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James Patterson Calls off “The Murder of Stephen King”
Patterson has canceled the release of the novel to avoid “any discomfort” for Stephen King’s family
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Reigning world’s highest paid novelist, mystery/thriller titan James Patterson, has cancelled the release of his new “fan fiction” novel, The Murder of Stephen King. Although, he claimed, via press release, the “book is a positive portrayal of a fictional character, and…the main character is not actually murdered,” Patterson also expressed concern for King’s comfort, likely motivated by recent uninvited fan arrivals at The Shining author’s house. King was not involved in the production of the novel.
Oddly, this wouldn’t be the legendary author’s first fictionalized appearance. King wrote himself into his expansive Dark Tower series. That rather meta version of King writes a book within the book about the novel’s protagonist, gunslinger Roland Deschain. Much like his unpublished Patterson counterpart this King, despite many attempts on his life, also goes un-murdered (however he does suffer a car crash not dissimilar to the real Stephen King’s 1999 wreck in Maine).
Here are some other examples of authors appearing in novels they did and didn’t write:
Virginia Woolf in Michael Cunningham’s The Hours
Paul Auster in Paul Auster’s The City of Glass
Virgil in Dante’s Inferno
J.D. Salinger in W. P. Kinsella’s Shoeless Joe
Phillip Roth in Phillip Roth’s Operation Shylock
