Stephen King interview

In The Telegraph, Nigel Farndale talks to novelist Stephen King.

He tells me wearily that he is bound to be described as a 'horror writer' in the first line of his obituary. He wants to be taken more seriously, is that it?

'That doesn't bother me,' he says, 'it's never that I've felt that much need for respect. My family has been eating. My house is paid for. And, in the end, after you're gone, the work finds its own level.

"The critics don't have much say in that. Some of the books which everyone sneered at for being disposable, such as Agatha Christie, have actually survived the longest on the bookshelves. No, what drives me crazy is when I am treated as a sociological artefact. No one wants to be reduced to a human beetlewig or a hallowe'en mask.'