Erika Brickley's Blog - Posts Tagged "stephen-king"

This is not an in depth analysis of Misery, only an outline of my personal feelings about the book.

After I read Stephen King’s Misery for the first time, I discussed it with several friends. As I tried to explain the effect it had had on me, they nodded before I could finish, stating, “Yeah, it’s really scary. I guess it figures that Stephen King’s biggest fear is being captured by a crazy fan.”

While I understood what they meant, I was surprised by the angle of their analysis. To them, it was the story of an author who is imprisoned by an avid reader of his work, one who happens to be mentally unstable. Obviously that is correct; anyone who knows anything about the book or movie would probably sum it up like that. However, that description did not speak to the parts of the book that really touched me.

The story is about Paul Sheldon, an author made famous by a melodramatic series following the love triangle between two gentlemen and Misery, their damsel in distress. Though the exact plot of the books is a bit unclear, what ultimately draws readers—specifically older women—is the drawn out love story. I got the feeling it is a bit like if Pride and Prejudice was drawn out over seven volumes or so. In the first chapter, Paul’s inner monologue (which comprises the whole book) makes it clear that he has grown to despise the novels despite the money and fame they have brought him. At last the definitive final book is being published featuring Misery's death, freeing him to write about serious, gritty topics that the "real artist" in him craves. Excited for the future, Paul goes to a secluded hotel in Colorado, finishes the manuscript for his new, heavily researched book called Fast Cars, and celebrates with a little too much drink before leaving. A massive blizzard hits, causing him to run his car off the road while going around a mountain. Luckily a local passing by spots the car, pulls him out of it, and takes him to their home.

That local turns out to be Annie Wilkes, a retired nurse. She cares for Paul’s broken legs while the roads are blocked by snow, giving him painkillers and helping him use the toilet. She also happens to be his “biggest fan.” Although Paul is grateful to be alive, he quickly realizes that Annie’s chipper demeanor hides something darker underneath. As he gets used to an immobile world of pain and drugs locked in a single room, Paul also has to learn which of Annie’s buttons to push to get what he needs. Sometimes he flatters her just right, resulting in rewards of dessert and kindness, and other times he fails. When he upsets Annie, she tortures him through neglect, forcing him to go without pills, toilet, food, or company.

Things take a turn for the worse when Annie reads the final Misery novel. Her reaction to Misery’s death is terrifying. Determined not to lose a character so dear to her, Annie tells Paul to write a new ending: her very own final volume written just for her. She forces Paul into a wheelchair and puts an old typewriter in front of him. Reluctantly, Paul makes start after false start until he’s devised a way to bring Misery back from the dead. Unfortunately, Annie reads it and becomes more furious than he has ever seen her. She rants about a time in her youth when her favorite children’s show put the hero into an impossible situation but never continued the story line and never answered the question: how did he get out of the car? By ignoring the character’s imminent death, they ruined the continuity of the series. Annie demands Paul try again. She also forces him to burn the single existing manuscript for Fast Cars, insisting it was a dirty piece of writing anyway and he needs to focus on Misery.

I am glossing over the most brutal parts of the book. For horror and gore lovers, the loss of Paul's foot or the killing of the police officer or the time he's forced to lie in the basement or his multiple escape attempts might be the most important parts of the book. For me, though those parts are very exciting, the most important aspect of the story is Paul's creative process.

As Paul’s mental health goes into decline, constantly battered by Annie’s changing moods and the desperate notion that he might be stuck in this secluded hell forever, he finally has a spark of brilliance: bees. He writes a new, brilliant beginning in which one of Misery’s lovers realizes she might not be dead, that she might be in a coma after reacting to a bee sting. This book written just for Annie was previously a symptom of Paul's situation, but now becomes his escape. In his inner monologue, he describes “falling through the hole in the page” to escape reality, which only gets worse and worse and worse despite his best efforts to manipulate Annie's mood swings, if only so her wrath points not so directly at him. And within the madness is a certain calmness: Annie is stunned by the richness of this new book and watches Paul write it in awe and admiration.

I recently learned that Stephen King wrote Misery soon after The Eyes of the Dragon, a fantasy novel he wrote for his children that his readership condemned. He was bombarded with the anger of fans who felt betrayed personally that he would deviate from what they knew and loved him for: horror. What I take from Misery is that King went through a period of time where he had to rediscover writing for the sake of writing. Though one can dive into the writing process searching for a way to quell the anger of fans, you can discover that the love for writing that got you into that mess can be the same thing to get you out of it. That creative process seems to be laid out in this book.

Yes, Misery is about a man trapped in a psychopath’s home, but it is also the story of a writer faced with the darkest part of his fan base and finding a way to be happy in his work while still struggling under the weight of expectation and ruin. Paul ends the story triumphant, having smashed Annie over the head with his typewriter, but he is plagued by the image of her jumping out at him since he did not actually witness her death. The epilogue follows him through the challenging time after his physical recovery and reentry into society, along with the publication of the new final Misery novel, which is made even more popular by the story of how it was written. The public demands he write about his terrible experience, but Paul fears that will turn it into a story rather than something that really happened. Wondering if he’ll ever be inspired again or just drift through life imagining Annie coming after him, Paul spots a kid on the sidewalk pushing a cart with a skunk in it. And the sight flips a switch. Suddenly it seems that maybe Paul will be alright — as alright as he can be—through the power and all consuming nature of writing.

Through this final moment, I believe the whole purpose of the story is laid out: though writing and fame (and life) can hurt us deeply and leave us damaged, the same love for writing that put us there can save us. It is a product of ourselves, something that can never be taken away if we are willing to grasp the next prompt. Coming from a man who has long suffered from addiction and uncertainty, I find the whole book extremely powerful and deeply personal, along with being a damn good horror story and character study.