I was in the Navy at the time. Saw the previews to THE KEEP on the tele. Looked good (I'M a visual/sensual person) wanted to see it, so Sweetie & I scheduled some leave to see it. Unfortunately, I had a cold that day, the next day it was no longer playing. Saw the book in the Navy Exchange when leave was over. Almost didn't buy it (It's so thick,gee it must be over 300 pages, I probably won't read it, ADHD-OCD you know), but I caved and bought it on a Friday afternoon. Started reading it that night. COULD NOT PUT IT DOWN!!!!. Having been what I consider Semi-illiterate (I could not read a book w/o waundering, I.e., (It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..."this is B.S. why do we have to read this crap") I became transformed. I was no longer reading words, the text disappeared and I was having a visual experience(I never knew it could be like this), some one would enter the room and call my name for dinner (or are you gonna' read that book all weekend?) and to my astonishment, the visual would crystallize into the book in my hands. If you have never experienced this, I cannot relate to you in comprehensible terms what this was like, although I imagine this is the norm and my late experience was a delayed AWAKENING of a part of my mind.
I searched far and wide for more FPW w/o success. I began to think he was a one-hit-wonder when Sweetie found THE TOUCH and THE TOMB in a local library when she was helping the MUFFIE (my daughter) with a school assignment. The rest, as they say, is history.
Keith the elder