Stephen King

Duma Key

From the Flap:

NO MORE THAN A DARK PENCIL LINE ON A BLANK PAGE. A HORIZON LINE, MAYBE, BUT ALSO A SLOT FOR BLACKNESS TO POUR THROUGH . . .    

A terrible construction site accident takes Edgar Freemantle's right arm and scrambles his memory and his mind, leaving him with little but rage as he begins the ordeal of rehabilitation. A marriage that produced two lovely daughters suddenly ends, and Edgar begins to wish he hadn't survived the injuries that could have killed him. He wants out. His psychologist, Dr. Kamen, suggests a "geographic cure," a new life distant from the Twin Cities and the building business Edgar grew from scratch. And Kamen suggests something else.

        "Edgar does anything make you happy?"

            "I used to sketch."

        "Take it up again. You need hedges . . .

            hedges against the night."

Edgar leaves Minnesota for a rented house on Duma Key, a stunningly beautiful, eerily undeveloped splinter of the Florida coast. The sun setting into the Gulf of Mexico and the tidal rattling of shells on the beach call out to him, and Edgar draws. A visit from Ilse, the daughter he dotes on, starts his movement out of solitude. He meets a kindred spirit in Wireman, a man reluctant to reveal his own wounds, and then Elizabeth Eastlake, a sick old woman whose roots are tangled deep in Duma Key. Now Edgar paints, sometimes feverishly, his exploding talent both a wonder and a weapon. Many of his paintings have a power that cannot be controlled. When Elizabeth's past unfolds and the ghosts of her childhood begin to appear, the damage of which they are capable is truly devastating.

The tenacity of love, the perils of creativity, the mysteries of memory and the nature of the supernatural--Stephen King gives us a novel as fascinating as it is gripping and terrifying.

It was pretty slow at first but picked up half way in, I really liked the story and enjoyed the horror of it. It kinda bothered me that it was set in Florida, island vibes, jungly and all of a sudden Percy stood for Persephone, I kinda hoped it would be inspired by the natives, or African folklore like nanny Melda that saved the day. 

The horror parts were disgusting - I LOVE IT.

To sum up, I enjoyed it but there were parts that left me kinda bumped. 

Yalin Tsikun

It was pretty slow at first but picked up half way in, I really liked the story and enjoyed the horror of it. It kinda bothered me that it was set in Florida, island vibes, jungly and all of a sudden Percy stood for Persephone, I kinda hoped it would be inspired by the natives, or African folklore like nanny Melda that saved the day. 

The horror parts were disgusting - I LOVE IT.

To sum up, I enjoyed it but there were parts that left me kinda bumped. 

Sarah Sammis

I grabbed Duma Key by Stephen King when it showed up at a recent BookCrossing meeting. I enjoy his novels and had heard good things about this one.

Edgar Freemantle goes to the Duma Key in Florida to paint as a way to recover after a horrific construction accident that crushed his right side. He wasn't an artist before but something about living in Big Pink has inspired him to paint and draw surreal seascapes of the view from his bungalow. Of course all that creativity is unleashing an evil that needs to be stopped. Can Edgar undo what he's wrought?

At the bare bones pieces of the plot, I enjoyed Duma Key. For example: I liked see the evil revealed through Edgar's paintings. I liked the brief glimpses of the past (not through her flash back chapters, though) of life on the key when the old lady was a prodigy artist. I also loved the final show down.

Unfortunately this tight horror story is bloated with at least a hundred and fifty, perhaps two hundred pages of padding. It takes forever for Edgar to describe his accident and his failing marriage before he finally gets to Florida. Likewise there's a lot of time wasted on him setting up shop on the key and these "how to paint" sections that are supposed to be windows into the first time the evil came ashore but they just get in the way of plot.

If this were by any other author I'd be ranting right now on how except for the location change (warm ocean vs snowed in resort) the book was a rip off of The Shining. Of course the same author wrote both books so I suppose he's just returning to similar themes after doing other things for a while. As you can probably tell, I prefer The Shining to Duma Key.

C Fernando Maciel 

It's by and large, the best Stephen King book I read so far, only 1 step behind ( of course ) of the stand.

When Edgar Freemantle moves to Duma Key to escape his past, he doesn't expect to find much there. But Duma Key and its mysteries have been waiting for him. The shells beneath his house are whispering to him, and something in the view from his window urges him to discover a talent he never knew he had. Edgar Freemantle begins to paint. Even though he has lost an arm. And even though the hand he uses is the one he lost.

Sian Wadey

Stephen King's Duma Key is the tale of Edgar Freemantle. After losing an arm and gaining a head injury in a work accident, Edgar's life turns upside down. He divorces his wife and takes a break to Duma Key, an island off the coast of Florida. While there a passion for art emerges, but with serious consequences. 
King creates a range of eclectic characters, in Edgar; Elizabeth Eastlake, a local landowner; Wireman, her carer with a shady past and Jack, Edgar's helper and chauffeur. On Duma Key nothing is as it seems and everybody has their own secrets. Edgar's artistic skills develop with the support of Elizabeth, but he soon learns that through his art other talents are revealed. 
As well as the characters, King's descriptions of the locations are detailed and impressive. He really paints a picture of the old Eastlake house and the supernatural occurrences. Flipping between the island's past and present is not a challenge and in fact, I could have read this book forever and ever. King writes beautifully and the images he creates stay in your head long after you've closed the book.

Tenisha Scott

Took me a while to get through it. I found the ending anticlimatic compared to the build up.

Patti Reinheimer

The pay off is a bit cheesy, but the struggle of the main character as he recovers from a horrible injury really grabbed me. I loved this book.

Kristina Masone

Ręka Mistrza

Agata Tereszkiewicz 

Tyler Rodrigues

I think this is one of his better works, I don't know why I haven't heard much about it!

Kerri McDonald

This book was amaaaaaazing! It hit the ground running and not once did it let up. I've had bad experiences with longer books (aka getting bored out of my skull) but not so with this gem. I was so engrossed in the story of Edgar Freemantle and his life on Duma Key. This book made me fall in love with the characters, it had me on the edge of my seat, and it made me feel a whole lot of feelings. The whole thing was a rollercoaster of emotions from start to finish.

I've seen reviews saying that his is one of Mr. King's best works and I can definitely see why. This book is going to stay with me for awhile to come, which is pretty much the biggest compliment I can give to a book. Absolutely loved it!

After an accident costs him an arm, Edgar Freemantle decides to move to Duma Key, hoping to find solace in a pastime he used to enjoy when he was younger-painting.

He soond discovers, howerver, that his talent is a lot more powerful thatn he remembered. What he paints eerily changes the world around him. What's more, when he paints things out, they disappear. Even poeple. As he grapples with his newfound abilities, he realizes that they're somehow tied to Elizabeth-his elderly landlady-and when the ghosts of her past begin to appear, the truth about his talent becomes terrifyingly clear....
(front flap)

Halsted Mencotti Bernard

I liked it. Stephen King is just plain *good* at what he does. He has such a talent for fleshing out details about his characters, so despite this being a straightforwardly good vs. evil deal, there are tangents on the way that make it satisfying to read.

A Novel

Melanie Chen

Alex Webster

Weronika

From the Publisher: No more than a dark pencil line on a blank page. A horizon line, maybe. But also a slot for blackness to pour through. A terrible construction site accident takes Edgar Freemantle's right arm and scrambles his memory and his mind, leaving him with little but rage as he begins the ordeal of rehabilitation. A marriage that produced two lovely daughters suddenly ends, and Edgar begins to wish he hadn't survived the injuries that could have killed him. He wants out. His psychologist, Dr. Kamen, suggests a "geographic cure," a new life distant from the Twin Cities and the building business Edgar grew from scratch. And Kamen suggests something else. "Edgar, does anything make you happy?" "I used to sketch." "Take it up again. You need hedges-hedges against the night." Edgar leaves Minnesota for a rented house on Duma Key, a stunningly beautiful, eerily undeveloped splinter of the Florida coast. The sun setting into the Gulf of Mexico and the tidal rattling of shells on the beach call out to him, and Edgar draws. A visit from Ilse, the daughter he dotes on, starts his movement out of solitude. He meets a kindred spirit in Wireman, a man reluctant to reveal his own wounds, and then Elizabeth Eastlake, a sick old woman whose roots are tangled deep in Duma Key. Now Edgar paints, sometimes feverishly, his exploding talent both a wonder and a weapon. Many of his paintings have a power that cannot be controlled. When Elizabeth's past unfolds and the ghosts of her childhood begin to appear, the damage of which they are capable is truly devastating. The tenacity of love, the perils of creativity, the mysteries of memory and the nature of the supernatural-Stephen King gives us a novel as fascinating as it is gripping and terrifying.

Mathias Hellsing

A. D. Knapp

maitha mana

Jon Eckert

Louise Briley 

When Edgar Freemantle moves to the remote island of Duma Key to escape his past, he doesn't expect to find much there.

But Duma has been waiting for him. The shells beneath his house are whispering to him, and something in the view from his window urges him to discover a talent he never knew he had.

Edgar Freemantle begins to paint. And as he paints, the island's secrets begin to stir. Secrets of children lost in the undertow, of a ghost ship riding the distant horizon - and a family's buried past reaching long hands into the present.
--back cover

Duma Key

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