The Kings of Fiction

"If she'd asked, I almost certainly would have done it," he said. Instead, she fished the first pages of "Carrie" out of the wastebasket where he'd consigned them, "told me it was good, said I ought to go on."

Now the family man is back onstage, on the evening of the Library of Congress appearance, watching his wife and son read to a packed house in a Capitol Hill church.

Tabitha goes first again. He beams at her as she reads from a novel-in-progress.

Owen threatens to steal the show once more. No meerkat superhero this time, just a story called "Nothing Is in Bad Taste" that could never, ever, have been written by Stephen King. It draws uproarious laughter. Owen's father laughs along.

When it's the old man's turn, he reads a passage from his latest novel, "Duma Key." In it, a character named Wireman tells the story of how he won and then lost in life's Powerball game, first winning a beautiful wife and daughter, then losing both on the same horrific day.

" 'Click, click, click, click. And then clack,' " King reads in Wireman's voice. " 'God punishes us for what we can't imagine.' "

As you listen, you can't help thinking: Stephen King is reading his own worst nightmare. But he can imagine it, and with luck that means his family is safe.