by Jay Wilburn
The plan is to reread all of Stephen King’s works in the order that they were published. Richard Chizmar of Cemetery Dance had the vision. I’m doing it because I am a writer and I want to improve my fiction. And I love Stephen King’s stories. I think there is something to be learned through this process.
You can also go back to the beginning and read Before Carrie or any of my other posts up through this one and beyond by checking out this link to the Master List of all my #StephenKingRevisited posts.
You’re not anyone. You’re just made of moonlight.
The inside cover of my copy of the novel is all yellowed and stiff like the whites of Gerald’s eyes. There’s an eclipse map of Maine from July 20, 1963 in the front of Gerald’s Game with a few of King’s imaginary towns listed. For some people, the sun went out that day and never came back on.
The story opens with our heroine already captive physically, mentally, emotionally, and maybe spiritually, too. They really should have come up with some safe words.
Gerald’s window’s peak haunts me. I remember that detail spearheading the horrors that were to come. The physical reaction describe after Gerald is kicked is so good. It sticks in my mind from my first reading of the novel.
Kreig is the only lock company Stephen King knows. He even gets his police issue handcuffs from there.
“Men are not so much gifted with penises as cursed with them.”
1979, a year that once seemed like science fiction, one character muses, but now seemed impossibly antique.
Jessie’s and Gerald’s model of Mercedes didn’t have an airbag system yet, although they were common enough by ’91 and ’92 that King mentioned the exclusion specifically.
“Teeth buried to the gum line” is King’s new phrase that keeps coming up in novels when one thing bites another hard and deep.
The dog scenes are rough, but still not the roughest dog scenes I’ve read in horror over the years.
A big theme in this story that is played out well is that of characters convincing themselves of a reality they on some level specifically know not to be true. It ends up being an interesting and unique exploration of the idea of delusion, often wrapped in trauma.
The abuse reveal in this book is one I remembered, but I had associated it with the novel Dolores Claiborne.
“He had been able to face her with his lies. It was the truth that finally made him look away.” Wretched stuff, so well written.
The idea I thought of for escape was addressed and dispelled on pages 263 and 264 of the paperback.
The space cowboy is called the outsider and “the outside” at one point. This term lingers in Stephen King’s works over a long stretch of what I have read recently. It eventually becomes a novel title later in his writing career.
Jessie’s rambling thoughts touched on The Brady Bunch TV show. By coincidence, this happened at the exact moment my family started watching an episode out of nowhere on one of the streaming services.
She went greasy and moved along earlier in the novel than I remembered. It left me wondering if I remembered the ending as well as I thought I did. The story is essentially done on page 374, but continues to page 445. There were a lot of pages of closure, including a detailed side story on the space cowboy. I wondered if King was tempted to write a novel about that figure and these last pages were part of exorcising that demon. I’m still a sucker for King’s too long sidebars and tangents. I’ll enjoy them every time probably.
There’s a new sheriff in Castle Rock. The space cowboy sidebar takes us back there. Technically, Gerald’s Game is not a Castle Rock story, but King can’t help himself to peek in on the town after the fire from Needful Things, his “final” Castle Rock story. Sheriff Norris Ridgewick and Deputy John LaPointe stake out a graveyard to catch the space cowboy. I believe this is the oft visited backwoods Homewood Cemetery. It’s good to see Castle Rock is still hanging in there after everything. Not a nice place to visit or to live, if you’re paying attention.
Eventually, you’ve got to turn back on the sun.
Sometimes you’ve got to go greasy.
My next post in this series will be Before Dolores Claiborne which will be linked on the Master List of all my Stephen King Revisited posts.
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