truth -- more terrifying than...more

Paperback, 562 pages

Published February 1st 2001 by Pocket Books (first published January 1st 1983)

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Jul 01, 2009 Brad rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: unfinished, horror

I wish I could say that I tried harder to get through Pet Semetary before giving it up, that I carried it with me, that I read it in those stolen moments of banality, which I do with most books, but the fact is I didn't. And that says much about why I've decided to put it down unfinished.

It's not that the story is a bad idea. Stephen King's story of the Creed family -- new to Maine and a life near Bangor -- is pretty clever and has enough going on that it should be interesting. They move in, th...more

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Apr 26, 2012 Stefan rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

After a bit of a lull in his writing with Christine and Cycle of the Werewolf, King is back to top form with Pet Sematary. Much shorter in length than Christine, King seems to have used a more discerning editorial eye on this novel and it really paid off. Pet Sematary really packs a punch especially in its conclusion. Once again, King takes his time building things up and developing his characters and setting, but there are a few tense moments along the way that keep the plot moving up to the bi...more

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Aug 31, 2012 Janie Johnson rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: stephen-king

When I started this book I had great expectations of a thrilling, dark, scary ride. Something like evil pets taking over the neighborhood of a quiet, calm, perfect little town. Wreaking havok at every turn, making me shudder at the turn of every page. But it never reached the "scary" point. It was filled more with sadness than scariness.

Despite this it was still a very profound, riveting tale. Stressing to me the lengths people could possibly go to replace something that was lost in their lives...more

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Nov 03, 2008 Trevor rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: mysterious and gorey readers

Recommended to Trevor by: Ms. Spratt and Jaclin

Shelves: book-club

This is a good book. It would probably most enjoyable and understandable for adults or student with a pretty high lexile score. It does not jump right into the action but it also does not take that long. It is a pretty long book for people who dont like to read and probably wont read but if yo are interested i would definitly recommend this book. Do not let the size scare yo away from reading it. This is a stroy about the Creed family, which includes Louis, Rachel, Ellie, and Gage Creed. In this...more

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Nov 08, 2008 Nikki rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: horror

The painful, hard thing about Stephen King's writing is that so often, he takes something real, something that people can experience in the real world, and builds the supernatural stuff onto that. In The Shining, there's Jack's alcoholism; in The Talisman, there's Jack/Jason's mother's cancer; The Stand plays on our fears of something, somewhere, in one of those labs, getting out of control; in Pet Sematary, it's the death of a child. So much of the book is completely real and believable: the ar...more

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Mar 26, 2008 Josh rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: People with pets and small children who live on dangerous roads. I mean, who else?

Shelves: ohthehumanitythehorror

It's Pet Sematary, what more do you need to say? This is King in his finest form. It's always nice to read a nice horror that takes it's time and lets you marinate as opposed to ones that feel the need to kill everything and make everything as bloody and violent as they can. That type of horror is only good in the short run. The horror that scares generations usually takes its time, builds up the suspense, and sneaks in the back door. Naturally being a person who grew up on horror and watched th...more

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Nov 04, 2007 Jessica Phillip rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Classic Stephen King fans

Shelves: horror

Summary: Can Stephen King scare even himselfd?
Has the author of Carrie, The Shining, Cujo, and Christine ever conceived a story so horrifying that he was for a time unwilling to finish writing it? Yes. This is it.
Set in a small town in Maine to which a young doctor, Louis Creed, and his family have moved from Chicago, Pet Sematary begins with a visit to the graveyard in the woods where generations of children have buried their beloved pets. But behind the "pet sematary" there is another burial g...more

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Aug 14, 2009 Kayla rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, favorites

Out of all the Stephen King novels I have read so far this is by far my favorite. I became so close to the family while reading this, loved them and cherished them. I felt horrible loss when tragedy struck and felt there fear as they traveled this dangerous adventure that is the very essence of this story. I don't want to give to much away, but this novel gets you so close to the characters you feel there terror. Its a chilling book on its own let alone when you become personally attached to the...more

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Aug 20, 2007 Luz Ibarra rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: stephenking

This book scared me. Really scared me. There are a couple of Stephen King books that really freak me out to where I can't even read them at night. This is one of them. And yet, I could not stop reading. It was suspenseful and truly frightening in some sections. But I could sympathize with the character's desire to have the pets, and later on the humans, that they've lost come back to them. Although, they soon found out that these pets and people died for a reason and that having them back was no...more

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Nov 20, 2012 Katsumi rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: ghosts-creepy-monsters

This book is very good. King is so good at descriping things I could of sworn I could actually smell the sickness of Rachel's ill sister. I could feel Church, the family cat, rubbing against my legs and the anxiety the powers of the Pet "Sematary" brought. This book will have you guessing all the way through. This is great King, but not if you aren't used to his stuff. Not for first time King readers.

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Jul 16, 2012 Luis rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

En la vida no se puede controlar todo para ser feliz, y mucho menos la muerte, llega un momento en que uno empieza a rascarse, y la monótona felicidad empieza a desquebrajarse muy despacio, hasta un derrumbe de inimaginables consecuencias.

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Apr 08, 2013 'esteban Dilo rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

La verdad, hasta el momento la mejor novela del maestro que leí, jugar con la muerte tiene sus contras. Llegó un momento en el cuál no podía dejar de leer por la tensión y el miedo, simplemente magnífica!

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Nov 28, 2012 Sarah rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I give this book 2 stars not for lack of writing. In fact it was the vivid pictures created in my head of a little boy that made me dislike this book as much as i do. King is the master of taking a real life tragedy like the death of a child, and twisting it into this unnatural form that never settles easy (at least in my mind) i disliked this book because believe it or not it kind of broke my heart. A parents worst nightmare played out on it's pages and it was difficult to read. Maybe that's ju...more

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Jun 03, 2012 Marvin rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: horror

I seem to be alone in this, but I rank Pet Sematary up with Salem's Lot and The Shining as one of King's greatest novels. In the sense of pure horror, it is one of his scariest but also one of his most serious. It is as much as a treatise on death and grieving as it is a horror novel. King outdoes himself in the area of riveting terror and self-reflective thoughts on sorrow. It's a beautiful balancing act and, in my opinion, the one King novel you should not read just for entertainment reasons....more

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Mar 13, 2009 Kathy rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: stephen-king, 2x-read, read-in-2009

This was my first Stephen King book! I read it when I was 15 years old....let's just say a long time ago. lol. I loved it and I remember it scaring me to death. I'm long overdue for a reread, so we will see if it stands the test of time.....does it still deserve my 5 stars???

Yes, it's still 5 stars in my book!! I thoroughly enjoyed it all over again. Stephen King builds things up, starting with this average family that you get to know and really begin to care for. Even knowing what happens to th...more

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Jul 01, 2012 John rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I was reminded of King’s novel by – of all things! – a clip from the 1980 episode of The Muppet Show, featuring Linda Ronstadt. One of the sketches in the show had Rowlf the dog singing: ‘The Cat Came Back’, updated from the song by Harry S. Miller, originally written in 1893. The Muppet version’s a hilarious sketch and hearing the following lyrics from the chorus prompted me to re-read Stephen King’s Pet Sematary:

But the cat came back
She wouldn’t stay away
She was sitting on the porch
The very ne...more I was reminded of King’s novel by – of all things! – a clip from the 1980 episode of The Muppet Show, featuring Linda Ronstadt. One of the sketches in the show had Rowlf the dog singing: ‘The Cat Came Back’, updated from the song by Harry S. Miller, originally written in 1893. The Muppet version’s a hilarious sketch and hearing the following lyrics from the chorus prompted me to re-read Stephen King’s Pet Sematary:

But the cat came back
She wouldn’t stay away
She was sitting on the porch
The very next day
The cat came back
She didn’t want to roam
The very next day
It was home sweet home.

Yep! A nostalgia trip back through Muppetville brought me back to King’s creepy classic for the second time! As a double-whammy, the song is also mentioned in the course of the story. In Pet Sematary, Doctor Louise Creed and his wife, Rachel, fall in love with their new home in Maine. They have two children: daughter, Ellie, and son, Gage, who is still a toddler. They also have a cat, Church (named after Winston Churchill). The location of their home is not without its drawbacks: there is a wide road with trucks that thunder back and forth across it at every hour. Their elderly neighbor, the wise and friendly Jud Crandall, saves Gage from wandering into the road before they have even set foot into the house. After Ellie spots the narrow footpath leading into the woods, Jud senses their curiosity and takes them on a guided tour. It’s a long trek that snakes right into the heart of the woods and leads them to a place, created and maintained by children over many generations, called the Pet Sematary. Rachel is immediately spooked by the place as it triggers her phobia of death, relating to the tragedy of her deformed sister, Zelda, a victim of Spinal Meningitis. Ellie is fascinated by the grave markers and Jud explains that cemeteries are places of remembering, where the dead rest and the markers speak. Rachel takes the children to see her folks, but Louis declines the trip because of tensions between him and the in-laws. While the family are away, Church is found dead on Jud’s front lawn, presumably another road-kill victim. Jud leads Louis past the Pet Sematary, to an ancient Micmac burial ground and instructs him to bury the cat there. Afterwards, he urges Louis to keep the incident a secret. The next day, the cat is back, but its nature is markedly different. Tragedy soon strikes again and this time Gage is killed by a speeding truck. Will Louis’ grief drive him to the burial ground again? I first read this novel in 1983, when I was 15. The ending made the hairs rise up on the nape of my neck and the story stayed with me ever since. It was a treat to read it again after so many years.
The characters are rich and there are some brilliantly described passages, particularly the long trek through the woods, where the loons howl in the distance. There are also lines of narrative and dialogue in both the book and faithful 1989 movie adaptation that resonate in the memory: ‘Each buries his own … The soil of a man’s heart is stonier … A man grows what he can and tends it … What you buy is what you own … And what you own, always comes home to you.’
This is one of King’s best stories about tragedy, loss, bereavement, and the high price that can come from giving in to temptation.
Don’t be tempted to mess with burial grounds – Micmac or otherwise. As Jud Crandall warns: “What you put up there, isn’t what comes back. Sometimes, dead is better.”
Stephen King sets the tone for this story brilliantly from the beginning: Death is a mystery and burial a secret.
Pet Sematary is an eerie, morbid pleasure.
Here’s to your bones!(less)

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Apr 24, 2011 Tom O’Connell rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Talk about falling off the deep end. This book, as with a discouraging handful of other King novels, begins with such promise, engrossing the reader with the kind of three dimensional characters King does best, but somewhere around the middle hits a slump, and meanders its way to a predictable conclusion. Frustrating is the best way to put it.

The plot dabbles in the weighty subject matters of obsession, loss, grief, and the skin-crawling act of reanimation. The Creed family (Doctor Lewis, Wife R...more Talk about falling off the deep end. This book, as with a discouraging handful of other King novels, begins with such promise, engrossing the reader with the kind of three dimensional characters King does best, but somewhere around the middle hits a slump, and meanders its way to a predictable conclusion. Frustrating is the best way to put it.

The plot dabbles in the weighty subject matters of obsession, loss, grief, and the skin-crawling act of reanimation. The Creed family (Doctor Lewis, Wife Rachel, and two children Ellie and Gage) move to backwater Ludlow, a small town in Maine with very little of note going for it. It's a halfway point on a main road, frequented only by huge trucks on shipping runs.
Lewis Creed strikes up a friendship with neighbour Jud, a local old-timer whom is as much a fixture to the town as the highway that runs through it. Jud tells Lewis of a makeshift cemetery just a short bush walk from the Creed's new home. Apparently generations of residents have used this ground to bury their beloved pets, and, in an eerie way, it has built something of a community ritual.

As you would expect the cemetery is more than it seems, and soon Lewis learns the alarming truth; the Pet Semetary in question is just a front for an actual Indian burial ground, a spiritual place with deep historical roots. Burying your pet here is said to bring about reincarnation - not something to dabble in.
After some time the Creed family are summoned interstate by their Rachel's parents. Lewis can't attend due to work commitments, so he's left home alone to tend to the family cat, Church. Church meets an unfortunate end and Lewis is faced with the insurmountable task of telling his daughter Ellie (who ADORES this cat).

The premise is one hell of a hook, and King has some serious subject matter to sink his teeth into. He really gets inside his characters' heads, particularly compelling are Lewis and Rachel (Rachel, as luck would have it, has a fear of death that dates back to her childhood), and its a real pleasure to see the intricacies of their marriage. Lewis is a solid protagonist. He's an everyman; a great husband and father, and (being a doctor) quite logically motivated. You warm to him early on, and this makes his journey all the more frustrating when his character starts behaving irrationally (out-and-out whacky would be a better way to put it).

When Church comes back from the dead he's a little bit off in a way no one can quite put a finger on. He's a little sluggish, permanently smells of the earth he was buried in, and, for want of a better description, is without a soul. The prospect of a reanimated cat, perhaps infused with a sinister Indian spirit, provides some great tension early on, but nothing really comes of it. The cover and overall concept may have you believe that some truly terrifying scenes are instore. I mean, a killer zombie cat that perfectly resembles your beloved family pet would make for a pretty creepy monster, but this whole concept is vastly unexplored and under utilised. All we get is a slow, dim-witted cat that lumbers around looking eerie, but not really harming anyone.

It's this blatant defect that forms the crux of my problems with this book, but its made worse by the sluggish pace of the action. It takes three quarters of the book for all the (obvious) set-pieces to come together. You know the Pet Cemetary will cause some major complications, yet for the first half of the book its damn near unmentioned, and instead the reader becomes bogged down in some family dramas that, while interesting enough, eventually add squat to the overall narrative.

The pinnacle of the book comes from the freak death of one of Lewis's young children. It's a tragic turn, but unfortunately completely predictable. Suddenly Doctor Lewis Creed, Mr Reasonable, becomes overcome by grief. He is cautioned by neighbour Jud about the dangers of the Pet Semetary, and learns, by an insightful campfire story, that there had been a single case of a human burial at the Pet Semetary. The deceased came back to life, but something has horribly wrong. He was not the same person that died. He was vacant. Evil.
Lewis, in his confused state, gets the idea in his head that he can bring back his deceased child for the second chance they deserve. A sizeable portion of the novel's conclusion details Lewis's inner monologue as he climbs his way up to the Indian burial grounds, corpse in tow. He KNOWS it isn't the answer. He openly admits that he's clinging at empty hope, and that whatever creature that comes from the ground will not be his child, no matter the resemblance. He knows it's going to cause nothing but grief and heartache, and that he will not only set back any chance the remaining family has of moving on with their lives, but also place them in very real danger.

This conclusion alone brought it down a star for me. The bloodshed that ensues is frustrating, because it was all so preventable. King spent so much of the novel (which, its worth noting, is quite dense. Somewhere in the 500 page region) fleshing out these characters with rich personalities and relationships, only to have it thrown to the wind in the last seventy pages.

I don't care how strong one's grief is, it is not enough to cause a completely reasonable, logical man to act like a brainless dope. The fact that he was even AWARE of what a dope he was being just adds insult to injury. God awful ending, and this is coming from someone who defends and understands Cujo's macabre ending.

Read 'The Shining' instead.(less)

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Jun 23, 2011 Leslie rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Ppl who want to be creeped the hell out

Recommended to Leslie by: curiosity from vague memories of the movie and Kayla's review

This was my first Stephen king novel. I’ve seen some of his movie adaptations, and tv specials but never read a book. I remember hearing about him growing up, and seeing his books in the library and thinking those are the scary books for the big kids. Since I had no desire to be scared I always kept away.
Pet Sematary is a book that slowly builds up to reveal all it’s secrets, and when it does your left creeped out and disturbed.
What lies beyond the Pet Sematery behind the Creed family home, ha...more

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Mar 22, 2009 Teresa rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: horror, stuff-i-own

This novel is heartbreaking, King does a good job of portraying the emotion one feels at any kind of loss, especially the unreal feeling you tend to experience. The novel delves into parts of the psyche you never thought of going or possibly wanted to go. It makes you ask yourself how far you would go to bring back the ones you love.

As a horror novel however, this one actually robbed me of a few hours of sleep, I could imagine it all happening so vividly. Maybe i have something with creepy littl...more

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Nov 23, 2008 Dustin rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Holy crap, re-reading this book is like watching a car crash about to take place in super slow motion: You know what's coming, you know how it can be avoided, but all the same, you find yourself walking the well-tended path into the deep woods of Northern Maine...

In my reading of this, as a new father myself, I find the entire concept of the Pet Sematary itself really sort of secondary to the main plot of parents, doing everything in their power, to protect their children from all the dangers in...more

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Jul 09, 2008 Michael Lawrence rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: king fans

Shelves: king

Another one of my all time favorite King Books and again, one that it's movie counterpart does no justice. And that is saying a lot because I actually like Pet Sematary the movie quite a bit.

But like all or most of King's books, the film's cannot capture King's detail. I remember one part of the book when the father is going into the cemetary. The police arrive and he is hiding in a tree. His grip is weakening and he looks below only to see the pointed fence tops waiting to pierce his testicles...more

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Nov 30, 2008 Joanne rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The only King novel I was afraid to read! One of those stories where you know where it is headed and you can do nothing to stop it.

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Mar 26, 2009 MJ rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Other than the Bush Administration's reasons for attacking Iraq this is
the scariest fiction I've ever read.

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Jan 26, 2009 Vincent Kaprat rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This may be King's darkest book. If you're goth, read this and you'll be 5% goth'er.

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Dec 11, 2008 Justin rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The book I chose to read for these six weeks is called “Pet Sematary” by Stephen King. It a very interesting and crazy novel. I recommend this book to young adults and all the way up to people around 60 or so. My all-time favorite character in this book is the father, Louis, because he seems to be very calm but crazy at the same time. That is so amazing because it makes him really different which is a plus. The character I really disliked very much was the mother, Rachel; she seems very insecure...more The book I chose to read for these six weeks is called “Pet Sematary” by Stephen King. It a very interesting and crazy novel. I recommend this book to young adults and all the way up to people around 60 or so. My all-time favorite character in this book is the father, Louis, because he seems to be very calm but crazy at the same time. That is so amazing because it makes him really different which is a plus. The character I really disliked very much was the mother, Rachel; she seems very insecure and is kind of whiny. The author, Stephen King, wrote this book all because of his sick and twisted nature. His mind is all messed up in there, it’s creepy. The thing that caught my attention in this book was in the beginning when the father was sort of day dreaming or something and he was talking about killing his family. He is super evil. The real reason I had kept reading the book was because I am a very curious being. I was really interested in finding the end of the book. It is like being sucked into a horrible nightmare filled with drama and fantasy. As for predicting the end of the book, I was unable to predict the ending. I was so confused while reading the book. If this book were made into a film I would choose Robert Downing Jr., Kate Hudson, and Willie Nelson, Dakota Fanning, some random baby, and any older female actress to play in the movie. The emotions that came from me during my experience in reading this book were anxiety, terror, calmness, and curiosity. The quote from the book is what made me attracted to the book, “A wild but not unattractive idea suddenly came to him: He would suggest that they go back to Bangor for something to eat while they waited for the moving van, and when his three hostages to fortune got out, he would floor the accelerator and drive away without so much as a look back, foot to the mat, the wagon's huge four-barrel carburetor gobbling expensive gasoline. He would drive south, all the way to Orlando, Florida, where he would get a job at Disney World as a medic, under a new name. But before he hit the turnpike — big old 95 southbound — he would stop by the side of the road and put the fucking cat out too.” This book is for mature audiences only. (less)

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Mar 15, 2013 Fatcheeks rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Well, I was reading this book hoping to get scared. I wanted to stay awake at night wondering if a creepy dead kid was coming to kill me or something like that. I slept like a bady while I read this book. Best sleep ever in fact. Not scared one bit. Why one may ask. Here we go.
Stephen King. I have heard so much about him. How wonderful he is. Yada, Yada, Yada. This is the first book I have read of his. I don't know if it's like this for all of his books, but he dragggeeddd the book out. I was li...more

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Mar 02, 2013 Ewerton Cuco rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Well, well , well...one more masterpiece from the great master of horror I get to read! I'm most certainly not new to King's work, I've had the pleasure to read many of his books and always thought they were all amazing, this one just couldn't be any different, could it? I know it sounds perhaps a little over reactive to give a straight five stars to a book but this one actually deserves it!
So it all starts when Louis Creed and his family move on to live in another one of Stephen's country si...more

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Feb 13, 2013 Justin rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I don't mean to try and sound macho - though I hear the internet is a great place to try it out - but I don't get scared. Seriously, I'm that guy who ruins haunted houses by making fun of all the terrifying, chainsaw-wielding terrors of the night. That being said, "Pet Sematary" stands alone as the only book I have ever read in my life that genuinely gave me the creeps. In the foreword, King wrote something to the effect that "Pet Sematary" was the first book he ever wrote that he put away in a...more

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Dec 31, 2012 Dana rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I loved, love, and continue to love reading Stephen King. However I have found that since having kids of my own, his books are more and more difficult (terrifying) to read. I have said it before, I will say it again... King is awesome at building up his characters. So much so that they become your own friends. You relate to them. You might run into them on the street in town and be able to pick up a conversation. And you empathize with them. You understand in your heart of hearts why they do the...more

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Nov 12, 2012 Morticia rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

So way back when I tried to read this book and
dust get very far. I had to stop at the first major deal with death. It wasn't that it grossed me out it was just that it scared me that badly. Me and my mom are major horror movie and book buffs so I was really young when I saw the movie and even that scare the crap out of me. Now that I've finished the book on the second go around I can say the movie does not even come close to the level of fear I experienced with the book. Right off the bat my he...more

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About Stephen King

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Stephen Edwin King was born in Portland, Maine in 1947, the second son of Donald and Nellie Ruth Pillsbury King. After his parents separated when Stephen was a toddler, he and his older brother, David, were raised by his mother. Parts of his childhood were spent in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where his father's family...more Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Stephen Edwin King was born in Portland, Maine in 1947, the second son of Donald and Nellie Ruth Pillsbury King. After his parents separated when Stephen was a toddler, he and his older brother, David, were raised by his mother. Parts of his childhood were spent in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where his father's family was at the time, and in Stratford, Connecticut. When Stephen was eleven, his mother brought her children back to Durham, Maine, for good. Her parents, Guy and Nellie Pillsbury, had become incapacitated with old age, and Ruth King was persuaded by her sisters to take over the physical care of the elderly couple. Other family members provided a small house in Durham and financial support. After Stephen's grandparents passed away, Mrs. King found work in the kitchens of Pineland, a nearby residential facility for the mentally challenged.

Stephen attended the grammar school in Durham and then Lisbon Falls High School, graduating in 1966. From his sophomore year at the University of Maine at Orono, he wrote a weekly column for the school newspaper, THE MAINE CAMPUS. He was also active in student politics, serving as a member of the Student Senate. He came to support the anti-war movement on the Orono campus, arriving at his stance from a conservative view that the war in Vietnam was unconstitutional. He graduated from the University of Maine at Orono in 1970, with a B.A. in English and qualified to teach on the high school level. A draft board examination immediately post-graduation found him 4-F on grounds of high blood pressure, limited vision, flat feet, and punctured eardrums.

He and Tabitha Spruce married in January of 1971. He met Tabitha in the stacks of the Fogler Library at the University of Maine at Orono, where they both worked as students. As Stephen was unable to find placement as a teacher immediately, the Kings lived on his earnings as a laborer at an industrial laundry, and her student loan and savings, with an occasional boost from a short story sale to men's magazines.

Stephen made his first professional short story sale ("The Glass Floor") to Startling Mystery Stories in 1967. Throughout the early years of his marriage, he continued to sell stories to men's magazines. Many of these were later gathered into the Night Shift collection or appeared in other anthologies.

In the fall of 1971, Stephen began teaching high school English classes at Hampden Academy, the public high school in Hampden, Maine. Writing in the evenings and on the weekends, he continued to produce short stories and to work on novels.(less)

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