Night Shift (Premium)

I spent much of the summer of 1982, the summer after my freshman year of high school, babysitting for a family with two kids up the street. Those kids were about the same age as my sister and brother, so that worked out fine. I was paid $40 per week, in cash.

I had several interesting experiences that summer.

In that pre-cable TV era, this family had something called Star TV, which had movies and, more important to me at the time, music videos that they played between those movies to fill up the time. These were the first music videos I’d ever seen, and I distinctly remember one in which the members of The Cars were roller-skating.

The kids had a few albums I didn’t own, including the debut Asia album, which I later bought, and “Get Lucky,” a Loverboy album (I know) that had a longer version of the song When It’s Over than the single version played on the radio. I always found that kind of thing fascinating.

But most interesting, perhaps, the father had just read the Stephen King book Night Shift, in paperback. I recall the cover art, which featured a bandaged hand with eyes on its palm and fingers. I felt compelled to read this book.

Before getting to that, understand that I’ve loved reading my entire life. (Still do: Pocket just told me that I am in their top 1 percent of readers, with over 990,000 words read in 2022.) I began reading the newspaper at an early age because there were comics inside, but I quickly graduated to the entertainment section, then the sports section, and then the entire paper. I would literally read anything, resorting to cereal boxes if there was nothing else around.

In the 6th grade, I was fortunate enough to go to a public school with a teacher, Mrs. Roberts, who hosted an accelerated reading program with meetings twice per week before school. We got some kind of credit for this in her English class---maybe a half-grade bump or something---but what I read that year changed my life. The Hobbit and then the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien, setting off a few decades of fantasy and science fiction reading. (I also re-read the Lord of the Rings every year for at least 20 years.) Beowulf. And The Iliad and The Odyssey by Homer, setting off a similar, years-long exploration of Greek and Roman mythology.

That wasn’t all I read in the 6th grade: one day, Mrs. Roberts handed me a 726-page paperback, The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks, told me that I would like it, and recommended that I write a book report about it: she gave me double the normal time to do this because the book was so long. I did so, and I discovered, as she knew I would, that this book was an incredible rip-off of The Lord of the Rings, and so my book report---which spanned two of those “blue books” we used for such things---turned into my first bout of critical writing: I documented many of the things that Brooks had stolen from Tolkien. I got a double A+ for my efforts.

So by the time I ...