My wife has a friend that was invited once to meet Stephen King and go to dinner with him. She said he is the strangest person she’s ever met. I don’t know exactly what that means, but she feels strongly about it.
As a 52 year old from New England who has been reading King's books pretty much as long as I've been able to read, I think a lot of it comes down to the characters he creates being so realistic and relatable.
As long as the characters are grounded in reality it is a lot easier to suspend disbelief for all the crazy stuff that happens around them.
This is not at all uncommon; bizarre to find it represented as an oddity by a professional reviewer.
Obviously not all the secrets...