Chris Salch's Reviews > Duma Key

It’s been quite a while since the last time I read a novel on the scale of Duma Key. At well over seven hundred pages in length, it’s not a read for the feint of heart. To tell the truth, that is about the only aspect of it that seems daunting, or perhaps even a touch terrifying. Don’t get me wrong, the story is well written with a depth to it the hints at the way a painter layers on glaze after glaze of color to bring a painting to life.

There’s a hint of Lovecraft in Duma Key, in the telling and the story’s soul. It follows three distinct time frames: the story of a little girl as she’s recovering from a head injury, the story Edgar Freemantle rebuilds his life after a debilitating accident, and the time of the narrator, who also happens to be Edgar. The first two tie together in an intertwining thread that follows Edgar and the little girl’s journey to rediscover themselves, sometimes literally, through art. But both paths move past the mundane application of shape and form into something… else. The time of the narrator foreshadows, sometimes almost too much, what is to come. Of course, this is a Stephen King novel, so any mention of something happening to a character is likely an ill portent to say the least.

Overall, I would say this is a good read and would definitely recommend it. There are definitely scarier stories out there, and more horrifying, but sometimes that’s the point.