[at-l] The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon

[lwbooher@halifax.com (Leslie Booher)]

Even Shakespeare used texts from centuries before on which to base many of
his plays.  I believe one was Plutarch's Lives that he used for his history
plays.  It's really no different than someone writing fiction about an
incident or an area they know about while shading the characters to be not
so recognizable.  It's done all the time.  No shame.  Big Stone Gap is a
recent example.  anklebear

----- Original Message -----
From: Karen Borski <kborski@yahoo.com>
To: <AT-L@mailman.backcountry.net>
Sent: Thursday, December 06, 2001 7:47 PM
Subject: [at-l] The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon


> I've been wanting so badly to bring this topic up on
> this list -- or with any AT forum.  Since I missed the
> Gathering, then I must resort to a written discussion.
>
> Light topic people and book people, read on.  Others
> may want to skip this, but it is AT related.
>
> Two years ago I read the Stephen King novel, "The Girl
> Who Loved Tom Gordon."  I'm not a big fan of his, but
> the back cover enticed me.  The story is about a young
> girl (8 - 12 yrs old) who gets lost in the White
> Mountain Ntl Forest while day hiking on the AT with
> her family.  She has a day pack with some food and
> water, but it is her Walkman that ends up being her
> most prized possession, keeping her in touch with the
> outside world, namely the baseball games where she can
> keep up with her favorite player, pitcher Tom Gordon.
>
> She ends up being lost for 8 days, battling
> psychological demons and some "thing" that follows her
> through the woods.  Some dark, dark thing.  Of course,
> this is where the King factor comes in and takes over.
>  Never mind that it wouldn't really be possible for
> the girl to be lost in New Hampshire for 8 days while
> walking 8-10 miles per day.  Never mind that it
> probably wouldn't be possible for a little girl to
> hike 8-10 miles a day in that backcountry.  Aside from
> those overlooked items, the story is pretty good,
> believable from a mental standpoint, has a decent
> ending and lots of "bump in the night" scares that
> ring true with anyone that has ever slept outdoors
> alone.
>
> Now, I ran into the out-of-print book that documents a
> true story of a little boy that got lost in Baxter
> State Park while on top of Katahdin while day hiking
> with his family.  This took place in the '30s, '40s or
> '50s (can't remember exact dates, book title or author
> names, sorry -- I read it at a friend's house in NH
> while visiting).  Anyone who has hiked in Baxter knows
> that it is very possible for anyone to get lost on the
> table land in fog and wander for a week or more north
> of the mountain before finding a road or camp,
> especially back half a decade ago.
>
> While reading this very good story, the true account,
> I was completely, utterly shocked to discover the
> similarity in style, words and EVENTS in these two
> books about children lost in the woods near the AT.
> Funny, but I could swear that Mr. King took direct
> ideas and events from the out-of-print true story and
> turned them into his novel.  Seems kind of low for a
> writer of his public "stature" to have done that
> without even a note that his story was taken from a
> true story.  And I cannot see how he could have
> coincidentally made up so many similar events.  In
> particular, for those that have read both books (and I
> so hope someone has!), the scene with the strange
> hooded/cloaked "ghost" figures that both the Girl and
> the real boy hallucinated while lost.  The boy's
> account was nearly word-for-word in the King book.
>
> If you have read both of these books and can discuss
> this topic, I would love to hear whether anyone else
> has noticed the similarities.  Could it really be that
> Stephen King read a copy of this old out-of-print book
> and used the ideas to make his own scary story,
> assuming no one would catch the similarities?  He does
> live in Maine and could easily have found a copy
> somewhere.
>
> Nocona
> GA-ME98
>
>
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