Strong characterizations and a palpable sense of place overcome this novel’s plot contrivances.
In Chorneau’s (Enterprise Reporting, 2017) novel, the residents of a small, Northern California town unite to arrange a marriage—and keep the town alive.
In the tiny burg of Drytown, lifelong resident Benny Rue has a serious problem on his hands. He’s comfortable with his life and his work at the Stop-N-Shop, but the fact that his soon-to-be-ex-wife, Cora, left him the year before still weighs on him. Due to a complicated situation involving a family trust, Benny must remarry in order to keep living in his house. Also, due to an easement, if he loses the house, the residents could lose access to the local well. As a result, he’s determined to woo a woman who just arrived in town. Chorneau sets up the building blocks for a potential romance fairly early, but he has something different in mind. The story moves at a relaxed but steady pace, and although it has a number of different plot threads, it ultimately works best as a portrait of the varied and intriguing residents of Drytown. Not every character is well rounded, but all get the opportunity to show their places in the town’s society. The best characterizations give readers a detailed look at the residents’ rich, sometimes-surprising inner lives. That said, the author sometimes supplies artificial solutions to plot problems; for example, he dispatches a potential romantic rival with an utterly unbelievable coincidence involving Benny’s new neighbors. Still, the author manages to capture the rhythms and pleasures of small-town life with an authenticity that makes the work an entertaining experience.
Strong characterizations and a palpable sense of place overcome this novel’s plot contrivances.Pub Date: May 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-73383-841-2
Page Count: 470
Publisher: DartFrog Plus
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Fans weary of King's recent unwieldy tomes can rest easy: his newest is slim, slick, and razor-keen. His first novel without supernatural elements outside of the Richard Bachman series, this psychological terror tale laced with pitch-black humor tells the nerve-jangling story of a best-selling author kidnapped and tortured by his "number one fan." King opens on a disorienting note as writer Paul Sheldon drifts awake to find himself in bed, his legs shattered. A beefy woman, 40-ish Annie Wilkes, appears and feeds him barbiturates. During the hazy next week, Paul learns that Annie, an ex-nurse, carried him from a car wreck to her isolated house, where she plans to keep him indefinitely. She's a spiteful misanthrope subject to catatonic fits, but worships Paul because he writes her favorite books, historical novels featuring the heroine "Misery." As Annie pumps him with drugs and reads the script of his latest novel, also saved from the wreck, Paul waits with growing apprehension—he killed off Misery in this new one. tn time, Annie rushes into the room, howling: she demands that Paul write a new novel resurrecting Misery just for her. He refuses until she threatens to withhold his drugs; so he begins the book (tantalizing chunks of which King seeds throughout this novel). Days later, when Annie goes to town, Paul, who's now in a wheelchair, escapes his locked room and finds a scrapbook with clippings of Annie's hobby: she's a mass-murderer. Up to here, King has gleefully slathered on the tension: now he slams on the shocks as Annie returns swinging an axe and chops off Paul's foot. Soon after, off comes his thumb; when a cop looking for Paul shows up, Annie lawnmowers his head. Burning for revenge, Paul finishes his novel, only to use the manuscript as a weapon against his captor in the ironic, ferocious climax. Although lacking the psychological richness of his best work, this nasty shard of a novel with its weird autobiographical implications probably will thrill and chill King's legion of fans. Note: the publisher plans an unprecedented first printing of one-million copies.
Pub Date: June 8, 1987
ISBN: 0451169522
Page Count: 356
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1987
BOOK TO SCREEN
King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these...
Figuratively and literally shattering moments of hoRRRRRipilication in Chamberlain, Maine where stones fly from the sky rather than from the hands of the villagers (as they did in "The Lottery," although the latter are equal to other forms of persecution).
All beginning when Carrie White discovers a gift with telekinetic powers (later established as a genetic fact), after she menstruates in full ignorance of the process and thinks she is bleeding to death while the other monsters in the high school locker room bait and bully her mercilessly. Carrie is the only child of a fundamentalist freak mother who has brought her up with a concept of sin which no blood of the Lamb can wash clean. In addition to a sympathetic principal and gym teacher, there's one girl who wishes to atone and turns her date for the spring ball over to Carrie who for the first time is happy, beautiful and acknowledged as such. But there will be hell to pay for this success—not only her mother but two youngsters who douse her in buckets of fresh-killed pig blood so that Carrie once again uses her "wild talent," flexes her mind and a complete catastrophe (explosion and an uncontrolled fire) virtually destroys the town.
King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these youngsters who once ate peanut butter now scrawl "Carrie White eats shit." But as they still say around here, "Sit a spell and collect yourself."Pub Date: April 8, 1974
ISBN: 0385086954
Page Count: 216
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1974
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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