Misery: King Stephen
£9.60£10.40 (-8%)
One of the true classics of psychological suspense, about a writer and his No. 1 fan, now with a stunning new cover look.
Paul Sheldon used to write for a living. Now he’s writing to stay alive.
Misery Chastain is dead. Paul Sheldon has just killed her – with relief, with joy. Misery made him rich; she was the heroine of a string of bestsellers. And now he wants to get on to some real writing.
That’s when the car accident happens, and he wakes up splinted and in pain, in the remote mountain home of his rescuer, Annie Wilkes.
The good news is that Annie was a nurse and has pain-killing drugs. The bad news is that she has long been Paul’s Number One Fan. And when she finds out what Paul has done to Misery, she doesn’t like it. She doesn’t like it at all . . .
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Additional information
| Publisher | Hodder Paperbacks, 1st edition (31 May 2007) |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Paperback | 384 pages |
| ISBN-10 | 1473662079 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-1473662070 |
| Dimensions | 12.8 x 2.8 x 19.6 cm |
by Amazon Customer
It’s a good story
by Michael X Smith
Great book
Can’t go wrong with Stephen king if you want psychological terror !
by Darren
I picked this up after not reading any books for probably 10+ years other than academic readings. At first I was really enjoying it but as i got further into it my interest started to decline especially during the sections where you’re made to read his ‘Misery’ book.
Overall really good story but as someone looking to get back into reading I would maybe recommend something different unless you’re really into that sort of story.
by David C.
I read Misery a long time ago in paperback but got it on my kindle and what a re-read it was shocking and also so sad I must say you can’t beat these stories by Stephen king he’s just brilliant I think I’m going to look for another of his old books definitely recommend
by Alyssia Cooke
Many readers or would-be readers of Misery will already know the book from the excellent 1990 film adaptation starring James Caan and Kathy Bates. Misery takes a familiar Gothic story of kidnap and imprisonment, traditionally of a vulnerable female by a powerful male, and reverses the gender roles. When the drunk writer, Paul Sheldon, crashes his car in a remote area of Colorado, he is rescued by the psychotic, serial-killer ex-nurse, Annie Wilkes, his self-declared number-one fan. She keeps him prisoner and, like some demonic muse, forces him to write a book for her starring Paul’s creation, her favourite literary character Misery Chastain.
King fans will already recognise a parallel with the writer’s own experience, described in his book On Writing, where he details his struggles to write after a horrendous road accident. In fact, as the picture of a typewriter on the front cover of the paperback edition suggests, the real subject of Misery is writing, its sources and influences, its techniques, the creative process and importance of story, for King the primary literary value, and the role of readers and critics. There is a parallel here with The Usual Suspects, ostensibly a heist movie, really about the power of storytelling. Misery is an exploration of these issues, focussed by the intense situation in which Paul writes. Ultimately, the struggle for survival, with Paul as Scherezade telling a story to prolong or maybe even save his life, is a writing contest: Who will write the ending of Misery, Paul Sheldon or Annie Wilkes?
Throughout, tension is maintained by the increasing extremism of Annie’s behaviour, which includes cutting off parts of her prisoner’s body, a symbolic castration, and by Paul’s growing desperation and determination to survive. Events climax in a graphically bloody duel between the two main characters, with an ending where what survives all the misery and mess is the writer’s instinct and its imperative to create story.
Misery is an intelligent and highly readable addition to the Gothic genre, a book which successfully adapts a standard scenario for both an exciting story of physical and psychological intensity, and a homage to the centrality of reading and writing to human identity.
by tina
Boy is this one a weird one. A darkly frightening read, but engrossing all the same. There’s nothing supernatural here; it is simply about the darkest and most nightmarish aspects of the human constitution. It’s a very closely centred novel, focusing nearly entirely on one room of a house and two characters, yet the undeniable malice lurking behind even the most innocuous of pages ensures that it never becomes tedious or boring. Admittedly, the most innocuous writing is never that far away from something ghoulishly horror stricken, which also serves to provide a layer of tension and malice throughout.
The characters are undeniably well done; Stephen King writes a fantastically frightening insane character in Annie and how her personality veers and shifts in unpredictable ways. Paul Sheldon is more of a gradual character development as his personality is warped by the situation he finds himself in. The absurdity of the situation is undeniable, but the issue is that you can imagine someone who is quite as far gone as Annie behaving in such a manic and unpredictable fashion. From Paul’s perspective, kept in captivity with someone who has no issues whatsoever with punishing him via grievous bodily harm and doesn’t seem to see that what she is doing is wrong, his motivations and his personality changes in response.
This is gritty, dark and gruesome and it kept me guessing all the way up until the last few pages. There were several moments within the novel that made my stomach churn, more still that I had to read two or three times in order to truly grasp that this truly happened. The depictions of the pain and agony that Paul is made to go through are stunning in how realistic they are, from the shock and confusion of the initial accident to the grinding despair of everything that comes after it. You also see quite well just how the captive relationship subtly changes as you go through the novel and the impact this has on Paul’s psychological state.
You could never say this is an easy read, it most certainly isn’t. Indeed at points it comes across as actively grim and hard work at points – many points in fact. But it’s worth the effort. It’s excellently written and even if it isn’t my usual cup of tea, I have to admit that the way Stephen King has done this book is expert. Am I likely to read it again? Probably not. But I’m glad I read it.
by tina
It’s a good book, and alot of difference from the movie. But there were a few pages that were hard to read because of ink blotches.