Why did a writer who has never been particularly interested in the world outside America gain such fame among Russian (as well as German, Spanish, Japanese and many others) readers? Why in his homeland he easily bypassed all eminent colleagues in circulation and income? Why, with the advent of the new millennium, when many of the nightmares he predicted began to come true, his popularity suddenly fell? All these questions are related not only to King's personality, but also to the fate of modern literature and more broadly - the whole society. Stephen King, who is usually listed as fiction, actually writes purely realistically. In addition, so to speak, there is an external layer of King's biography - the fate of a man who for a long time balanced on the verge of madness, lulling his inner demons to sleep with the sound of a typewriter. Until now, despite all the millions earned, literature remains for him not only a means of earning money, but also a way of survival, which, by the way, is true for any real writer.