Pop quiz: A man is in crisis. A dark force enters his life. He battles that force to save himself and those dearest to him. The protagonist described is:

A. Arnie Cunningham and his Plymouth Fury in Christine by Stephen King;

B. Paul Sheldon and his psychotic fan Annie Wilkes in Misery by Stephen King;

C. Paul Edgecombe and John Coffey's power in The Green Mile by Stephen King;

D. Judas Coyne and the ghost of Craddock McDermott in Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill.

Answer: All of the above.

Now for an essay question: What happens when you're a first-time novelist determined to make it on your own in the thriller market—but your father is a superstar of the genre?

Answer: It gets complicated.

Joe Hill, whose debut novel, Heart-Shaped Box, will be published by William Morrow in February 2007, is so intent on not trading on his father's fame that he years ago stopped using his given name, Joseph Hillstrom King. And before setting up an interview with the author, Morrow publicist Seale Ballenger warned, "Joe really doesn't want to talk about his relationship with Stephen King."

Fair enough. But in the battle to win attention for an emerging writer, it's pretty hard to resist using such a potent weapon. So when Ballenger sent PW an e-mail stressing the importance of reviewing Hill's book, he wrote, "This is a huge book for us (two-book deal and he is Stephen King's son)."

As for how the King connection will affect media attention and sales for Heart-Shaped Box, Ballenger said, "That's not for me to speculate on or talk about." He added, "It's not in the press release, it's not in the materials, it's not on the book. Joe is doing some interviews where he's talked about it.... This is an inevitable thing. We're trying to address it and leave the focus on Joe Hill."

It's nothing new for authors to get a publicity boost from family ties. Being the son of Kingsley Amis certainly increased early interest in Martin Amis's career. And Faye Kellerman hasn't tried to professionally distance herself from husband Jonathan. Carol Higgins Clark inherited name recognition from her mother, Mary, and the two continue a very close public relationship. "Mary and Carol so obviously enjoy working together that it makes sense for them to promote their books together," says Suzanne Balaban, publicity director for Scribner, which publishes mother and daughter.

So why is Hill, who prior to writing this novel has published prize-winning short stories, so determined to go it on his own? He explains, "When I was 11 years old, I sold an opinion piece to my local paper, the Bangor Daily News. Before it came out, I was giddy... then, when I read my own article in print, I realized for the first time that it was an awful piece. The paper had tacked on a little note: 'Joseph King is the son of bestselling novelist Stephen King.' And I knew that was the only reason they published my essay. Nothing else. And I didn't want that to happen again."

He continues: "Later I formed some other reasons for not using my last name. I figured if I wrote genre fiction as Joseph King, it would look like a grab at my Dad's coattails. Whereas I could write whatever the hell I wanted as Joe Hill. And I did for 10 years." It took a while for people to connect the dots, "maybe because when I first began making short fiction sales as Joe Hill, there was no Google." But after his first book of stories, 20th Century Ghosts (PS Publishing), came out, some people noticed a physical resemblance, while others remembered that The Shining was dedicated to "Joe Hill King, who shines on."

Despite Hill's reticence, he can't help revealing a bit of family pride, saying, "No question, my Dad, and my Dad's work, and my Dad's mentoring have been the biggest influence on me, by far."

Bethanne Patrick is AOL's Book Maven.


Noir Reissue Revival
Mostly they are remembered from the movies. It's cool Humphrey Bogart in The Maltese Falcon, smarmy Fred MacMurray in Double Indemnity, and tough Dick Powell in Murder, My Sweet. Those 1940s pictures came out of the writings of the likes of Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler and James M. Cain. Their style was called noir, and it is having a publishing rebirth as many titles and thrillers are being reissued.

"What happened in a lot of those books," says Pete Hamill, whose noir-like The Guns of Heaven has just been reissued after 23 years in mass market paperback by Hard Case Crime, "was the power of the narrative. The thing moves forward all the time. It's like they're double-parked. I think it's one of the great genres."

Hamill was inspired by Hammett and Chandler, as was cult novelist David Markson. Markson, best known for Wittgenstein's Mistress, is having two detective novels, Epitaph for a Tramp and Epitaph for a Dead Beat, reissued in one volume by Shoemaker & Hoard, 45 years after their initial publication. "I thought Raymond Chandler was a truly great writer," says Markson. "Line by line, page by page, he could out write anybody."

So why the interest in noir by major publishers? Perhaps it's because they sell. The Library of America has been publishing Hammett, Chandler and other noir writers going back more than a decade. "The noir volumes are omnibus editions," says Max Rudin, publisher of the Library of America. "The books, all American classics, are designed for permanence." Rudin has published six hardcover volumes in all at $35 each and has a total of 250,000 copies in print.

Hamill's publisher, Charles Ardai at Hard Case Crime, has a collaboration with Dorchester Publishing for production and distribution. He started Hard Case back in 2001 with the intent of looking "like a company that had started publishing books back in 1945 and hadn't changed very much in the 60 years since." Besides Hamill, his authors include the likes of Lawrence Block and Erle Stanley Gardner, and in 2007 he will publish Blackmailer by the late George Axelrod, who wrote the screenplay for The Manchurian Candidate. "It's a fantastic crime novel," says Ardai.

Like the Library of America, Peter Mayer at Overlook sticks to hardcover as he publishes thriller writer Charles McCarry. A big fan of McCarry's, Mayer was shocked to find he was out-of-print. Mayer went to work by publishing Old Boys, a new novel, which reignited McCarry's career. Since then he has reissued in hardcover The Last Supper, The Miernik Dossier and The Secret Lovers, with Second Sight due in 2007. "This has been a great success," says Mayer. "We are also selling about 10,000 copies of every book in hardcover, each getting newly reviewed—not bad for 30-year-old books."—Dermot McEvoy