Article: King plot no accident Author shapes character from his own experience in new novel, 'Duma Key'.(Spotlight)

Byline: Mark Graham , Special to the Rocky

On June 19, 1999, Stephen King was walking along the shoulder of Route 5 near Center Lovell, Maine, when a careless driver in a van knocked him 14 feet off the highway, fracturing his leg in several places, breaking his hip and collapsing his lung, among other injuries. After five operations in 10 days and a three-week stay in the hospital, the author advanced to months of excruciating physical therapy.

Oddly enough, automobile accidents have been a staple in King's fiction from the beginning.

In his first novel, Carrie, the villains die in a horrible crash. In The Dead Zone, John Smith comes out of a ...

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