Summary

King introduces his book of short stories by comparing them to a moonlight market where he sells the stories as he might sell handcrafted goods.

In the introduction to the story “Mile 81,” King writes the inspiration for the story came from the trips that he made as a college student at the University of Maine to visit his mother and his girlfriend. He developed a horror of Mile 85 and imagined the old station wagon he drove breaking down there. At that time there were no cell phones so a driver had to fix his car himself or wait for a good Samaritan to help him. He wrote a story about Mile 85, but lost it. Later, after the rest stop at Mile 81 was closed, he re-imagined the story. He admits it is one of his favorites.

In Chapter 1 of "Mile 81," since Pete Simmons' older brother...