King sometimes jokingly refers to himself as a bestsellerasaurus, but it is useful to look at The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon in terms of the American literary tradition.

Indeed, King, who earned an undergraduate degree in English from the University of Maine and taught English before establishing himself as a writer, is thoroughly grounded in literary precedents. Many of his novels and short stories are full of allusions to other writers; and Danse Macabre, a nonfiction book that analyzes horror in literature, film, and other aspects of popular culture reveals his familiarity with the American literary tradition.

Of these precedents, one of the most important is the American Gothic tradition, which takes the mystery and overwhelming horror out of the castle and transplants it into ordinary life. Certainly, most of King's novels combine a sense of being in the presence of something overwhelming with locations...