Stephen King, The Long Walk and Charlie Kirk

Under normal circumstances, the author Stephen King should have been feeling pretty good about things and himself at the moment. The latest film of one of his works, Francis Lawrence’s horror-thriller The Long Walk, opened in American cinemas this weekend and has been met with almost unanimously rave reviews, many of which have called it a more socially aware, darker Hunger Games. He recently published a Maurice Sendak-illustrated retelling of Hansel and Gretel, which brings his trademark dark and macabre sensibilities to the age-old fairytale. And his last novel, Never Flinch, was, naturally, a bestseller – as all his books have been since he first published Carrie, over half a century ago in 1974.

So it says quite a lot for the 77-year-old King that, for absolutely no reason, he decided to offer his opinions about the Charlie Kirk saga. King’s first reaction to Kirk’s assassination was to call it “another example of American gun violence” and to echo Barack Obama’s comments that “this kind of despicable violence has no place in our democracy.” All perfectly normal and (relatively) uncontroversial. And then King decided to say of the recently murdered Kirk that “he advocated stoning gays to death. Just sayin’.”

The activist had, of course, said nothing of the kind, and King swiftly deleted his tweet and has spent much of the day of his new film’s release apologizing to various public figures who reacted in outrage his comments, most notably Ted Cruz, who called him “a horrible, evil, twisted liar” and asked ,“Why are you so dishonest & filled with hate?” King, presumably through gritted teeth, wrote “The horrible, evil, twisted liar apologizes. This is what I get for reading something on Twitter [sic] w/o fact-checking. Won’t happen again.” Yet the reputational damage has already been done. Admittedly, the author has never been remotely shy about his Democratic, pro-Palestinian sympathies, which have never endeared him to the MAGA crowd, but if The Long Crowd underperforms this weekend, especially with viewers in the heartland where the film is set, fingers will undoubtedly be pointed in King’s direction.

Not, of course, that it will make any existential difference to the writer’s popularity. He has been involved in many other high-profile spats, not least when he dismissed James Patterson, saying of his fellow author, “I don’t like him, I don’t respect his books because everyone is the same,” and remarked of Stephenie Meyer, who was unfavorably compared to JK Rowling, that she “can’t write worth a darn. She’s not very good.” Rowling, of course, came in for her own implied criticism, when an X user asked King what he thought of her political stances, and he replied, “Trans women are women.” And although most people believe Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of The Shining to be a classic of the horror genre and an improvement on the scary but schlocky book, King has always despised it, calling it “a film by a man who thinks too much and feels too little.”

The reverse might be said of King himself. His willingness to take to social media and share his opinions, interact with his millions of admirers and discuss matters wholly unrelated to his books is commendable, and there is a reason why he has 6.8 million followers. Yet as his timely dystopian picture arrives in cinemas to shock and provoke audiences, even those who might be well disposed toward this ornery, ever-controversial author might hope that he’ll engage his considerable intellect before pressing “send” next time.