Stitzer's Take: Duma Key, by Stephen King

If you are looking for my "Practice" podcast, you can find it below in the post from 2/12. The first real podcast (and they should start weekly after that) is scheduled to be posted next Friday, 2/29. Andy Stitzer and Jeff Cooper are the scheduled guests.

Speaking of Stitzer, he has just finished reading the new Stephen King book, and wanted to share his thoughts. I will try to get back on here tomorrow and get the conversation geared back to sports, but for now, here is Stitz's take on Duma Key.
______________________________

As an attention grabber, let me begin with the following statement: in my humble opinion this is the best novel King has cranked out since Misery in 1987. I would also add Duma Key to the short list of “great” novels King has written which are, again, in my opinion, Salem’s Lot, The Shining, The Stand (my favorite book of all time), The Long Walk (written under his pen name Richard Bachman) Christine, Pet Sematary, It, & Misery. Despite being a huge “king head,” my opinion is that not everything he writes his great, and some is below average – especially that run of books in the 90s when he was so pre-occupied finishing wonderful The Dark Tower series. If you include The Dark Tower series, short stories, and novellas (which include The Body (the movie you know better as “Stand By Me”) & Hope Springs Eternal: Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption), to go along with the 35+ novels, I estimate I have read over 30,000 pages of King’s work. These last 607 were some of the most enjoyable.

Edgar Freemantle (no relation to Mother Abigail of The Stand), a very successful Minnesota contractor, loses his arm and almost dies in an industrial accident. The near death experience has ripped his family apart; Edgar has no desire to live. The desire to live is restored by his shrink. Old Edgar moves to Florida, dabbles in sketching & painting – a hobby from his much younger days – and finds himself blessed with a talent he never he had. The price that Edgar must pay for his talents was neither what he wanted nor what he was willing to pay.

King has always excelled at taking regular people, doing everyday stuff, and then adding some fictional evil to the mix. Edgar has to battle a real “bitch” of that fictional evil in Duma Key, and in the immortal words of Gordon Gekko, “you win some, you lose some, but you keep on fighting.” Another element King has traditionally done a superb job is adding the “back story” that may have occurred last year or 200 years ago; it is almost as if you read a story within a story.

I will keep this short, as going on will give too much of the story away. For die-hard King fans and even casual fans, get ready to have your hackles raised on page 280…guarantee you have a flashback to a long ago written novel. For non-King fans, this would be a great way to be introduced to his works.

Stitz