Duma Key: A Novel

Author - Stephen King ... [Goo?] [Posters]

This Hardcover Book item from Scribner was reviewed on 4-Oct-2008.

Search ISBN:1416552510 offer from Abebooks or used books from Alibris. Duma Key: A Novel Reference Book. Classifications : General King, Stephen ( K ) Authors, A-Z Literature & Fiction Subjects Books Hardcover King, Stephen ( K ) Authors, A-Z Literature & Fiction Subjects Books Occult Horror Genre Fiction Literature & Fic . Click the following link to view the cover of Duma Key: A Novel.

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1) Hardcover Book Duma Key: A Novel by Scribner. Edgar Freemantle has suffered a horrible accident: he lost his right arm, and took a pretty good knock on the head. Now he´s subject to fits of rage, and his memory is shaky. His two kids are away at college; his wife decides she can´t handle him like this and leaves. What else is a man in his position (and with his wealth) to do but move to God´s Waiting Room?

Down in Florida, Edgar finds himself renting a luxurious house on Duma Key, a privately owned island cut off from the tourist crowds. He befriends his neighbors: Wireman, a witty Farmer´s Almanac type guy who throws out bits of knowledge like popcorn in a movie theater; and Elizabeth, an elderly woman slowly losing her mind...who also happens to have a dark secret that even SHE isn´t fully aware of. In this new paradise, Edgar begins to paint...only his paintins are good, REAL good, too good for someone who just picked up a brush. And they tell him things, things he couldn´t possibly know. As the painting begins to consume him, as he gains new knowledge of Duma Key´s history, Edgar begins to suspect he was DRAWN to Duma Key, that something wants him here...and wants to keep him here, too. Forever.

"Duma Key" isn´t truly scary, at least not until the final third (when, yes, you´ll be checking over your shoulder for sand-covered ghosts; think of that sketch with Leslie Nielsen from King´s "Creepshow" film). It IS, however, a good character study--Edgar´s storytelling (and King´s prose) is right-on-the-money. "Duma Key" isn´t really a horror novel, it´s more a psychological thriller. You won´t get quite as caught up in it as Edgar does with his painting, but the novel is superbly written, and you´ll definitely be left wanting just a little bit more--as is always the case, in King´s novels. That´s probably why the guy´s managed to sell so many books. That, and pure talent. That´s a factor.¤

2) Hardcover Book Duma Key: A Novel by Scribner. I AM ONLY 1/4 THROUGH AT THIS POINT BUT DUMA KEY IS A FASCINATING CHARACTER TALE WITH A HINT OF MYSTICISM. THE PLAYERS ARE INTERESTING AND LIKEABLE PEOPLE AND THE STORY, LIKE MOBY DICK CAN BE SEEN AND ANALYZED ON MANY LEVELS REGARDING THE HUMAN CONDITION, FINDING OUR TRUE SELVES, OUR GIFTS, OUR JOYS OUR CAPACITY TO DEAL WITH TRADGEDY, AND TO HEAL. ITS AN UPLIFTING AND BEAUTIFUL STORY. 4 STARS IS FOR THE WRITING WHICH IS KINGS STYLE A BIT SLOW MOVING AND QUIRKY GOING IN STRANGE DIRECTIONS AT TIMES BUT OVERALL AN ENJOYABLE READ¤

3) Hardcover Book Duma Key: A Novel by Scribner. It´s a Stephen King novel. Whaddya want?

Yes, it has strong characterization. Particularly if you, like the author, are a stereotypical child of the 1960s, complete with fascination for pedestrian radio rock music and a romantic loathing of all things right wing (both of which manifest themselves numerously, irrelevantly, and/or cartoonishly in Duma Key).

Yes, it is scary. Particularly if you´re the kind of person who doesn´t have the sense to pack up and get the hell out of dodge once a couple of dead kids pop into your rental home for an evening visit. (I immediately thought of Eddie Murphy´s "why don´t white people leave the house when a ghost appears" bit in Delirious.)

Yes, it has some sweet dialogue. Especially if you´re into abundant affectations of everyday Spanish ("muchacho," "maybe si, maybe no") and French ("a gift, un cadeau").

I will say that Pam Freemantle is very well written. As a woman who offers the occasional emotional and spiritual comforts, but who turns into a force of bitter and protracted anger, indignation, and reproach when the going gets rough, she rings true. Nice work there, Stephen.

Also, it really sucked when you-know-who got clubbed and drowned by you-know-who-else. I felt that (thanks largely to Pam´s great, utterly vitriolic reaction). Again, thumbs up, Stephen.

Overall, though, a waste. Demon frogs and evil dolls, LOL!¤

4) Hardcover Book Duma Key: A Novel by Scribner. I´m a King fan but lets face it all the stuff he has written has not been up to his GOOD work. Duma Key should go down as one of his better than GOOD work. Character development, plot and conclusion all work together like a symphony. This book has a BIG story to tell and it´s not a short story. I was all INTO it from start to finish. You will not be disappointed in this book.¤

5) Hardcover Book Duma Key: A Novel by Scribner. You can say that Duma Key is not the best book of Mr King but I can tell you that it is a very nice book to read.
As a constant reader of my favourite author I can say that it is another good joyride you are going through.
The first half is the best. The ending is not good enough but....it´s Stephen King. So enjoy it.¤

6) Hardcover Book Duma Key: A Novel by Scribner.

A terrible 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. When his marriage suddenly ends, Edgar begins to wish he hadn´t survived his injuries. He wants out. His psychologist suggests a new life distant from the Twin Cities, along with something else:

Edgar leaves for Duma Key, an eerily undeveloped splinter of the Florida coast. The sun setting into the Gulf of Mexico calls out to him, and Edgar draws. Once he meets Elizabeth Eastlake, a sick old woman with roots tangled deep in Duma Key, Edgar begins to paint, sometimes feverishly; 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.¤

7) Hardcover Book Duma Key: A Novel by Scribner. Amazon Significant Seven, January 2008: It would be impossible to convey the wonder and the horror of Stephen King´s latest novel in just a few words. Suffice it to say that Duma Key, the story of Edgar Freemantle and his recovery from the terrible nightmare-inducing accident that stole his arm and ended his marriage, is Stephen King´s most brilliant novel to date (outside of the Dark Tower novels, in which case each is arguably his best work). Duma Key is as rich and rewarding as Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption (yes, that Shawshank Redemption), and as truly scary as anything King has written (and that´s saying a lot). Readers who have "always wanted to try Stephen King" but never known where to start should try a few pages of Duma Key--the frankness with which Edgar reveals his desperate, sputtering rages and thoughts of suicide is King at the top of his game. And that´s just the first thirty pages... --Daphne Durham

Duma Key: Where It All Began
A Note from Chuck Verrill, the Longtime Editor of Stephen King
In the spring of 2006 Stephen King told me he was working on a Florida story that was beginning to grow on him. "I´m thinking of calling it Duma Key," he offered. I liked the sound of that--the title was like a drumbeat of dread. "You know how Lisey´s Story is a story about marriage?" he said. "Sure," I answered. The novel hadn´t yet been published, but I knew its story well: Lisey and Scott Landon--what a marriage that was. Then he dropped the other shoe: "I think Duma Key might be my story of divorce."

Pretty soon I received a slim package from a familiar address in Maine. Inside was a short story titled "Memory"--a story of divorce, all right, but set in Minnesota. By the end of the summer, when Tin House published "Memory," Stephen had completed a draft of Duma Key, and it became clear to me how "Memory" and its narrator, Edgar Freemantle, had moved from Minnesota to Florida, and how a story of divorce had turned into something more complex, more strange, and much more terrifying.

If you read the following two texts side by side--"Memory" as it was published by Tin House and the opening chapter of Duma Key in final form--you´ll see a writer at work, and how stories can both contract and expand. Whether Duma Key is an expansion of "Memory" or "Memory" a contraction of Duma Key, I can´t really say. Can you?

--Chuck Verrill

"Memory" Memories are contrary things; if you quit chasing them and turn your back, they often return on their own. That´s what Kamen says. I tell him I never chased the memory of my accident. Some things, I say, are better forgotten. Maybe, but that doesn’t matter, either. That´s what Kamen says. My name is Edgar Freemantle. I used to be a big deal in building and construction. This was in Minnesota, in my other life. I was a genuine American-boy success in that life, worked my way up like a motherf---er, and for me, everything worked out. When Minneapolis–St. Paul boomed, The Freemantle Company boomed. When things tightened up, I never tried to force things. But I played my hunches, and most of them played out well. By the time I was fifty, Pam and I were worth about forty million dollars. And what we had together still worked. I looked at other women from time to time but never strayed. At the end of our particular Golden Age, one of our girls was at Brown and the other was teaching in a foreign exchange program. Just before things went wrong, my wife and I were planning to go and visit her. I had an accident at a job site. That´s what happened. I was in my pickup truck. The right side of my skull was crushed. My ribs were broken. My right hip was shattered. And although I retained sixty percent of the sight in my right eye (more, on a good day), I lost almost all of my right arm. I was supposed to lose my life, but I didn’t. Then I was supposed to become one of the Vegetable Simpsons, a Coma Homer, but that didn´t happen, either. I was one confused American when I came around, but the worst of that passed. By the time it did, my wife had passed, too. She´s remarried to a fellow who owns bowling alleys. My older daughter likes him. My younger daughter thinks he’s a yank-off. My wife says she’ll come around. Maybe sí, maybe no. That´s what Kamen says. When I say I was confused, I mean that at first I didn’t know who people were, or what had happened, or why I was in such awful pain. I can´t remember the quality and pitch of that pain now. I know it was excruciating, but it´s all pretty academic. Like a picture of a mountain in National Geographic magazine. It wasn’t academic at the time. At the time it was more like climbing a mountain. Continue Reading "Memory"

Duma Key How to Draw a Picture Start with a blank surface. It doesn´t have to be paper or canvas, but I feel it should be white. We call it white because we need a word, but its true name is nothing. Black is the absence of light, but white is the absence of memory, the color of can´t remember. How do we remember to remember? That´s a question I´ve asked myself often since my time on Duma Key, often in the small hours of the morning, looking up into the absence of light, remembering absent friends. Sometimes in those little hours I think about the horizon. You have to establish the horizon. You have to mark the white. A simple enough act, you might say, but any act that re-makes the world is heroic. Or so I’ve come to believe. Imagine a little girl, hardly more than a baby. She fell from a carriage almost ninety years ago, struck her head on a stone, and forgot everything. Not just her name; everything! And then one day she recalled just enough to pick up a pencil and make that first hesitant mark across the white. A horizon-line, sure. But also a slot for blackness to pour through. Still, imagine that small hand lifting the pencil... hesitating... and then marking the white. Imagine the courage of that first effort to re-establish the world by picturing it. I will always love that little girl, in spite of all she has cost me. I must. I have no choice. Pictures are magic, as you know. My Other Life My name is Edgar Freemantle. I used to be a big deal in the building and contracting business. This was in Minnesota, in my other life. I learned that my-other-life thing from Wireman. I want to tell you about Wireman, but first let´s get through the Minnesota part. Gotta say it: I was a genuine American-boy success there. Worked my way up in the company where I started, and when I couldn’t work my way any higher there, I went out and started my own. The boss of the company I left laughed at me, said I´d be broke in a year. I think that´s what most bosses say when some hot young pocket-rocket goes off on his own. For me, everything worked out. When Minneapolis–St. Paul boomed, The Freemantle Company boomed. When things tightened up, I never tried to play big. But I did play my hunches, and most played out well. By the time I was fifty, Pam and I were worth forty million dollars. And we were still tight. We had two girls, and at the end of our particular Golden Age, Ilse was at Brown and Melinda was teaching in France, as part of a foreign exchange program. At the time things went wrong, my wife and I were planning to go and visit her. Continue Reading Duma Key

More from Stephen King

Blaze

Lisey´s Story

The Mist

Cell

The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born

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