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Duma Key

2

Comments

  • jhanicjhanic
    I just received my copy of the Scribner Duma Key proof a few minutes ago.



    John
  • BevVincentBevVincent
    Mine should be here today, too.
  • BevVincentBevVincent
    Heh -- this is funny. The book has two epigraphs. The first is a line from George Santayana. Fair enough.



    The second is a song verse. The copyright page has the following attribution: Permission to use lyrics from "Dig" by Shark Puppy (R. Tozier, W. Denborough), granted by Bad Nineteen Music, copyright (C) 1986.



    Do the songwriters sound familiar? Their publishing company?
  • jhanicjhanic
    Hmmmmm.



    Those DO sound familiar!! ;D



    John
  • BevVincentBevVincent
    Not surprisingly, "shark puppy" dig and "Bad Nineteen Music" don't return any significant Google hits.
  • BevVincentBevVincent
    Duma Key: Where It All Began

    A Note from Chuck Verrill, the Longtime Editor of Stephen King



    [As seen on Amazon.com]



    In the spring of 2006 Stephen King told me he was working on a Florida story that was beginning to grow on him. "I'm thinking of calling it Duma Key," he offered. I liked the sound of that--the title was like a drumbeat of dread. "You know how Lisey's Story is a story about marriage?" he said. "Sure," I answered. The novel hadn't yet been published, but I knew its story well: Lisey and Scott Landon--what a marriage that was. Then he dropped the other shoe: "I think Duma Key might be my story of divorce."



    Pretty soon I received a slim package from a familiar address in Maine. Inside was a short story titled "Memory"--a story of divorce, all right, but set in Minnesota. By the end of the summer, when Tin House published "Memory," Stephen had completed a draft of Duma Key, and it became clear to me how "Memory" and its narrator, Edgar Freemantle, had moved from Minnesota to Florida, and how a story of divorce had turned into something more complex, more strange, and much more terrifying.



    If you read the following two texts side by side--"Memory" as it was published by Tin House and the opening chapter of Duma Key in final form--you'll see a writer at work, and how stories can both contract and expand. Whether Duma Key is an expansion of "Memory" or "Memory" a contraction of Duma Key, I can't really say. Can you?



    --Chuck Verrill


  • jhanicjhanic
    As soon as I finish reading my copy of Duma Key, I plan on comparing the two. I'm enjoying what I'm reading so far. The sense of foreboding throughout the book is something!



    John
  • BevVincentBevVincent
    I thought it was interesting how he introduces Wireman long before we meet him. He's my favorite King character since Henry Leyden in Black House! Seriously cool dude.



    I finished the book on Saturday night. I think I might turn around and read it all over again. It's a fine, fine novel. Ranks right up there with Bag of Bones.



    Drag over this block to read a small cover art spoiler:

    [I also have a better appreciation of the cover art now that I know that Edgar paints surreal Florida gulf coast sunsets with found objects hovering over them.]
  • jhanicjhanic
    I agree both on the Wireman character and the cover art spoiler. I don't know if I'd rank Wireman up there with Henry, but it is close!



    John
  • jhanicjhanic
    I just got a copy of the UK ARC of Duma Key. It appears there are only 150 numbered copies being produced. (I got #44!) It should be in my hands in a couple weeks.



    John
  • BevVincentBevVincent
    Wow -- very cool. I wonder if they number them so they can track them.
  • BevVincentBevVincent
    PW review. Mild plot spoilers:

    In bestseller King's well-crafted tale of possession and redemption, Edgar Freemantle, a successful Minnesota contractor, barely survives after the Dodge Ram he's driving collides with a 12-story crane on a job site. While Freemantle suffers the loss of an arm and a fractured skull, among other serious injuries, he makes impressive gains in rehabilitation. Personality changes that include uncontrollable rages, however, hasten the end of his 20-year-plus marriage. On his psychiatrist's advice, Freemantle decides to start anew on a remote island in the Florida Keys. To his astonishment, he becomes consumed with making art--first pencil sketches, then paintings--that soon earns him a devoted following. Freemantle's artwork has the power both to destroy life and to cure ailments, but soon the Lovecraftian menace that haunts Duma Key begins to assert itself and torment those dear to him. The transition from the initial psychological suspense to the supernatural may disappoint some, but even those few who haven't read King (Lisey's Story) should appreciate his ability to create fully realized characters and conjure horrors that are purely manmade. (Jan. 22)
  • BevVincentBevVincent
    Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

    The prolific master of psycho-horror returns to the mysteries of the creative process, a subject that has inspired some of his most haunting work.



    This could be considered a companion piece to The Shining, offering plenty of reversals on that plot. In both cases, isolation has severe effects on the psyche of an artist, yet where the former novel found its protagonist in a lethal state of writer's block, the latter sees a one-time building magnate transformed into an impossibly prolific and powerful painter, due to circumstances beyond his control. And where the isolation in the former had a family cut off from society by a frigid northern winter, the setting of the latter is a mysterious Florida key, lush and tropical in its overgrowth, somehow immune to commercial development. A self-made millionaire, Edgar Freemantle narrates the novel in a conversational, matter-of-fact tone. He explains how a job-site accident cost him his arm, his sanity (during the early part of an extended recuperation) and his wife (whom he had physically threatened after the accident transformed him into something other than himself). What he gained was a seemingly inexplicable command as a visual artist, particularly after his recuperation (from both his accident and his marriage) takes him to the isolated Duma Key, where the only other inhabitants are an elderly, wealthy woman and her caretaker. It seems that all three have suffered severe traumas that bond them and that perhaps have even drawn them together. Soon Edgar discovers that his art has given him the power not only to predict the future, but to transform it. He ultimately pays a steep price for his artistic gifts, particularly as his investigation of the mysteries of Duma Key lead him to discover the tragic origins of his artistic vision.



    Edgar's own story in the present is more compelling than the revelations of the key's past, and the novel might have been twice as powerful if it had been cut by a third, but King fans will find it engrossing.
  • Lou_SytsmaLou_Sytsma
    OK - I'm getting very stoked for this. Sounds like an excellent read.
  • BevVincentBevVincent
    Here's an audio excerpt
  • BevVincentBevVincent
    I received my hardcover copy of Duma Key from Scribner last night. It's a much heftier volume than I was expecting. I knew the book was reasonably long but the finished product is massive compared to the ARC.
  • notdarkyetnotdarkyet
    just got mine today. i don't anticipate finishing it anytime soon - unfortunately, i don't have as much time to read as i'd like these days.



    -justin
  • jhanicjhanic
    I just got my UK proof of Duma Key (#44/150). It's larger in size that the US version, and the page count is 583 compared to the US 611.



    John
  • BevVincentBevVincent
    Check out the video trailer for Duma Key, being released January 22, 2008.



    Dial Up | Cable /DSL / Fiber


  • jhanicjhanic
    I LOVE THAT TRAILER!!



    John
  • Lou_SytsmaLou_Sytsma
    Can't wait. 11 days to go.
  • BevVincentBevVincent
    Parts of the trailer make me think of LOST for some reason!
  • Lou_SytsmaLou_Sytsma
    Good call! It does invoke the same type of imagery, doesn't it?
  • BevVincentBevVincent
    There are no screenwriter pickets in Maine, but about 25 Mainers are part of the national strike.



    more stories like thisMost members of the Writers Guild of America toil in relative obscurity in Maine. For instance, Kelli Pryor of Windham, isn't well known in her home state even though two of her films were produced for television last year. One of them, "More of Me," was a Lifetime Channel comedy starring former "Saturday Night Live" star Molly Shannon.



    Others are well known, like "Empire Falls" author Richard Russo. Russo will travel from his Camden home to New York City this week to join picket.



    Stephen King, a former Guild member, supports the striking writers and is refusing to promote his latest book, "Duma Key," on television talk shows.
  • jhanicjhanic
    I also support the writers, but I am a bit disappointed that King will not be promoting Duma Key. I do understand, though.



    John
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