Earlier this month, I hit the road to go see King’s Maine for myself. My first stop was in Western Maine, in the Lakes Region. Key stops included Bridgton (which is near Long Lake and home to Food City, inspiration for Federal Foods, the grocery store at the heart of King’s 1980 novella The Mist) and King’s childhood home of Durham, which also reputedly inspired some key locations in ‘Salem’s Lot (1975). 

(Out of respect for King’s [and others’] privacy, I steered clear of private residences throughout my journey and while I was near Lovell, where King was hit and nearly killed by a van in 1999, I passed on a stop there, choosing to pursue inspiration and creativity over tragedy and pain … though there’s inspiration to be found there too, as the Dark Tower series attests).  

I was struck by a couple of interesting observations as I got my Maine adventure underway. First, long before I got to my first stop, I definitely had the feel of being in King’s universe. I would find myself driving past signs pointing the way to nearby towns or catching the name on a street marker as I drove past and feeling a jolt of familiarity and recognition, the sense that I knew these places or had perhaps even been here before (I hadn’t). The pieces started to come together as I realized that what I was finding and the names I was recognizing were the real-life Maine landscapes in which King contextualizes his fictions, those backroads and cities and landmarks that lie just outside of Castle Rock or down the road from Derry, or whose goings-on intersect with King’s own. I saw banners for the Fryeburg Fair (Bag of Bones [1998]) and signs pointing the way toward Ogunquit, where Frannie Goldsmith realizes she is pregnant early in The Stand (1978; uncut 1990) and has to figure out what comes next. I knew these people and these places, and I sure was glad to simultaneously see them again and for the first time.

The other observation that struck me early on and (thankfully!) remained true for the entirety of my travels is that there is no cliched tourism industry built up around King in his home state. There aren’t any tacky kiosks, hackneyed tourist traps, or opportunistic cash grabs. Nobody’s selling tickets to walk through King’s childhood home or turning places he once lived into museums. What I heard time and again from Mainers I met was that as far as they’re concerned, King’s “just a regular person,” one of their own. They respect and protect his privacy, appreciate his contributions to their communities, and by and large, just leave him alone. 

Ultimately, this lack of fuss and fanfare made my travels through King’s Maine even more immersive. I rarely got the sense that I was making my way through some sort of curated or managed place or experience. I was just there, in King’s Maine. I stood on the shores of Long Lake and looked out over the water, like The Mist’s David Drayton (the day I was there was overcast but mist-less), and wandered the aisles of Food City. I walked through downtown Bridgton, window shopping and stopping in to do some shopping at Bridgton Books. There was an antique store with a great window display on Main Street in Bridgton, which called to mind Mrs. Carmody’s Bridgton Antiquary, but also reminded me of half a dozen small-town antique stores I have known, treading that blurry gray area where fiction and reality meet, and from which King’s profound sense of place draws so much of its power. When I checked out Runaround Pond in Durham, there were a few other people kicking around, mostly hikers and kayakers making the most of a beautiful October day. 

My final stop in Durham before heading east was Harmony Grove Cemetery, reputedly an inspiration for Harmony Hill in ‘Salem’s Lot, where Mike Ryerson spends a fateful evening when he’s supposed to be burying young Danny Glick. Durham’s Harmony Grove is small, green, and lovely, just off a two-lane road and bordered by a low, piled-stone wall. I stood by this wall, looking out into the shadows beneath the trees that surround Harmony Grove. It looked like a welcoming and peaceful place to duck out of sight during a graveside service or enjoy the safety of the shadows until night falls—both of which Mike does—but I hit the road long before nightfall, bound for Bangor.