David Schwinghammer's Blog - Posts Tagged "j-d-salinger"
Finders Keepers
MISERY has always been my favorite Stephen King book, mainly because it wasn't about some dopey clown sticking his head out of a sewer grating. It was about an obsessed fan who happened to find her favorite writer in dire straights after a car accident and refused to let him go until he promised to continue her favorite series, which he had discontinued. It was plausible, in other words.
FINDERS KEEPERS is also about an obsessed fan who sets out to rob a J.D. Salinger like novelist who had been out of the public eye for twenty years. Morris Bellamy is more interested in a continuation of the Jimmy God novels (think Holden Caulfield), the last of which seemed to him to have been a sellout. John Rothstein keeps his writing and some money in a safe which Morris and his friends break into; Morris then dispatches his literary hero with a bullet to the brain and hides the money and the moleskin notebooks in a trunk buried beneath a tree. But he's arrested for a brutal rape and spends the next thirty-five years in jail.
Along come Pete Saubers who lives in Morrie's old house; he finds the trunk and the money as the bank beneath the tree has eroded revealing the trunk. Wonder of wonders Pete is also a big Rothstein fan, but he needs the money more to help his parents. His dad just happens to be a victim of the Mr. Mercedes attack; he can barely walk and has been laid off his job as a real estate salesman, thanks to the recession. His wife still has a job but just barely. Pete decides to send them five hundred a month, anonymously, and it pulls them through. By the time he's ready for college it's running out and his little sister wants to go to a private school; she's bullied at the public school she goes to.
Pete wants to go to college to become a heinous (j.k) literary critic, as he doesn't quite have the talent to imitate his hero, Rothstein. He decides to sell some of the moleskin notebooks; he asks his former hippie teacher to whom he might sell them without too many questions being asked. Coincidentally (he said sarcastically) the teacher recommends a former friend of Morrie's who now owns a rare books store. He's wise to Pete immediately and sets out to blackmail him into giving him all of the notebooks. There are two new Jimmy Gold books, the second of which is his best, in Pete's estimation.
I know you're asking, Where the heck is Bill Hodges and his gang from MR. MERCEDES?, as was I. It takes over a hundred pages before he makes an appearance. Tina, Pete's little sister, the one who gets bullied, is friends with Barbara Robinson from the first book. Of course she is. She's noticed Pete is losing weight, his acne has resurfaced and he talks in his sleep. Holly who brained Mr. Mercedes with a sock containing ball bearings is now Bill's assistant, and she's gaining confidence every day. Jerome, Bill's lawn care boy from the first book is Barb's older brother, now in college. He returns to help out.
I think you know by now my main objection to the book is the unusual number of coincidences. But this is Stephen King, and he's got to be the best writer I've ever read at hooking you on the first page. Besides, Bill is an ex-cop who was suicidal at the beginning of MR. MERCEDES; Holly is somehow related to the woman Bill fell in love with in that book who came to a sad end. Bill blames himself. There's a cliffhanger at the end; I hate cliffhangers, but this is a three-book project, and the cliffhanger involves Mr. Mercedes, Brady Hartsfield, who's supposed to be brain dead; Bill isn't so sure. The John Rothstein plot has been fully resolved.
FINDERS KEEPERS is also about an obsessed fan who sets out to rob a J.D. Salinger like novelist who had been out of the public eye for twenty years. Morris Bellamy is more interested in a continuation of the Jimmy God novels (think Holden Caulfield), the last of which seemed to him to have been a sellout. John Rothstein keeps his writing and some money in a safe which Morris and his friends break into; Morris then dispatches his literary hero with a bullet to the brain and hides the money and the moleskin notebooks in a trunk buried beneath a tree. But he's arrested for a brutal rape and spends the next thirty-five years in jail.
Along come Pete Saubers who lives in Morrie's old house; he finds the trunk and the money as the bank beneath the tree has eroded revealing the trunk. Wonder of wonders Pete is also a big Rothstein fan, but he needs the money more to help his parents. His dad just happens to be a victim of the Mr. Mercedes attack; he can barely walk and has been laid off his job as a real estate salesman, thanks to the recession. His wife still has a job but just barely. Pete decides to send them five hundred a month, anonymously, and it pulls them through. By the time he's ready for college it's running out and his little sister wants to go to a private school; she's bullied at the public school she goes to.
Pete wants to go to college to become a heinous (j.k) literary critic, as he doesn't quite have the talent to imitate his hero, Rothstein. He decides to sell some of the moleskin notebooks; he asks his former hippie teacher to whom he might sell them without too many questions being asked. Coincidentally (he said sarcastically) the teacher recommends a former friend of Morrie's who now owns a rare books store. He's wise to Pete immediately and sets out to blackmail him into giving him all of the notebooks. There are two new Jimmy Gold books, the second of which is his best, in Pete's estimation.
I know you're asking, Where the heck is Bill Hodges and his gang from MR. MERCEDES?, as was I. It takes over a hundred pages before he makes an appearance. Tina, Pete's little sister, the one who gets bullied, is friends with Barbara Robinson from the first book. Of course she is. She's noticed Pete is losing weight, his acne has resurfaced and he talks in his sleep. Holly who brained Mr. Mercedes with a sock containing ball bearings is now Bill's assistant, and she's gaining confidence every day. Jerome, Bill's lawn care boy from the first book is Barb's older brother, now in college. He returns to help out.
I think you know by now my main objection to the book is the unusual number of coincidences. But this is Stephen King, and he's got to be the best writer I've ever read at hooking you on the first page. Besides, Bill is an ex-cop who was suicidal at the beginning of MR. MERCEDES; Holly is somehow related to the woman Bill fell in love with in that book who came to a sad end. Bill blames himself. There's a cliffhanger at the end; I hate cliffhangers, but this is a three-book project, and the cliffhanger involves Mr. Mercedes, Brady Hartsfield, who's supposed to be brain dead; Bill isn't so sure. The John Rothstein plot has been fully resolved.
