Although Stephen King created Annie Wilkes, it was Rob Reiner who truly brought her to life by making the executive decision to cast Kathy Bates in the 1990 adaptation of the novel. For while it was screenwriter William Goldman who recommended the then relatively unknown theater actress for the part, it was Reiner who had the final say in greenlighting her for the role (which would garner Bates her first [and thus far only] Oscar win). Something that took little convincing on Bates’ part when she came in to read from the scene she had prepared. Because according to Reiner, “She read one line. She had a whole scene prepared, and after the first line, I said, ‘You don’t have to read, I know you’re great. You have the part.’ She said, ‘Really?’ And I said, ‘Yeah.’ And she said, ‘Can I tell my mother?’ I said, ‘Yeah, you can tell your mother.’”
No finer form of job security than that, really. In fact, being cast was the easy part for Bates compared to the contention she experienced working with James Caan, who plays writer Paul Sheldon. A writer very clearly modeled after Stephen King himself in the sense that, like Sheldon, he felt creatively hemmed in (suffocated, more like it) by his fans (and probably still does). Particularly after King released a fantasy novel in 1984 called The Eyes of the Dragon, which was negatively received by readers who came to be devoted to King precisely because he consistently wrote horror.
For Sheldon, the genre that he’s chained to is Victorian romance (perhaps Julia Quinn has similar feelings at times about her Regency romance association). Specifically, a series of books that center on Misery Chastain (a moniker that sounds more “stripper” than “Victorian”). And from the looks of one of the “in poster form” book covers that Sheldon’s agent, Marcia Sindell (Lauren Bacall), has on display in her office, the novels appear to be little more than something of the “bodice-ripping paperback” genre. Which is why the opening scene shows Sheldon writing a new book, one that will kill off Misery Chastain once and for all and free him up to the possibility to write something new, something he can actually be proud of.
Tucking the freshly typed manuscript into a beat-up-looking attaché case, Sheldon takes the precious pages to Marcia and explains of the case’s sentimental value, “When I wrote my first book, I used to carry it around while I was looking for a publisher… I was a writer then.” The implication being, of course, that you can’t consider yourself a true writer when all you’re doing is spoon-feeding schlock to the masses. Indeed, Sheldon’s complaint to his agent is very akin to Carol Sturka’s (Rhea Seehorn) in Pluribus. She, too, has a successful romance-fantasy book series called Winds of Wycaro, but wants desperately to be able to writer her Serious Novel—and therefore be embarrassed no more of what she puts out into the world. The point being, it’s a phenomenon that many successful writers suffer from. Scratch that. A phenomenon that the few successful writers suffer from (though, ostensibly, not J. K. Rowling).
Carol, unlike Paul, however, doesn’t end up imprisoned by a deranged fan (imprisoned, so to speak, instead by the rest of the population that’s been taken over by a hive mind virus). That fan being Annie Wilkes, who only becomes more deranged when she realizes that Paul has decided to kill Misery. Information she gains access to via that brand-new manuscript after “saving” him from death. This achieved when Paul gets in a car crash during a major Colorado snowstorm and Annie pulls him from his car and takes him back to her house to tend to his wounds. She’s a nurse, after all. Conveniently. And one who insists that Paul takes the Novril she keeps giving him for the pain. Her intent, of course, being to get him addicted, numbed out—generally docile.
Before that, however, the instant that Paul comes to, the first thing he hears from Annie is the chilling and infamous line, “I’m your number one fan.” Something she’ll keep insisting on throughout Misery, embodying a prime example of “toxic fandom” as a whole—claiming to “love” a person/their work, but biting their head off, as it were, when that person does something creatively that they can’t stand. For the most part, toxic fandoms of the present are reserved for mediums like TV shows, movies (whether franchises or otherwise) and music. Less and less have they pertained to literature. Not just because fewer people are reading than ever before, but because most people don’t bother to attempt “making their mint” from writing anymore either. And if you don’t have the money to live somewhere that’s, let’s say, “stalkable” (i.e., a well-known house like King’s), it also makes it more of a challenge for a stalker to get to you.
So with the potential of writing as a money-making endeavor being increasingly implausible, it’s a “métier” that attracts fewer people, even off-putting those with the erstwhile belief that if you’re really an artist, you can never give up that part of yourself, never sacrifice it for the sake of money or “The Man.” Alas, life as it is now makes it nearly impossible to adhere to that conviction (probably just another part of the grand conspiracy to stamp out all artists).
In truth, you’d have to be almost as deranged as Annie Wilkes to believe that you could sustain yourself via a writing “career”—this set of words together lately becoming more and more of an oxymoron. Fit only for the “lucky” ones (a.k.a. the ass-kissing and/or well-connected). And so, this is part of why what holds up least about Misery is the notion that a writer could elicit the sustained and overly passionate interest of a stalker. Because, as mentioned, there is less possibility to become “rich and famous” from writing than there was in the past, during an era when writers were viewed as “rock stars,” even as far up as David Foster Wallace’s time. So why bother with trying to be a writer “at that level” now? But also because, at present, one would be hard-pressed to find a well-read stalker, let alone the kind willing to go to the same lengths as Annie when they have so much screen-staring to do (granted, cyberstalking is its own animal).
And while King himself has had a few stalkers in his day, including one named Erik Keene, who claimed that Misery was his intellectual property, there are essentially no more writers currently being “made” at his mainstream, “mass appeal” level to attract such ilk. Particularly “in this day and age” of anti-literacy. So sure, maybe that’s one tick in the “positive column” for this Age of Unenlightenment: writers don’t have to worry so much about being Annie Wilkes’d. A statement that also tracks in the sense that no one deems a writer’s talents worthy of the kind of “patronage” that would secure free room and board.