From a Buick 8 is a novel by horror writer Stephen King. Published on September 24, 2002, this is the second novel by Stephen King to feature a supernatural car (the first one being Christine, which like this novel is set in Western Pennsylvania). According to the book sleeve: "From a Buick 8 is a novel about our fascination with deadly things, about our insistence on answers when there are none, about terror and courage in the face of the unknowable." The title comes from Bob Dylan's song "From a Buick 6", and is also clearly an homage to H.P. Lovecraft's short story "From Beyond", with which the novel shares thematic and plot elements. Award winning independent publisher Cemetery Dance Publications published a signed Limited Edition of the book which sold for $500 or more on eBay.
Stephen King says that he was inspired to write this book on a car trip he took in 1999. During the trip, he stopped at a gas station in Western Pennsylvania. While looking around, he slipped and almost fell into a stream of water. The thought that he might not have been discovered until a much later time led him to the plot of the story. In the novel, King describes a fatal automobile accident, and coincidentally, King himself was the victim of a bad accident that almost killed him late in 1999. However, he said that he did not change any of the details in the novel to match his accident.
