Duma Key by Stephen King
I compare Stephen King to anyone who worships a football team, the highs when he scores are like nothing else, and when he misses, boy does it hurt. I think the lowest point as a SK fan came with Cell, and all confidence I had in him to produce the goods was severely dented after that. Lisey's Story was a good if rather aimless return to form, Blaze as his late alter ego Richard Bachman was a pleasant surprise; but that was all. I was left wanting for something really good to get my teeth into, but was resigned to the fact that it may never happen. Maybe the man who I have hero worshipped since the first time I read Pet Sematary at the age of fourteen really had lost his mojo.
Then along comes Duma Key.
With this one book, he has single handedly restored all faith. With this one book, Stephen King has taken me back to those days when I couldn't wait to rush home and totally lose myself. Then suffer sleepless nights...
Duma Key finally sees the return to form of my favourite writer, and he's crafted a work that is eloquent, consice and the most moving book he has ever produced.
**
The book's main protagonist is Edgar Freemantle, a man who struck it very rich in the construction business. And then one day loses his arm in an accident when a crane falls down on top of the vehicle he is driving. Slowly recovering, but suffering extreme rages - he is on the verge of killing himself before his Doctor tells him that he needs a change of scenery. So Edgar makes the move from Minnesota to Florida. To a place called Duma Key.
Edgar finds that he can draw, and the sunsets he draws are very, very, good. The rages he experiences are slowly being tempered, his paintings are starting to get noticed and the relationship with his daughter is strong. Then he makes friends with his only neighbours on the lonely stretch of beach, a wealthy elderly woman called Elizabeth, and her caretaker, Wireman, a former lawyer whose suicide attempt left him blind in one eye and unable to read for only five minutes at a stretch.
Edgars paintings slowly take on a supernatural nature, they seem to be able to influence and alter things in the real world. Very slowly does Edgar relaise that Duma Key has drawn him here, and it seems that it wants horribly wounded people for its own purposes. The island is haunted by ghosts, memories and an unbridled evil which is very, very powerful indeed. Edgar then finds that his destiny becomes entwined with the traumas of Elizabeth and her long-forgotten childhood, must confront the deep pains and agonies that he has suffered to save those who he loves.
**
The book is a hefty one, but the pacing of it - if it was a film it would be No Country for Old Men (not a bad thing at all) before the book goes into overdrive towards the end and literally takes your breath away. Stephen King has found a new level of maturity, and he doesn't need the scares all the way through to keep you pondering. The real terror is the descriptions of pain that Edgar suffers after his accident. People will only be all too aware of the accident that Stephen King himself was involved in and the book might just mirror some of those long agonising days on the road back to recovery.
I know I'm not a critic, but I am a fan first and foremost and one of the Stephen King's contant readers. All I can say is THANK YOU. And I'm loving this book so much that I'm going to read it again. It's honestly his best work since Bag of Bones.
DUMA KEY IS PUBLISHED BY: HODDER AND STOUGHTON
ISBN: 978-0-340-95219-1
PRICE: 18.99 (hardback)
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