Dedication (short story)


"Dedication" is a short story by Stephen King first published as part of the 1988 short story anthology Dark Visions and reprinted in King's 1993 short story collection Nightmares & Dreamscapes.

Plot summary

It tells the story of a black house maid working in a New York hotel and an eccentric alcoholic and prejudiced writer who is a frequent guest there. The maid consumes some of the writer's semen which was left on his sheets as part of a possible black magic spell, in the hope that it will pass talent and ability along to her unborn son. The story is told, in part, in the past tense.
King states in the introduction to this story that it was the inspiration for his novel Dolores Claiborne and that it was partly written to explore the idea of why such famous and talented people can sometimes be horrible in real life.

Film, TV or theatrical adaptations

This story was made into two different Dollar Baby short films, both directed by female filmmakers. In 2017, Tyna Ezenma made the very first Dollar Baby of this story, something of a novelty as many stories on the list have accompanying films in the dozens. Selina Sondermann adapted the story in the following year and set it in 2018 Berlin.