Gerald's Game [Hardcover]

Story: As the novel opens, we meet timid Housewife Jessie Burlingame, who is still haunted by an accident from the past, and her husband, Gerald Burlingame, the curious husband who has a slight heart problem. Both of them are vacationing at their Lake House when Gerald decides to pull out his handcuffs and test them out on Jessie. Jessie is then handcuffed to both of the bedposts, with only 6 inches of armroom allowed. With Jessie still locked up and the keys all the way across the room, Gerald suffers a fatal heart attack, leaving Jessie hopelessly handcuffed with no way to get out of the bed. As time passes, Gerald's body starts looking pretty scrumptious to a hungry stray, who ventures into the house and starts turning Gerald into Dogfood. All the while Jessie valiantly tries to get a water glass full of water off the shelf that is just barely out of her reach, but she has to try or else she fears she may just go insane. As her hunger and thirst deepens, Jessie begins having recurring dreams about her disturbing childhood that is tarnished by the memory of her father abusing her as a child. As she learns to deal with her inner demons, she soon notices demons aren't only in her dreams, but in the corner of her bedroom. A gaunt shadow stands there watching her throughout the night, and she realizes to her dismay the shadow is real. The only way Jessie can get out of her predicament is to overcome her inner demons and and try not to go mad, while at the same time she must figure out a way to get out of her impenetrable stronghold with all of her options gone except for an empty glass on the bedstand. Jessie learns to overcome fear and herself in the ultimate battle for survival.

Writing: Stephen King constantly amazes me at his always changing and everdevoloping writing styles, and with Gerald's Game, he once again he has done it. Although not as descriptive as say Cujo or The Shining, Gerald's Game describes things beautifully through similes and metaphors that are well-crafted and thought-out. What really amazes me about the writing is the relentlessness of the plot and how he sounds like the Camp Counselor telling ghost stories around the fire, increasing the tension and making you gasp once or twice for good measure. Stephen King is definitely writing in his "I Want to Tell You A Story" mode, never letting the plot lag and the story get muddled with needless subplots that have no basis. GREAT!

I know that I was not the only one who started reading "Gerald's Game" and was surprised to find out that it was really about what it appeared to be about. The Burlingames, Gerald and Jessie, own a summer house in Maine and one weekend in October they head up there for some rest and relaxation. The problem is that the relaxation has to do with Gerald handcuffing Jessie's arms to the bedposts. The game is about to go too far, and then it does, in a decidedly different direction that forces the reader to wonder what they would do in the deadly situation in which Jessie finds herself.

There was an idea when "Gerald's Game" game out that it was his own weird little version of "No Exit." I was reminded of one of King's short stories, "Survivor Type" (in "Skeleton Crew"), where a doctor ends up on a desert island with a bag of cocaine and a knife and starts lopping off body parts to survive. But that was just driving a weird little idea into the ground and "Gerald's Game" gets into the psychology of Jessie in a situation of extreme stress. However, there is a sense in which King does go too far in this novel, and that is with the Raymond Andrew Joubart subplot. I do not mean to suggest that King goes beyond the bounds of good taste with this subplot, but rather that it is unnecessary. This is often a concern that I have with many of King's novels during this period, where his imaginative is such that he often throws too much into the mix and has occasion for us to be thinking less is more.

Of his "mainstream" novels (which would exclude the Dark Tower volumes, his collaboration with Peter Straub, and the fantasy tale "Eyes of the Dragon"), you will find that "Gerald's Game" was the first not to be adapted to the screen. I mention this only because I was rather surprised nobody could come up with a creative way of solving the novel's cinematic problems, although for all I know it could have been that King did not sell the rights to this one. I would not know because I have been out of the loop on everything King has been up to in recent year.

If you are into psycological horror, and are not bothered by the sexual content, then give this one a try. Chau.