Misery (1987) by Stephen King"I'm your number 1 fan." Anyone who has read the book or seen the movie should be filled with dread upon hearing those words. I imagine Stephen King has grown tired of hearing them--either in jest or in all seriousness. This is a truly chilling book that was one of the first I read from King. At the time I wanted to be a novelist myself and it was easy to put myself in Paul Sheldon's shoes. Sheldon is the hero of our story here; he is the author or cheesy romance novels that pay the bills but leave him artistically unsatisfied. He has just finished a novel that relieves that artistic yearning and is ready to bury the other part of his career when he wrecks his car on a snowy road and falls into the hands of Annie Wilkes, his psychotic number 1 fan.
Annie makes him a prisoner while he recovers from his injuries and nearly goes ballistic when she finds out that Paul has killed off her favorite character. She burns his "art" novel and forces him to write a new novel featuring Misery Chastain, the character she has grown to love. And that's all the plot I will reveal.
What follows is an exercise in claustrophobia, paranoia, and outright fear. This is a riveting novel with hardcore sensibilities that had to get muted for the James Caan/Kathy Bates film. If you saw the film and got queasy--you ain't seen nothing yet! The book is eminently readable and even if it does not rise to the level of high art, it is one of King's most enduring stories--probably because it felt so personal to him.
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