by Jay Wilburn
The plan is to reread all of Stephen King’s works in the order that they were published. Richard Chizmar of Cemetery Dance had the vision. I’m doing it because I am a writer and I want to improve my fiction. And I love Stephen King’s stories. I think there is something to be learned through this process.
You can also go back to the beginning and read Before Carrie or any of my other posts up through this one and beyond by checking out this link to the Master List of all my #StephenKingRevisited posts.
“I repay,” promises the woman. And she keeps her promises. There is a lot of power and potential in a single drop of blood.
There is a stamp in this copy of Rose Madder for a used bookstore in New York that I didn’t buy this copy from. This particular book has been passed around.
King dedicated this one to Joan Marks
I think this might be King’s most underrated novel. In a universe where no one had heard of Stephen King or any of the cultural touchstones that his more popular books have created in our cultural over the last half century, this book would probably rate a lot higher on readers’ lists of best King books.
I’ve seen a discussion recently about whether King’s good noir and crime fiction is tainted by the supernatural bleeding through. I tend to think of this more as a signature style for King. In here, we have a magic painting. In this case, I think the supernatural storyline underpins the overall story and enhances it instead of just being tacked on. The journey in the painting is vividly detailed and full of meaning. Even the heroes and saviors are wildly dangerous here which is beautiful for the characters’ arcs through love, trust, personal strength, healing, and more.
Misery’s Journey is the book our main character had been reading when we drop into the painful action that opens this novel. These are the books by the fictional author from Misery. The books are a part of the later acts of the story, too.
I felt cold inside as the husband turns out to be a police officer.
The description of the world getting brighter once she chooses freedom is well written. Even in the midst of her fear, that heightened sense of the world is very realistic. I remember feeling that hyperreality when I quit my teaching job.
The comparison to an animal tentatively leaving a cage for the first time is well played.
“When I die, I’ll go to Heaven because I already served my time in hell” is a line with multiple meanings and connections which serves the themes of the story well where it is introduced. A very good juxtaposition between how the person displaying it means it and how our character reading it has experienced it.
Battered women plot lines have been significant in Kings two most recent books looking back to this stage of his career with the publications of Insomnia and Rose Madder.
Kathy Bates’ narration of Silence of the Lambs is mentioned and Robert Frost’s reading of “The Death of a Hired Man.” Audio books were “new” business at the time of this story according to the characters in this novel.
The new John Grisham novel is available from Wal-Mart for sixteen dollars. Michael Jordan in his baseball uniform is mentioned. That is a very specific moment in time.
A close call in the middle of the novel is done well.
The rising fortune of the main character foretells trouble coming that will hurt all the more.
Doing the husband’s perspective scenes in italics is a good narrative device for this story.
“Hell is motiveless” is a good line and theme.
Ka comes up again in this story as it did from Insomnia and as it is central to King’s Dark Tower universe — perhaps to his entire literary catalog as well. A picture of the late Susan Day from Insomnia is in this book too.
We enter a lovely day which we know is doomed to descend into horror.
Topiary animals bring to mind a scene from The Shining. I was half expecting them to come to life in this story.
There was a typo for “Normal” instead of “Norman.” There were a lot of little typos through the book like “the” for “them.”
Little doodles in the middle of the text were King’s gift to the formatters this time.
“Maybe to fully understand hugging, you had to miss a lot of it.”
“Remember the tree” at the end is a powerful and complex metaphor for healing.
This novel deserves more credit as a solid and superbly written story. More readers and especially King readers should be aware of it.
Bad dreams are better than bad wakings. In the end, all accounts balance.
My next post in this series will be Before The Green Mile which will be linked on the Master List of all my Stephen King Revisited posts.
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