Duma Key by Stephen King
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.
For the Reading Challenge(s):
The Stephen King Constant Reader Challenge
The Reason
For the The Stephen King Constant Reader Challenge and my online bookclub was having a Stephen King buddy read extravaganza during Halloween season!
The Quotes
“If I kept saying it; if I kept reaching out. My accident really taught me just one thing: the only way to go on is to go on. To say ‘I can do this’ even when you know you can’t.”
“A person’s memory is everything, really. Memory is identity. It’s you.”
“The only religions I don’t like are the ones that insist their God is bigger than your God.”
“Stay hungry. It worked for Michelangelo, it worked for Picasso, and it works for a hundred thousand artists who do it not for love (although that might play a part) but in order to put food on the table. If you want to translate the world, you need to use your appetites. Does this surprise you? It shouldn’t. There’s no creation without talent, I give you that, but talent is cheap. Talent goes begging. Hunger is the piston of art.”
The Narrator(s)
John Slattery. I was completely immersed and I enjoyed it very much!
My Thoughts
This is also a reread. I don’t remember anything about it except that I loved it, because although I rated it 5 stars when I first read it, I didn’t leave a review. Having read it again this time, I can totally see why I loved it the first time, and why I’m quite sure I’ll still love it when I read it again in the future.
It is such an all encompassing book for me; it evokes so many emotions, makes me feel so much, all the ups and downs. It grabbed my attention from the beginning, even though it started slow and almost felt like an easy vacation read, and then it got really intense and I couldn’t put it down. I fell in love with all the characters, but that’s no surprise because King’s characters are always so well-written.
I loved Edgar’s and Wireman’s bromance, the way they trusted each other and related to each other even from the beginning. I love the way we see Edgar’s progress from the start of the story; his struggles, his recovery, his thought processes… I love how I fell for Ilse and other people in Edgar’s life, simply through the way Edgar thinks about them. How can I not love King’s books when he gives me everything? The story is always exciting, the characters are always interesting, and all the different types of emotions are always spilling out of me! Ugh, so good!
My Rating
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.
Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?
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