Stephen King's son follows his father's footsteps into literary horror
Over the last ten years Joe Hill has written several short stories and one unpublished novel under a pen name. However, with last month’s release of his thriller "Heart-Shaped Box," Joe came out of the metaphorical family closet and embraced his heritage at the eldest son of literary superstar Stephen King. 34-year-old Joe says he chose to keep his name a secret in order to prove himself to, well, himself.
I really wanted to allow myself to rise and fall on my own merits. One of the good things about it was that it let me make my mistakes in private.
Born Joseph Hillstrom King, he was named after the song "Joe Hill," which was created in reverence to a labor organizer who was executed in Utah in 1915 for murder. The song later became an anthem for the labor movement. Joe says his parents, "were both pretty feisty liberals and looked at Joe Hill as a heroic figure."
Joe’s novel, "Heart-Shaped Box," named after a song by the 90′s grunge rock group Nirvana, has received positive reviews and Warner Bros. has even purchased the movie rights. While that may be a good thing for his writing career, this success did not help with Joe’s anonymity. Die hard King fans begin to compare Joe’s writing style, subject matter and personal appearance to that of his father’s and soon began an online conspiracy theory. "It got blogged to death. That was really the nail in the coffin" he says.
Joe and his father aren’t the only writers in the King family. His mother Tabitha King and his younger brother, Owen King, are also novelists. His sister Naomi King has opted out of the family business and is currently working as a Unitarian minister. However, she will be putting a pencil to pad and turning out a nonfiction work on the study of the sermon as a work of literature and its placement in the culture of America.
Joe says a love of reading was something his parents insisted on in his household.
"It sounds very Victorian, but we would sit around and read aloud nightly, in the living room or on the porch," he says. "This was something we kept on doing until I was in high school, at least."
Joe and his wife, both graduates of Vassar, and their three children live in southern New Hampshire.
Source: CNNPhoto Credit: AP
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