Misery

Written by Stephen King and now made into a film starring James Caan and Kathy Bates, Misery has to be one of the most thrilling and sinister books that I have ever read. I cannot believe that it has taken me this long to discover the genius of Stephen King! Where the hell have I been?! 

Misery Chastain, Paul Sheldon’s fictional heroine who stars in his string of bestsellers, is dead. He had finally killed her so that he could do some real writing. That’s when the car accident happens. Paul wakes up in excruciating pain in a strange bed. But it isn’t a hospital. It’s the guest room of Annie Wilkes who has pulled him from the wreck, brought him to her remote mountain home, and splinted his mangled legs. The good news for Paul is that Annie was a nurse and, as such, has a marvellous stash of high-power painkillers. The bad news is that she is a bit unhinged and has long been Paul’s Number One Fan. So when she finds out what Paul has done to Misery, her favourite heroine, she doesn’t like it… not one bit. Now, Paul must write another book, one where he brings Misery back to life. Or else… 

Stephen King is a genus, a new author to add to my List of Favourites. Written in the third person, Misery is a wonderful thriller that explores the more fragile and side of the human psyche. We have a heroine who is also a villainess, a very interesting flip of the plot to be sure, who is mentally unhinged and, as such, very unpredictable and dangerous. We then have the hero, Paul Sheldon, who spends the duration of the book being the helpless victim, finding solace and escape in resurrecting a character that he could not wait to destroy (now there’s a bit of irony for you), and finally going a bit mad himself in the process. It’s one of the few stories that really shows us what emotions and parts of our brain are affected by our circumstances; in this case it’s the combination of pain from his legs, fear of his host, and the isolation of his prison that causes Paul to occasionally fight against, but mostly to collapse under the weight of his predicament. I mean, if you were kept a prisoner with broken legs in a house in the middle of nowhere, with no contact with the outside world and a murderous psycho in the next room for a great length of time, you’d go a little insane too right?  

What I think I really loved about this book was the fact that it begins with the wreck. There is no bland and annoying chapter of introduction to the hero and what he does and such, it hones right in and begins with the drama, hooking the reader from page one. This book, the first Stephen King book I’ve read as of yet, was also the first book that was written vividly enough to give me nightmares. I have never read a book that has had an effect on me like that! It’s brilliant! 

Filled with gore, murder, violence, writing, a sick love, a pig, snow, and bleak mountain surroundings, Misery is a fabulous book that I simply could not put down. With only intermittent bouts of reading that I could afford, I finished it in less than a five days; if I had a day off and spent that entire day reading, I would have got it finished. It’s that good! I loved it!