Stephen King review/rant #1

Along with my love of horror movies, I also love horror literature, especially Stephen King. So, from time to time, I will review the books of his that I am reading and just rant about his awesomeness as an author and a person. Today, it will be a review of the book Misery. I just finished the book yesterday and it was pretty incredible. It takes the completely natural fear that so many people have of being trapped or kidnapped. I think the most frightening thing about the book is the way that King captures Annie's plummet into the depths of her insanity. It is clear from the beginning that Annie isn't right in the head. She found her favorite author dying on the side of the road and instead of calling an ambulance she brought him back to her house and nursed him back to relative health without telling anyone. There are moments that Annie just blanks out mid sentence for minutes at a time and comes back to the real world as if she hasn't missed a beat. When Paul asks for different paper for the typewrite, Annie goes berserk and smashes his already destroyed knee before leaving him for over two days without any food, water or medication. He breaks out of his room to get medication and water. When she leaves again he finds a scrap book called "Memory Lane" that chronicles the killings that she has committed since the age of 11. All in all, she has killed over 30 people, culminating in a stint of infant killings at the hospital where she was the head maternity nurse that lead the media to call her the Dragon Lady.

When Annie finds out about the times Paul has left the room, she "hobbles" him by cutting off his left foot with an ax. A process that she goes calmly through. A little while later, when Paul complains about the missing "n" on the typewriter, Annie cuts off his left thumb with an electric knife. Annie kills a police officer and plans to kill Paul and herself once he finishes the novel and she has ready it. Paul is able to escape by pretending to burn the novel and killing Annie. Afterward, he keeps seeing Annie everywhere, but is always able to blink it away. The depth to which King describes this descent into complete insanity sticks with you long afterward. There were moments when I had to put the book down because the impending actions were too much for me to handle all at once. This is another King achievement that is scary in the way that makes most horror movies successful, it operates in a real of extreme reality that is all to easy to imagine happening in everyday life.