Duma Key

I'm a big Stephen King fan. What can I say. I own most of his books in hardback. In my library (the fiction section) he takes up about a shelf and a half. The Stand and It are both books that I loved reading when I was younger. Both books I've yet to buy in hardback because I'm not ready to read them again (but I will be one day).

I buy his new ones immediately when they come out new and read them pretty quickly. The last couple I read haven't thrilled me all that much. In fact, I'd have to go back almost 8 years to Bag of Bones before I can remember one that I really liked. This one, Duma Key, makes the cut. But barely.


Sure, I liked it. But there were things about it that bugged me. For one thing, I know a little something about art, having studied it in college and having married an artist, and Steve takes a few too many liberties with his main character as an artist than I'm comfortable with. Nobody creates anything too vivid with colored pencils. It's just not how the medium works. Not that colored pencils don't have their place. It's just not in the Halls of Vividness.

And another thing: the "clairvoyant artist" theme seemed like a complete rip-off of the artist Isaac from Heroes, though I know that he must have written this (or at least started writing it) before Heroes was ever produced. Just one of those coincidences, but it jarred me out of my reading from time to time. I think, maybe, I would have deliberately altered the book to add some key differences between the two artists instead of leaving the trance-like painting sequences in there, but hey, that's me. Maybe Steve figures, Fuck it, I'm Stephen King, and I'm not changing my baby for nobody. (Though perhaps without the double negative.)

But my biggest gripe was the way the story ended. Or maybe the fact that it ended. Or maybe the fact that it teetered on the edge of being one of his great epics with sprawling characters and storylines all over the place, but it ended up getting sucked back into just one man's story. Supporting staff, sure, they were there, and they had a few cute little stories of their own, but it was really just about Edgar who is mauled in an accident and retires to the Florida Keys to deal with his problems and paint and stumbles on something mysterious and bigger and has to deal with it.

Fun story, but I just kept hoping that it would open up to a whole new labyrinthine plot that Edgar and his friends have to fight through. This ending was more like the shootout at the end of so many predictable movies.

I enjoyed it, sure. Don't get me wrong. And I'll recommend it to Stephen King fans. But I think I'm ready for another It or The Stand. Steve... have you got one more like that in you?