Duma Key: A Novel

I hadn't read a Stephen King novel since "The Shining" about thirty years ago, so I decided to try one of his recent works. Hence "Duma Key." First of all, the book was very long, with 600+ pages, and I thought it was too long. The story would have been much better at 400 pages. It's a fairly good story, but it takes two-thirds of the book before you start solving the mystery of Duma Key. I thought the mystery of "Perse" was fairly silly, and it reminded me of some of the old "Outer Limits" shows on TV. So I'm giving it three stars - not bad but not very memorable either.

What I like most about King's work is that there is no preset formula (however Bag of Bones comes close). In this case, he creates a hero who is likable but not without faults, arms him with a rag tag team of supporters and pits them against a terrifying antagonist (with its own set of supporters) and then allows the two groups to do their stuff. A fun and entertaining read highly recommended.

First off, let me preface this review with the assurance that I LOVE Stephen King's books. I love his effortless way of writing. I love his characters and the weird warp of his stories. Now, having said that, I have to say this story isn't going on my top-favorites from King. I personally felt he could have taken more chances with the main character, thrown a little more "OH HOLY $--t!" moments at us. Don't get me wrong, there were many moments that teetered on that for me, but not like, well, The Shining, for example. That book had me so wrapped up in terror, it was hard for me to breathe without scaring the bejeesus out of myself. But Duma Key is a more mature work, and had I not had anything from King's vast library of horror to compare it to, it would have been a solid 4 stars. As it is, the bar is raised higher for me for Mr. King and this one rated a 3.5 (altho the rating system only let me rate whole numbers). It was a good, enjoyable adventure. But as far as "in-your-face" horror a la King, it felt more like a combination of his scary stories and his mainstream fiction stories. It was a nice combo, just not what I *personally* was looking for when I read this book.

If you have read alot of Stephen King novels, there are several recurring elements -- a grand emerging horror and a group of people who come together to fight the horror. The people are given enigmatic clues about the horror and have to overcome their own demons (often magnified by the horror) to fight it. King will then deftly weave several elements of pop culture, grand ideas (in this case art and memory) and a "stock" horror item -- in this case ghost ships and old Gods. There will be alot of excitement and you won't know who lives and who dies until the very end. Another common King element is here as well -- the person who knows alot but has trouble communicating it -- the mentally handicapped have been key figures in past novels -- in this novel, the person who holds all the keys is a woman falling into the insidious grasp of Alzheimer's.

Like most of King's work, the novel keeps you well engaged despite the corny dialogue between the main characters (King needs to get out more) and the occasional Keillor like foray into awkwardly explicit political commentary about the current President or pop culture (King's Boomer rock band name dropping can be tiresome).

Still, and I apologize for this odd metaphor for a horror novelist in advance: King is like an old blanket -- you know exactly what it will feel like but you want to curl up in it each night anyway.

After some deceptive pieces of work (Lisey's story, Cell...) SK gets back to real writing and makes the work done.

Duma Key is well built and innovative, with fresh ideas and, most importantly, the hypnotic way of involving the reader that only the best books of him do have.

I did appreciate very much the language, returned to usual heights of descriptive capability, and the very interesting excursion in the world of oniric painting and the consequences of a deep brain trauma on dormient capabilities.

Well done, original and entirely enjoiable. Just a step under masterpieces like "IT" and "The Langoliers", but a short step.