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Duma Key a fictitious island off the Gulf Coast of Florida just below Sarasota that promises rehabilitation and relaxation for our star of the story, Edgar Freemantle. He survives a horrific accident which leads to a divorce from his wife of twenty-five years, Pam. He is rolling in money from his Minneapolis development company, which affords him the luxury of renting a place on the beach during the peak of the winter tourist season. Salomon Point, a place rented by many artists including Salvador Dali belonged to the Eastlake family. Edgar prefers the name Big Pink, and while staying there, he discovers a latent talent for painting that sends the Sarasota art world into a frenzy. But maybe this talent isn’t so latent, and something paranormal has plans for Edgar’s two grown daughters, Ilse and Melinda, and his ex-wife Pam. As the message on his answering machine says “All things considered, Duma Key has never been a lucky place for daughters.”
Edgar gets pretty smashed up in an accident at the construction site. His pickup truck, “… a Dodge Ram with all the bells and whistles” got slammed by “a twelve-story crane.” He suffered a lot of brain damage, lost his right arm, and had to have his hip rebuilt. Seemingly, Mr. King, maybe, puts a lot of his own accident experience into Edgar’s rehabilitation – including the pain, anger, and frustration. The reader can definitely feel everything that Edgar is going through in the rehabilitation process.
Edgar arrives on Duma Key practically an invalid, but with the help of his part time aid, Jack Cantori, and his new friend, Wireman, Edgar begins to put his life back together. His body and brain seem to mend quickly, and he takes up a new hobby of drawing and painting. His art work is exceptional for a beginner and the Sarasota critics want to see more of it. The reader begins to think that maybe Edgar will get his life back including his friends, and his wife. But there is something not quite right about Edgar’s new found talent, and his pictures have a touch of evil.
Mr. King keeps the story believable with numerous descriptions about the Tampa/Sarasota history, art scene, and current events. King authenticates many historical parts of the story by weaving in antidotes about Dave P. Davis, a Tampa land developer in the 1920’s. Could it be that the evil in King’s story is the real reason Davis disappeared mysteriously at sea in 1926? Edgar buys clothes at St. Armand’s circle, a boutique section of Sarasota with several art galleries. One of the best lines was “… the Sarasota traffic goes from clogged to almost zero after ten PM – the old folks take their Scotch and Prozac and then curl up to watch Bill O’Reilly on TiVo.” Anyone that has driven around Sarasota during the tourist season knows exactly where this quote is coming from.
Read Duma Key, and discover the evil in those pictures, and see just how far Edgar’s life can unfold once more. Duma Key is a massive piece of fiction with over six hundred pages. Just the act of picking it up has a tendency to scare the timid reader. At first you think you may never get through it, and the story starts out slow. By night two or three of your reading, you discover the story has picked up speed. Like a rip tide, you get pulled into the story, and by the last two hundred pages you know you are going to be tired for work tomorrow because you can’t possibly put it down without reading it to the end. Anyone who reads the horror genre must read Duma Key. For those Stephen King fans that were growing tired of revisiting old story lines, this is a new story line. Duma Key does not touch on any of his previous ideas.
BGS 3/15/2008
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