Stephen King’s “On Impact”

From The New Yorker's archive: King's Personal History about his recovery from a severe car accident.  ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌   View in browser | Update your preferences     Personal History On Impact There's another short break in my memory here, and then I am very carefully wiping palmfuls of blood out of my eyes with my left hand. By Stephen King The novelist Stephen King once said of literature that "you can never bend reality to serve the fiction. You have to bend the fiction to serve reality." King has published more than seventy-five books, including "Misery," "It," and "The Shining," and, since 1990, has contributed eleven pieces to The New Yorker. Known for supernatural novels anchored in the hidden realities of our darker natures, King has also sometimes applied his vivid literary style to nonfiction. In 2000, The New Yorker published "On Impact," King's Personal History about his recovery from a severe car accident. The year before, King had been walking along a road near his home in Maine when a van struck him and he was thrown fourteen feet in the air. The piece describes King's prolonged recovery process—his spine was chipped in eight places, his leg was broken in at least nine, and he had to endure five surgical procedures. As King chronicles his long recuperation, the piece becomes a tale about a writer immersed in an intensive medical nightmare that, at times, rivals the horrors of his own fiction. Slowly, King starts to regain his ability to move and begins to focus on his return to writing. In fiction, he'd found salvation before, and now, after a devastating experience, he hopes to find it again. "For me, there have been times when the act of writing has been an act of faith, a spit in the eye of despair. Writing is not life, but I think that sometimes it can be a way back to life," King says. As he describes his painful comeback, King reflects on being forced to face his own mortality. His essay conveys the excruciating experience of broken bones and wounded flesh—and a writer's arduous odyssey toward rehabilitation. For King, the path back to life has always bent toward fiction.   —Erin Overbey, archive editor More from the Archive     Fiction "A Death" "At noon on the day of Rebecca Cline's murder, there had been a birthday party, with cake and ice cream." By Stephen King     Fiction "The Lottery" "The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full-summer day; the flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green." By Shirley Jackson This e-mail was sent to you by The New Yorker. To ensure delivery, we recommend adding newyorker@newsletters.newyorker.com to your contacts, while noting that it is a no-reply address. Please send all newsletter feedback to tnyinbox@newyorker.com.    For more from The New Yorker, sign up for our newsletters, shop the store, and sign in to newyorker.com, where subscribers always have unlimited access. Contact us with questions.   View our Privacy Policy. Unsubscribe.   Copyright © Condé Nast 2020. One World Trade Center, New York, NY 10007. All rights reserved.