New Book - Duma Key by Stephen King

I just finished Duma Key, by Stephen King, and I loved it (I know, I'm supposed to be reading Stormfire, but I couldn't resist).

Let me say first that I love how King's eases you into the story, giving a perfectly normal background, and then introducing slowly the supernatural and horrific features. It almost takes you by surprise, when the horror springs from the pages, but King always delivers.

The story is as follows: Edgar Freemantle's life - as he knew it - ended with a terrible crane accident. The former wealthy constructor survives to find himself minus one arm, with a hurt leg, and what's worse, a hurt head that won't remember the simplest words and tends to black rages when the frustration is too high. Soon he finds himself wifeless too.

Edgar's contemplating suicide when his therapist recommends a geographical change and to resume his former hobby: drawing.

Not very convinced, Edgar finds himself in Duma Key, one of the Florida Keys. In the solitude of the island he slowly recovers his health, and makes friends with the only year-round inhabitants of the place: an elderly lady called Elizabeth, who is fighting Alzheimer, and her companion, the quick tongued Wireman. Edgar starts drawing, and he discovers he's quite good at it. More than good, actually.

And what's more strange, when he is drawing he actually feels his missing arm, and the maddening itch at his ghost limb dissapears. He can also sense things when he's drawing. And he can change things, too.

This way he learns of his ex-wife affair with a former friend, and the friend's suicidal thoughts. When a famous rapist and murdered is in danger of being set loose, he paints him without a nose and mouth and the man dies. And he helps his friend Wireman, who has a bullet in his brain that's slowly making him blind and could die, to get better.

But Edgar's gift comes with something else attached. Something that's evil and that's slowly testing Edgar. Something that impregnates the pictures he has made, and can control people.

Something that began with the baby girl Elizabeth, when she hit her head and had to draw herself into the world.

Something that had been sleeping for a long time but now has awakened... and Perse doesn't like to be challenged. Her ship of death is waiting for Edgar, and if he doesn't want to come, well, then he's going to be punished in the worst way possible... in the person that's dearest to his heart...

Edgar decided to confront Perse and put her back to sleep, with the help of his friend Wireman and his hired man-for-all, Jack Cantori. But as he goes deeper into Duma Key, and the night is quickly approaching, his final battle with Perse is going to be more complicated than he imagined...

As I said, I liked this book. I think part of it was based on King's own car accident - he recovered in Florida - and I guess some of Ed's thoughts and fears about his accident came from King's experience.

The scary twins - Tessie and Lo-Lo - reminded me of "The Shining" (the movie) and the creepy twins that were after Danny (his girlfriends, as a friend said).

And the final battle with Perse at the bottom of the tunnel had something of the last stand in "It".

If you didn't know it yet, I'm a huge Stephen King's fan. One of his Constant Readers, I guess.

Now I'm scared of rag dolls too.

By the way, my husband played in his guitar "Mr. Sandman" by Chet Atkins while I was reading this book, and now it gives me the creeps. I find it strangely adequate... a beach song for a horror book set in the Florida Keys. The sea, the beach, and the ship of the dead.