Stephen King on Fiction, Politics, & Apocalypse

Stephen King’s God Trip
On the 30th anniversary of “The Stand,” the novelist confesses what haunts him about religion and today’s politics.
By John Marks
Salon.com

S: Questions of politics are never very far away in “The Stand.” Once the plague has come and gone, society has to be reformed. Do you think of it as a political novel, in any sense?

SK: I did see it that way. I’ve always been a political novelist, and those things have always interested me. “Firestarter” is a political novel. “The Dead Zone” is a political novel. There’s that scene in “The Dead Zone” where Johnny Smith sees Greg Stillson in the future starting a nuclear war. Around my house we kinda laugh when Sarah Palin comes on TV, and we say, “That’s Greg Stillson as a woman.”