There’s a particular pleasure that comes while reading a text and realizing that the author, without explicitly telling us they are doing so, is rewriting a beloved classic story. Sometimes the discerning reader will pick up on similarities of plot or dramatic structure or even the use of actual characters in a new adventure (literary scholars call this process of reading one text in relation to another intertextuality).
As a reader, figuring out that a given piece is an homage, or a rewrite, allows us to feel like we’re “in the know” — aware of what the author is doing even though they don’t acknowledge it — but on a deeper level, this experience can engage our imaginations in a unique way. When the reimagining is done well, we can see both stories in a new light. For those so inclined, we might think of this as an Ignatian approach to storytelling — where one writer imagines the world of a different writer’s story so richly and deeply that they enter into it creatively — and add something of their own spirit to it. And then the reader comes along and can experience both, expanding our appreciation for the original and finding added depths in the new piece as well.
Pope Francis, in his recent letter “On the Role of Literature in Formation,” sums up this process very clearly:
“Readers in some sense rewrite a text, enlarging its scope through their imagination, creating a whole world by bringing into play their skills, their memory, their dreams and their personal history, with all its drama and symbolism. … A literary work is thus a living and ever-fruitful text, always capable of speaking in different ways and producing an original synthesis on the part of each of its readers. In our reading, we are enriched by what we receive from the author and this allows us in turn to grow inwardly, so that each new work we read will renew and expand our worldview.”
One of the joys, then, of reading these specific kinds of stories is that we, as readers, are able to see how one author literally “rewrite[s] a text,” thereby giving us a glimpse into the ways the revising author brings their own imagination to bear on the original work. There are multiple stages of composition and interpretation going on at once, and by engaging with both the original and the revision simultaneously, we are doubly “enriched” by the experience.
I was thinking about all of this while reading Stephen King’s (excellent) new short story collection “You Like it Darker.” King is an author who loves to revisit his own work; many of his stories and novels share locations and even bring back previously introduced characters.[1] But in the story “On Slide Inn Road,” King is not content to revisit his own work; instead the contemporary master rewrites one of the classic American short stories: Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find.” Any reader familiar with O’Connor’s work will sit up a bit straighter when they start “On Slide Inn Road” and are introduced to a family of five — a father and mother, two preteen kids and an elderly grandparent — who, while out on a multistate car trip, end up somewhat lost on rural backroads.
Here, as in O’Connor’s story, the grandparent has insisted on a shortcut that has gotten the family off the map, much to the chagrin of the dad who is driving, anxiously and badly. King, though, gives us a grandfather with a name (Donald), rather than O’Connor’s nameless grandmother; Donald is also something of a favorite of his grandkids, whereas O’Connor’s grandmother is mostly insulted and ignored by her grandchildren.
In both stories, the grandparent talks about time they spent in an old building now fallen into ruin (a plantation house in O’Connor’s story, a stately old inn with a golf course in King’s); while O’Connor’s grandmother deliberately misleads her family into trying to find the plantation (she lies about it having a secret panel and possible treasure; she later realizes that the house she remembers was in an entirely different state), King’s grandfather correctly recalls the name and location of the inn they happen to pass, which is right where he says it would be. He is not really lost at all, and his shortcut would have worked if the road had not been impassable. But nevertheless, in both stories the family car trip ends in an accident, and an encounter with gun wielding killers.
As a reader, figuring out that a given piece is an homage, or a rewrite, allows us to feel like we’re “in the know” — aware of what the author is doing even though they don’t acknowledge it — but on a deeper level, this experience can engage our imaginations in a unique way.
Now, readers familiar with King’s work, particularly his horror stories, might expect that he’d take O’Connor’s template — in which, after the accident, the grandmother blurts out that the people who show up to possibly help are the famed killer the Misfit and his gang, which leads to the eventual execution of the entire family — and make it even more violent or horrific. But King toys with and ultimately upends these expectations.
In his version, after the accident, the kids go to investigate the ruins of the inn, and while doing so the older boy spots the leg of a dead woman[2]; immediately after this they encounter two strangers, who the boy realizes must be her killers. But unlike the grandmother, he stays quiet and is able to pass along this information to his grandfather. The grandfather then tricks the killers into allowing him to retrieve a baseball bat from the car, which he uses to knock down one and disarm the other. Notably, in the moment of conflict, his son stands immobile while his grandson leaps to his aid. The family then manages to get safely away, with the mom behind the wheel.
Both stories have the same general character dynamics and plot points — they feature inter-generational familial conflict, encounters with deadly strangers, and revelatory moments of insight brought about by these encounters.
O’Connor’s version of these events is one of the great works of American literature; King’s is, well, not (I’m sure even he would agree). This is, of course, fine; their aims are different. O’Connor uses all the elements of the story to reflect a myriad of tensions — between the family members, between society and the Misfit, between what we say we believe and what we actually believe — and to bring about a moment of surprising insight. The grandmother’s obsession with class and a false idea of the past is what leads to their trouble, and the whole arc of the story is about her spiritual redemption, brought about when she is able to recognize the Misfit as one of her “own children.” In O’Connor’s story, the family conflict is merely a jumping off point for a much deeper exploration of the movement of grace.
King, like O’Connor, is often interested in depicting the nature of evil, and the movements of a supernatural reality at work in the mundane world, but in this story, he is content to use O’Connor’s frame in order to foreground the intergenerational conflict. The tension between the grandfather and his son and daughter-in-law is more significant, thematically, than the encounter with the killers.
Throughout “You Like It Darker”one consistent throughline is the resourcefulness and wisdom of age. Many of the protagonists inthe stories are retirees trying to find meaning and purpose in a world that does not value them, and King continually finds ways to demonstrate their worth. So while “On Slide Inn Road” eschews O’Connor’s metaphysical concerns, when we read it in relation to O’Connor’s story we can see how his changes, particularly in the climax and resolution of the encounter between the family and the criminals, foreground the grandfather’s inherent value.
To return to Pope Francis’ letter, he calls our attention to how stories work on the reader: “the reader is not simply the recipient of an edifying message, but a person challenged to press forward on a shifting terrain where the boundaries between salvation and perdition are not a priori obvious and distinct.”
Throughout O’Connor’s story, the reader is put in a position to judge the grandmother for her racism and classism, and her ultimate redemption is thus a disorienting moment which requires intense reflection. While King’s story is not disorienting in the same way, he, like O’Connor, does expect his readers to judge the elderly protagonist for their many faults. When the grandfather ultimately saves the day, although it is not entirely shocking, it does force us to reevaluate our assessment of his character. Here, salvation hearkens back to another famous O’Connor title: “The Life You Save May Be Your Own”; sometimes in order to save our loved ones, and perhaps ourselves along with them, we need to act decisively. The ultimate fault in the story is the father’s inaction and cowardice, and King is calling the reader to an awareness of the vitality of the elderly, and perhaps a moment of self-reflection as well. When faced with a crisis, are we more likely to stand passively by or act?
If one reads “On Slide Inn Road” without recognizing the parallels to O’Connor’s story, they, perhaps, would overlook the deeper thematic elements at work. It is a satisfying, atmospheric read, immediately preceded and followed by other equally engaging stories. But if we know that King is rewriting O’Connor, we are more likely to actively engage with the text and take the time to reflect on how both writers wrestle with what, exactly, being “a good man” entails.
While O’Connor and King clearly have different understandings of what true “goodness” entails, they are both engaged in an exploration of morality and the nature of the good, and they invite the reader into this exploration alongside them. And this, in turn, is an instantiation of the Ignatian imagination — the call to cultivate within ourselves the desire and ability to immersively enter into a text and find within it the movement of the spirit.
Top image of Flannery O’Conner from UNC Greensboro Special Collections and University Archives, Flickr
[1] The story “Rattlesnakes” in the new collection does both — it’s written from the point of view of the father from his novel “Cujo,” almost 40 years after the events of that book, and it is set on an island adjacent to Duma Key, the titular setting of his 2008 novel. One doesn’t need to have read either of these novels to appreciate this new story, a ghost story about loss and trauma, but knowing them both adds a depth of complexity and richness to the reading experience.
[2] King’s emphasis on just the leg, rather than the whole body, might be another homage to O’Connor and the one-legged protagonist of her story “Good Country People.”