his metaphors from the stock repertoire of horror fiction. IT (1986) shows childhood fears in the form of such classic Universal Studio movie monsters as Frankenstein, Wolfman, and the Mummy. In Misery (1987) King, not hesitating to be self-referential, pictures a successful writer kidnapped by a crazily devoted fan. The Dark Half (1989) fictionalizes his use of the ''Richard Bachman'' pseudonym, as a horror writer's pen name becomes a threat to his existence.King's major contribution to horror literature is to situate it within the general anxieties of contemporary life. His focus is not on vampires, werewolves and such but on ordinary people faced with these horrors and the darker horrors of the lost jobs, disintegrating families, mental breakdown, and all the other fears that haunt the atomic age. His novels vindicate the dreads of that age.King also wrote the short stories collected in Night Shift (1978), as well as several novellas and motion picture screenplays. Some of his novels were successfully adapted for the screen by such directors as Brian De Palma, Stanley Kubrick, and Rob Reiner....
