Castle Rock (Stephen King)

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Castle Rock is part of Stephen King's fictional Maine topography and provides the setting for a number of his novels, novellas, and short stories. Castle Rock first appeared in King's 1979 novel The Dead Zone, and has reappeared as late as his 2013 novel Doctor Sleep and 2014 novel Revival (see list below). The name is taken from the fictional mountain fort of the same name in William Golding's 1954 novel Lord of the Flies.

King, a native of Portland, Maine, created a trinity of fictional Maine towns - Castle Rock, Derry and Jerusalem's Lot as central settings in more than one work.

Video Castle Rock (Stephen King)

Geographical location

Population of Castle Rock was 1,280 by 1959 and around 1,500 as of its final chronological appearance in Needful Things. In Needful Things, Castle Rock is placed eighteen miles southwest of South Paris. In Creepshow (1982), there is a sign at the end of "The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill" that puts Portland at 37 miles, and Boston at 188 miles. "Weeds," the short story on which "The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill" was based, was actually set in New Hampshire.

Geographically, this puts Castle Rock in the northern semicircle, of radius 37-miles, centered on Portland, Maine. This could include places such as Durham, Lisbon, Danville, Auburn, Lewiston, Bridgton, and maybe even Sabattus. A map on King's official website places Castle Rock in Oxford County, in the vicinity of Woodstock. Yet the works in which Castle Rock appears place the town in the fictional "Castle County," which also includes such towns as Castle Lake and Castle View. The location of Castle Rock may also be related to Marblehead where there is a park by the same name.

Maps Castle Rock (Stephen King)

Works set in Castle Rock

• The Dead Zone
• Cujo
• "The Body" (novella from Different Seasons)
• "Uncle Otto's Truck" (short story which appears in Skeleton Crew)
• "Mrs. Todd's Shortcut" (short story which appears in Skeleton Crew)
• The Dark Half
• "The Sun Dog" (novella from Four past Midnight)
• Needful Things
• "It Grows on You" (short story which appears in Nightmares & Dreamscapes)
• "Premium Harmony" (short story which appears in The Bazaar of Bad Dreams)
• Gwendy's Button Box (novella written with Richard Chizmar)
• Elevation (novella)

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Works referring to Castle Rock

• "Graveyard Shift" (short story which appears in Night Shift)
• Creepshow
• "Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption" (the narrator was a resident before his incarceration at Shawshank)
• Pet Sematary (refers to the events of Cujo which take place in Castle Rock)
• "Gramma" (short story appearing in Skeleton Crew)
• "Nona" (short story appearing in Skeleton Crew)
• It
• Gerald's Game
• Sleepwalkers (Sheriff calls for backup from Castle Rock)
• The Stand
• Bag of Bones (significant portions of this story are set in Castle Rock, along with Derry, Maine and on TR90 at Dark Score Lake, Maine)
• The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon
• Riding the Bullet
• Dreamcatcher (refers to the Castle Rock radio station)
• "The Man in the Black Suit" (short story which appears in Everything's Eventual)
• Kingdom Hospital (Television series)
• Lisey's Story
• "N." (short story appearing in Just After Sunset)
• Under the Dome (Chester's Mill is mentioned as being close to Castle Rock and the road leading to it is shown on the town map in the book's preface)
• "Premium Harmony" (short story published in the November 2009 issue of The New Yorker)
• 11/22/63
• A Good Marriage (novella published in the 2010 collection Full Dark, No Stars)
• Doctor Sleep
• Revival

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Use by third parties

Stand by Me (1986), the film adaptation of King's novella The Body (1982), makes reference to a town of Castle Rock in Oregon. Rob Reiner, the film's director, later named his production company Castle Rock Entertainment, which subsequently produced several adaptations of King's works.

Castle Rock is mentioned in One on One (1993), a novel by King's wife, Tabitha King. In an afterword, she thanks "another novelist who was kind enough to allow me" to borrow the name.

In the 2007 film adaptation of King's novella The Mist (1980), David Drayton reads a newspaper called The Castle Rock Times.

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Other Maine creations in King's work

Besides the oft-used Derry, Castle Rock, and Jerusalem's Lot, King has created other fictional Maine towns, including Chamberlain in Carrie, Chester's Mill in Under the Dome, Haven in The Tommyknockers, Little Tall Island in Dolores Claiborne and Storm of the Century, and Ludlow in Pet Sematary and The Dark Half (unrelated to the real Maine town of Ludlow).

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TV series

On February 17, 2017, Hulu announced they were once again partnering with J.J. Abrams and Stephen King to create another limited series based on King's works. The series entitled Castle Rock named after the fictional town in King's native Maine which has served as the setting for a number of his novels, novellas and short stories. A teaser of the series was released some time after the announcement by Abrams' production company, Bad Robot. The series is set to explore the themes and worlds uniting King's entire canon, while brushing up against some of his most iconic and beloved stories. On February 21, 2017, Hulu issued a 10-episode order for the series, with production set to begin at a later date.Filming is expected to begin in August 2017. Filming will be done in the small New England Western Massachusetts town of Orange. Melanie Lynskey, André Holland, Sissy Spacek, Jane Levy and Bill Skarsgård are set to star.

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References

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External links

• Map of Maine from Stephen King's official website

Source of article : Wikipedia