Stephen King, the renowned horror author, has revealed why he chose to remove his novel Rage from publication. The book, originally released in 1977 under the pseudonym Richard Bachman, tells the story of a teenager who shoots a teacher and holds classmates hostage. Over the years, it was linked to multiple school shootings in the United States.
King explained that after the 1997 shooting in Kentucky, where student Michael Carneal killed three classmates, reports indicated a copy of Rage was found in his locker. Speaking at a 1999 library conference in Vermont, King said: 'I can't say for sure that Michael Carneal had read my novel Rage, but news stories following the incident reported that a copy of it had been found in his locker. It seems likely to me that he did.'
The author noted that Rage had been mentioned in at least three other hostage situations involving teenagers who held classrooms at gunpoint. Many of the shooters reportedly obsessively re-read the story. King stated: 'The Carneal incident was enough for me. I asked my publisher to take the damned thing out of print. They concurred.'
Reflecting on the influence of his work, King admitted: 'Do I think that Rage may have provoked Carneal, or any other badly adjusted young person, to resort to the gun? ... The answer is troubling, but it needs to be faced: in some cases, yes. Probably it does.' He added that art can act as 'an accelerant on a troubled mind' and that arguing free speech in the face of such linkage 'seems to me immoral.'
King concluded: 'Once I knew what had happened, I pulled the ejection-seat lever on that particular piece of work. I withdrew Rage, and I did it with relief rather than regret.'
