By Stone Martindale Jan 18, 2008, 16:38 GMT
Stephen King has traded cold Maine for a new residence on the Gulf coast of Florida.
Stephen King - © Lee Roth / RothStock / PR Photos
After a horrific accident where the prolific writer was slammed by a pickup truck on the side of a Maine road, King acknowledged to Time magazine that part of his healing process has him "embrace warmth," as he and his wife Tabitha have relocated south.
"It's the law," he jokes. "You get a little bit older, and you have to move to Florida."
Duma Key is King's forst novel set in Florida, about a wealthy man who loses his right arm in a construction accident and moves to a lonely island that seems to bestow the power to paint surreal, premonitory images.
The book follows King's continuing attempt to address his own mortality years after his near death.
How did Florida stack up to Maine for fodder?
"The actual environment down here is a bit scary in that everything grows everywhere all the time," King says to Time magazine. "I don't think it's any accident that when I had the idea for the book, I was walking down the side of a road, it was getting dark, and I was literally entombed in foliage—big rhododendron bushes, like 20 feet high."
"I think [Florida is] where pop novelists go to die, in a way," he says. "It does feel a little like retirement now, but why not? I'm 60 now, so I can kick back a little bit. Sixty's the new 50, and dead is the new alive."
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