Broken in more ways than one, Edgar contemplates suicide, until his therapist asks him if there are any creative outlets he can use to build up “hedges against the night.”Įdgar immediately thinks of sketching. In the early stages of his against-all-odds recovery, Edgar is physically and verbally abusive to his wife Pam, who divorces him. This is the story of Edgar Freemantle, a successful Minnesota developer whose entire existence is upended by a horrifying construction site accident, which claims his right arm and rattles his brain to the point where he has trouble finding the right words for things. In Duma Key, this entity is definitely not something we would call God. Someone is going to pull me one way or the other pretty soon.”Įight years later, the author completed a novel seemingly inspired from that realization, giving shape to that entity whose unseen hand has the power to pull us back from the brink, or push us off a cliff. “… as I lie in the helicopter looking out at the bright blue summer sky, I realize that I am actually lying in death’s doorway. In his 2000 memoir/manual On Writing, King describes being helicoptered to the hospital in Lewiston, a ride during which one of his lungs collapsed: King smashed into the windshield, flew 14 feet into the air and landed on the pavement, breaking his leg in nine places. While walking against traffic on Route 5, a van swerved directly in his path. It was a decision that almost cost him his life. He was planning on taking everyone to the movies that evening, but figured he still had enough time for his daily four-mile walk.

On June 19, 1999, Stephen King was staying at his camp in Western Maine, enjoying a bit of a family reunion on the lake. For this installment, I packed up my shorts, sandals and ghost pirate repellent and cracked open his 2008 novel Duma Key.

When I moved to Stephen King’s home state of Maine, I thought it would be fun (if a bit cliché) to finally read his books in earnest, and discover how I really feel about his work.

Duma key paintings