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Originally Posted by Section8
She had a lot of complaints about various details of King's portrayal of the Ft. Worth area. The only one I specifically remember is she thought it laughable when he talked about being able to smell oil fumes from the the west Texas oil wells in Ft. Worth (or maybe Dallas) when the wind was right. These wells are hundreds of miles from the Dallas/Ft. Worth area. She doesn't recall ever in her life smelling oil fumes from west Texas.
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I grew up in Dallas (as well as rural Montana and the Idaho mountains - we got around) and remember guffawing at this. I was also bothered by the portrayal of poor Texans. We lived in neighborhoods similar to those described by King and in the same era, but the people I grew up knowing were decent, honest, compassionate, and possessed great dignity. Still, I enjoyed the book because I've always expected King's books to be set in alternate universes.
I enjoy books with familiar settings that are obviously well known to the authors. Last year I was loving a book set in and around Death Valley NP where I worked and explored for 8 years. Then the author described her protagonists buying a Big Mac and going to Walmart in the tiny desert town of Beatty, Nevada. It was like getting bucked off a burro. You can buy water by the case, 50 varieties of local candy, a bong, or even legally frequent a brothel in Beatty, but you cannot buy a Big Mac or find a Walmart. I kept wondering why the author would infest an authentic, dusty desert town with the retail monotony of most other American towns. Made it hard to get back into the book.