Maybe I just haven't read enough books, but I have yet to read a book that was written in the manner of this. D.C. (I don't feel like writing the whole thing each time) is written in the first person but the context is of a person telling a story to three listeners. What is wholly amazing about this book is that not once during the story does it ever lose this feeling. I've talked myself for 3 hours straight but I feel even that would have paled in comparison to the diatribe D.C. goes on to her three listeners. The story is riddled with 'You know who I'm talking about Andy' and 'I can see by the way Nancy's smilin she understands' and it is actually a wholly impressive feat.

Stephen King had to write a story but write it in the way a person would tell it. Despite being a lengthy story, he stuck true to it. Additionally, he had questions posed to our narrator, but we never heard them, all we ever get in this story is D.C.'s voice and perspective. What makes it even more amazing is that King had to use questions which were simple enough that his reader could infer their meaning through the answers the narrator gave, and he had to answer these unknown questions in such a way so that it would appear natural but the reader could still pick up on it. It was, by far, one of the most unique and impressive feats I've seen a writer undertake.

I think, for me, that is where my love of King comes from. Novels like this are examples of King branching out to try new mediums. He is never comfortable with the confines of one voice, or one tone, so he is constantly shifting it.

Outside of the authorial impressiveness of the novel, it is actually a really fantastic portrayal of what it was like to be a woman and a mother during a time period and in a location where neither was easy. I don't honestly see how any other books on the subject (Beloved comes to mind) are considered so much better when I think this book says things that are more coherent and beautiful about the idea. The casualness with which King describes that women were hit and the casualness with which these actions are perceived and received is a shocking testament to a way things really were and never should have been. It's about a time where a man had his say and a woman had hers but never in public.

This is a novel about the two selves of a relationship, the one that can exist in a relationship, and the one that exists on the outside; it is, for all intensive purposes, the same issue that The Taming of the Shrew tackles. Where Taming tackles love on the inside while portraying a strong, male-dominated relationship on the outside D.C. is almost a reversal of this. Balancing this portrayal with the tasks of supporting a family and raising children and the strengths and weakness of the bonds formed was really remarkably impressive.

That people can underestimate the message and esteem with which King can carry himself shocks me. This is the same man who wrote Shawshank Redemption and Green Mile. This, like those, is a touchingly beautiful story about survival in our world, not in a ridiculous melodramatic ghost world like Beloved, but a real one with real pains. It accurately shows what it took to survive, the fortitude of character, and how a person could cope and move on, day to day, with the decisions they make.

Remarkable, really.