Misery

June 1, 1987
King's new novel, about a writer held hostage by his self-proclaimed "number-one fan,'' is unadulteratedly terrifying. Paul Sheldon, a writer of historical romances, is in a car accident; rescued by nurse Annie Wilkes, he slowly realizes that salvation can be worse than death. Sheldon has killed off Misery Chastain, the popular protagonist of his Misery series and Annie, who has a murderous past, wants her back. Keeping the paralyzed Sheldon prisoner, she forces him to revive the character in a continuation of the series, and she reads each page as it comes out of the typewriter; there is a joyously Dickensian novel within a novel here, and it appears in faded typescript. Studded among the frightening moments are sparkling reflections on the writer and his audience, on the difficulties, joys and responsibilities of being a storyteller, on the nature of the muse, on the differences between ``serious'' and ``popular'' writing. Sheldon is a revealingly autobiographical figure; Annie is not merely a monster but is subtly and often touchingly portrayed, allowing hostage and keeper a believable, if twisted, relationship. The best parts of this novel demand that we take King seriously as a writer with a deeply felt understanding of human psychology. One million first printing; $400,000 ad/promo; BOMC main selection.

anth - Misery is about a man named Paul Sheldon who is the author of an enormously successful series of books centered on a character named Misery. He is being held captive by a woman named Annie Wilkes who claims to be his number 1 fan. She found him after he got in a car accident and has is holding him at her house. Because of the accident, Paul’s legs are shattered, which is why he has difficulty escaping. This book is a very interesting because of how information is presented to you; in the beginning, you do not know much, but everything is explained to you slowly. However, I did not really find this book scary, and since this is supposed one of Stephen King’s horror books, I found this to be strange. One interesting thing I found out about this book is that part of it is based off of a real life problem Mr King faced when his book “The Eyes of the Dragon” was rejected by his fans because it was not horror. This inspired him to write Misery. I feel that this makes the book more interesting when you know this, because you can draw parallels between the real life inspiration and the book. I would like to mention, however, that this book should be read by people from 8th grade and up, because this book has a lot of profanity. I give this book a 4.75 out of 5, because it is a great book, but it wasn’t as scary as I thought it would be.