Book Review: Duma Key by Stephen King

Title: Duma Key
Author: Stephen King
Publisher: Scribner
ISBN: 978-1-4165-5251-2



Stephen King is one of those authors you either love or loathe; not too many people are lukewarm toward the man or his work. I'll admit right away that I've been a fan of King's ever since I was a youngster who thrilled at the creepies and ghoulies in Salem's Lot. In the intervening years, I've read all of his books (I think) and enjoyed most of them thoroughly. What I've enjoyed more than anything has been the progression I've seen in his work, away from the ghosties and beasties (well, sort of) and toward the real horrors that we face in our lives: aging and death, love and loss, guilt and sorrow.

Edgar Freemantle is a wealthy contractor who, before the book begins, suffers a terrible accident that takes his arm and scrambles his brain's speech centers so that he is often unable to come up with the correct word, especially when he is under stress.  They say (whoever "they" are) that a writer should write what he knows, and King certainly has some insight into what it's like to recover from serious injury after he was hit by a drunk driver while he was out walking a few years ago. To that degree, the story might be considered somewhat autobiographical, but only somewhat. The rest of the story involves the disintegration of Freemantle's longtime marriage, his sometimes tenuous relationship with his two very different daughters, and his attempts to find himself again after the pain, anguish and anger he has suffered.

Freemantle's doctor asks him whether he has ever had a hobby, a pastime that brought him joy, and he replies that he once drew a bit but has not done so in a long time. The doctor suggests he take it up again as therapy, and so Edgar begins to sketch, then paint, in the Florida retreat he rents as a hopefully restorative change of scenery. His art, though, has a power of its own, a power that can heal -- or kill. Duma Key, where he has gone to try to recuperate, harbors an angry spirit that seems to call broken human beings to the island, then work its evil impulses through them. It wouldn't be a Stephen King novel if there were not some element of the supernatural about it.

Ultimately, however, the story is not so much about the eerie as it is about the tragically ordinary. That's what makes it a wonderful story that touches the reader's heart.

My recent habit has been to finish a book, then find a new home for it to reduce the clutter around here and share the joy of reading with others. This one, though, touched me so deeply that I will have to keep it for a while to reread before I'll be able to part with it.