Perhaps one of the most audacious adaptations of the works of Stephen King is Haven, a new Showcase Original series about a somewhat haunted female FBI agent and some very strange shenanigans in small-town Maine. The audacity stems from the fact that Haven is loosely based on King’s 2005 crime novella The Colorado Kid—a novella notable for being about an unsolvable mystery that indeed remains unexplained at story’s end. Herewith, a series of blogs examining the hows, wherefores and whys concerning various adaptations of Stephen King’s works. Adaptation is a slippery skill, and those who play with it often change not just the rules but the game itself, as the residents of a small town called Haven, and a dead guy nicknamed ‘Colorado,’ know all too well…

Haven Blog, Part 2:
URBAN, SUBURBAN AND SMALL-TOWN LEGENDS
by Gary Butler

In terms of Stephen King’s novella The Colorado Kid providing the backbone to Haven: The TV show’s lead character, FBI agent Audrey Parker, is indisputably tied to the mysterious death of the book’s titular character.

As seen in the pilot episode, “Welcome to Haven,” the Colorado Kid is the nickname for a murdered man, identified in a headline in a 1980s newspaper (the show is set in 2010), along with a dockside photo of a woman, staring in horror at the Kid’s corpse. The visual connection is obvious and immediate: The shocked woman is not only a dead ringer for agent Parker, but also has a young girl with her. And agent Parker grew up an orphan. And Haven is an abbreviated translation for the area’s Micmac name, which actually means “Haven for God’s Orphans”…

Though these dots admittedly connect themselves, plenty more remain to be discovered. It’s clear that this 13-episode series will culminate in the revelation of the exact relationship of freak-friendly agent Parker and this equally freakish town. Get your freak on: Episode 2, “Butterfly,” revealed that numerous and divisive ‘troubles’ arose in the town in 1983—the year of the Colorado Kid. Among those troubles was Parker’s local police partner, Deputy Nathan Wuornos, developing a complete immunity to physical sensation. In the same episode, a local priest draws a line between “God’s People” and “yours”—and he’s talking to Nathan.

In the real world, this kind of Not-In-My-Backyard attitude—from Robert Frost’s poem, which also points out insightfully that “good fences make good neighbours”—often manifests itself as gossip, and sometimes legend. The Colorado Kid made a great deal out of both: The novella features three journalists talking about what makes newspapers sell, and where to draw the line in terms of sensationalism.

Over the course of King’s book, four different local legends are mentioned, aside from that of the Kid himself: the 1920s shipwreck of the SS Pretty Lisa Cabot, the mid-century desert mine of Maine’s ‘wandering Mormons,’ the coast lights (as in, it’s suggested, UFOs) sighting of 1952, and the 1990 Tashmore Lake Church Picnic poisoning.

Newspaper editor Vincent Teague describes all of the above as “questions disguised as news stories,” by way of explaining why he will neither print them nor, in an interesting twist on small-town types keeping their business private and basically protecting their own, share them with outsiders.

All of which could make terrific fodder for a TV series about a small-town that hides at least a baker’s dozen of supernatural secrets. More so, given that the show is an adaptation.

Then again, letting The Colorado Kid’s other legends remain just as they were found in the novella—unelaborated, unexplained, unsubstantiated (and, possibly, unmentioned altogether)—might in its own way be very much in the spirit of Stephen King’s original story, because the acclaimed writer rarely uses urban legends as inspiration. For example, a serial killer in his most recent book, Under the Dome, was inspired by a real-life serial killer—which is inspiration from hard news, not rumour, gossip, myth or legend.

That said, it bears mentioning that Salem’s Lot (1975) was tangentially inspired by the legend of an entire Vermont town’s disappearance in the early 1800s. And while The Mist (1980) was not inspired by the true-to-life “Great Blizzard of 1888,” notorious for its blighting of a significant swath of Maine and surrounding states, King has a couple of the story’s characters make a point of comparing their fogged-in, all-but blind situation.

In any case: Three episodes deep, and none of the Colorado Kid’s legends/stories have surfaced—yet. The episodes in question have been very myth-oriented, though: They have involved people who variously have been purported to control the weather ("Welcome to Haven"), their own dreams ("Butterfly") and music as a mindwave ("Harmony").

That said, the opening credits sequence contains a series of local newspaper headlines from various centuries, one of which might be a repurposed SS Pretty Lisa Cabot...

As well, the character of Vince Teague, renamed Teagues for the show, has thus far only shown up in the pilot episode. If he becomes a bigger player, which the opening credits hint at simply by emphasizing newspapers, things could change quickly. We’ll certainly be watching.

TWO WEEKS FROM NOW, Haven Blog #3: Carrie is a Fairy (Tale)