Duma Key - Hardcover

King, Stephen

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1416552510 ISBN 13: 9781416552512

Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 2008

Synopsis

No more than a dark pencil line on a blank page. A horizon line, maybe. But also a slot for blackness to pour through...A terrible construction site accident takes Edgar Freemantle's right arm and scrambles his memory and his mind, leaving him with little but rage as he begins the ordeal of rehabilitation. A marriage that produced two lovely daughters suddenly ends, and Edgar begins to wish he hadn't survived the injuries that could have killed him. He wants out. His psychologist, Dr. Kamen, suggests a "geographic cure," a new life distant from the Twin Cities and the building business Edgar grew from scratch. And Kamen suggests something else. ""Edgar, does anything make you happy?" "I used to sketch." "Take it up again. You need hedges...hedges against the night."" Edgar leaves Minnesota for a rented house on Duma Key, a stunningly beautiful, eerily undeveloped splinter of the Florida coast. The sun setting into the Gulf of Mexico and the tidal rattling of shells on the beach call out to him, and Edgar draws. A visit from Ilse, the daughter he dotes on, starts his movement out of solitude. He meets a kindred spirit in Wireman, a man reluctant to reveal his own wounds, and then Elizabeth Eastlake, a sick old woman whose roots are tangled deep in Duma Key. Now Edgar paints, sometimes feverishly, his exploding talent both a wonder and a weapon. Many of his paintings have a power that cannot be controlled. When Elizabeth's past unfolds and the ghosts of her childhood begin to appear, the damage of which they are capable is truly devastating. The tenacity of love, the perils of creativity, the mysteries of memory and the nature of the supernatural -- Stephen King gives us a novel as fascinating as it is gripping and terrifying.

About this title

Review:

He has become a fascinating paradoxical figure, still seen as ultra-commercial but, in fact, increasingly highbrow and self-conscious (Sunday Times)

The scenes following Freemantle's physical recovery, of his anger and suicidal depression, are the author writing at his absolute best, immediately gripping the reader and putting him on the protagonist's side...King has become such a sophisticated writer that this novel is never less than page-turning (Matt Thorne, Independent on Sunday)

The theme of an artist enslaved and driven to madness by his own talent is not a new one for King, but the parallels with his own injuries and recovery - and his uncanny ability so spin a good yarn - mean the story always feels fresh...despite the pace and the pyrotechnics, the book still has a heart, which makes the idea of King's retirement the scariest prospect of all (TheLondonPaper)

The true narrative artist is a rare creature. Storytelling - the ability to make the listener or the reader need to know, demand to know, what happens next - is a gift...Stephen King, like Charles Dickens before him, has this gift in spades. (The Times on CELL)

Thrilling, genuinely terrifying, beautifully textured and full of wonderful invention (Daily Mail on LISEY'S STORY)

Very clever and brilliantly written . . . you won't use your mobile for days. (Guardian on CELL)

'As with all Stephen King novels, this book is sinister and surprising. You feels as though the individual characters are actually real. Another masterpiece.' (The Sun)

In many ways this is classic King, a thriller with agressively credible characters. (The Times)

If King is a modern-day Dickens, as some critics have suggested... then this is his David Copperfield, a book written with a deftness of touch and a sure command of the material that is breathtaking... at almost 600 pages, it's a doorstop of a book. But the story is so elegant and wide-ranging, and the three central characters so delicately evoked, that it feels far shorter. (Daily Mail)

This is a powerful piece of work and once the horrors kick in, the pace is relentless. Fresh and frightening and highly recommended. (Peter Guttridge, Observer)

Its moments of authentic terror and unease - which are good enough to rival anything else in King - spring from the author's deft command of pace and tone, from his evocation of the island's deceptive calm, and from the folky texture of his dialogue ... hard not to be gripped, which is testament to the propulsive power of the writing. (Sunday Telegraph)

Book Description:

DUMA KEY combines the appeal of CELL and LISEY'S STORY - two of Stephen King's most successful hardbacks of all time - to take the legendary author to a whole new level.

About this edition

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 1416552510
• ISBN 13: 9781416552512
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 611