His first collection provides a look at a young novelist developing into the writer who would shape an entire genre of American fiction. King continues to root much of his fiction amidst characters and environments that are extremely similar to those in Night Shift. While writing most of the stories in Night Shift, King was still very close to his own working-class past the money he made selling these stories supported him while he was working menial jobs after graduating from college. Night Shift is rife with stories of blue-collar people facing both real-world and supernatural hostilities. At least five of the stories in Night Shift have been adapted, and the Dollar Baby program helped launch the career of Frank Darabont, who has since directed several award-winning King adaptations, including The Shawshank Redemption (1994). In response, King initiated his Dollar Baby program, in which he grants permission to students to adapt one of his selected short stories for one dollar. In 1977, King received many letters from film students interested in adapting stories from Night Shift. To bolster the collection for publication, King composed four new stories: “Jerusalem’s Lot,” “Quitters, Inc.,” “The Last Rung on the Ladder,” and “The Woman in the Room.” Several of the stories have been adapted into feature-length films and television series, with the Children of the Corn film series proving the most enduring. Nine of the stories were published in Cavalier from 1970 to 1975, while others were published in Cosmopolitan, Gallery, Ubris, Penthouse, and Maine Magazine. The stories that comprise Night Shift account for much of King’s early apprenticeship toward writing.
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