Wednesday, December 14, 2011

11/22/63

In case you're curious: Stephen King's novel about the JFK assassination takes the "lone nut" position, and ends with the suggestion that the world would have been worse off had Kennedy lived. (His unsuccessful second term leads to the election of President George Wallace and Vice President Curtis LeMay. Funny, funny stuff.)

In an afterword, King confesses that he relied on Gerry Posner's notorious Case Closed for most of his research. Very amusing. Since the publication of that book, Gerry has given the world whole bunches of evidence that he was always what the JFK assassination researchers accused him of being: A scribbler for a Certain Interesting Agency.

(There was plenty of evidence beforehand, actually. You should look up Gerry's testimony on Mengele, given before a congressional subcommittee. Then compare what he said there to the very different tale told in his Mengele book, published not many months later.)

As some of you will recall, Greg G., a contributor to Cannonfire, more or less ended Posner's career by exposing his serial plagiarisms. Although Greg's work was summarized in Salon, his most damning evidence appeared on this site. Since Case Closed reads like a made-by-committee work, one must wonder who provided the raw material that Gerry used for his well-paid typing exercise.

Actually, I think the answer should be pretty obvious.

As for King: I haven't read very much of his work, but what I have read, I like. His short story "The Jaunt" scares me crapless every time memory of the thing creeps into my cranium. You should check out On Writing, the most useful guide of its kind written during the past fifty years. Moreover...

(Shall I say it? Hell. Why not? A little paranoia never hurt anyone.)

Moreover, I hope that his little tax problem, or whatever else the issue might have been, has now been resolved. Perhaps King and Dan Moldea can trade stories over beers.

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