Misery (novel)
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- For other uses of the term, see Misery (disambiguation).
 Cover of 1987 first edition |
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| Author | Stephen King, |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Horror novel |
| Publisher | Viking Press |
| Released | 1987 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-670-81364-8 (first edition, hardback) |
Misery is a horror novel by Stephen King, published in 1987.
Contents |
[edit] Plot summary
Paul Sheldon is the author of a best-selling series of romance novels featuring the Victorian-era heroine Misery Chastain. Since 1974, he has finished the first drafts of all his books in the same suite at the Boulderado Hotel in Boulder, Colorado. He is determined to finish his new novel, Fast Cars. After he has completed his manuscript, he has an impulse (fueled by three bottles of champagne) to drive to L.A. rather than back to his home in New York. In his inebriated state he is unaware that the Colorado Western Slope is going to be hit with one of the biggest snowstorms of the year in a few hours. Determined to drive through this, he loses control of his car, drives off the road, and tumbles down the steep hill, falling unconscious.
Paul is rescued from the car wreck by a woman named Annie Wilkes, an experienced nurse who lives nearby. As Paul waves in and out of consciousness, he hears a voice (Annie's) telling him that she's his number one fan. After extricating Paul from the wreck, Annie takes him not to a hospital, but to her home, putting him in a spare bedroom. As Paul regains consciousness, he lies there completely helpless, being unable to move anything from his waist down. Having been a registered nurse for almost twenty years, Annie knows how to take care of his injuries. She feeds and bathes him and splints his broken legs, giving him Novril (a fictitious codeine-based painkiller invented by King specifically for the story) for his pain. Annie reads his new manuscript and doesn't like it, believing that there is too much use of profanity. When Paul tries to reason with her that "everybody talks like that", she goes into a fit. Paul begins to grow concerned over Annie's mental state, but he remains optimistic, believing once the roads are cleared Annie will take him to a hospital and life will continue normally.
It's around this time that Misery's Child, the latest and final book starring Misery Chastain, hits the shelves. Completely unaware that this is the last book, Annie, whose life revolves around the character, buys the copy she has reserved. Upon reading the book, and learning of her beloved Misery's death, she goes into a rage. She tells Paul that she hasn't spoken to anyone about him. Paul, an only child of deceased parents and two-time divorcé, realizes that it may be a long time before he is missed.
As Paul begins to regain strength in his legs, he is forced to use a wheelchair. He wants to leave, but Annie holds him prisoner, forces him to burn his manuscript for Fast Cars, and demands that he write a new book, which will bring Misery back to life. As he tries to come up with a credible plot premise - an early attempt at retconning is roundly rejected by Annie - Paul has little else to do, locked alone in his room. One afternoon, when Annie's away, Paul formulates a plan to escape. Although the plan is unsuccessful, he finally gets out of his room, and secures some needed pain medication, which she had been intentionally withholding from him. A few days later, he sneaks out of his room to tour the house again. This time, he finds Annie’s scrapbook, containing newspaper clippings from her entire life. Paul is disturbed to note that Annie has saved news accounts of the untimely deaths of her childhood next-door neighbors and college roommate. The ones that shock him the most, however, are from her time as a nurse. Initially, she worked in medical wards across the Midwest, and intentionally caused (or hastened) the deaths of elderly patients. In Colorado, however, after a brief marriage, Annie worked in the neonatal department, and while there she was charged with several infant deaths. She was tried but acquitted, and thereafter gave up nursing for good. The last entry in the scrapbook is a squib article from Newsweek indicating that Paul's literary agent has not heard from him for some time and has become concerned, although not overly so.
Paul overlooked some of the signs of his unauthorized trips, and Annie soon found out he had left his room - and hidden a butcher knife underneath his mattress. Eventually she confronts Paul, intent not on killing him, as that would be like "junking an expensive car because of a broken spring," but rather on "hobbling" him, by cutting his foot off with an axe, then cauterizing the wound with a blowtorch. Paul has come to hate and fear Annie, but realizes he is dependent on her because, in his weakened state, he cannot care for himself (and in addition is thoroughly addicted to the painkillers she supplies). He goes on with his writing, even though another spat with Annie results in her impromptu amputation of his left thumb.
In early May, a Colorado State Police officer comes to Annie’s house with a picture of Paul. Paul throws an ashtray out the window and shouts. The surprised officer doesn't notice Annie sneaking up behind him. She stabs the officer several times with a wooden cross gravemarker (for her cow), then runs over him with a riding lawnmower. After disposing of the officer's body and his cruiser at her unspecified "Laughing Place," she comes to Paul with the officer's pistol and two bullets in it. She wants to be with him forever. Paul quickly explains that he is almost done with the book, however, and Annie believes him.
As Paul finishes the last chapter, he comes up with a plan. He asks Annie for a cigarette and a match to light it with, to celebrate the completion of the manuscript. When Annie steps out of his room briefly, Paul prepares the final stages of his plan, and when she returns, he tells her that Misery's Return is the best thing he's ever written - but that Annie will never get to read it. He then drops the lit match onto the pile of pages, which he has doused with a squirreled-away bottle of lighter fluid. Stunned, Annie runs to the pile and tries to put it out. Paul flings his typewriter at her and it takes her in the back. Although this does not kill her, it gives Paul the upper hand and after a very long struggle he believes he has managed to overpower her. Paul takes several handfuls of burning pages and shoves them down her throat, one by one, until she lies still, seemingly dead. He crawls to the bathroom, knowing that Annie has to be dead but still not believing it, and loads himself with Novril as he waits.
When more police arrive, looking for their missing colleague, they find Paul alive in the house, but there is no sign of Annie. They would later find Annie's body in the barn, with one hand wrapped around the handle of a chainsaw. The cause of death was in fact a fractured skull sustained when she tripped over the typewriter and banged her head on the mantel. Paul finds this ironic. Also, the reader learns, Paul did not burn his book at all. The pile of papers consisted of notes and discarded pages - the top piece of paper on the pile showed the book's title in order to fool Annie into thinking Paul was burning the actual manuscript.
Returning home to New York, Paul is fitted with a prosthetic foot and submits Misery's Return to his publisher, who tells him that it is certain to become his best-selling book ever. However, the ordeal is far from over for Paul: he suffers nightmares about Annie as well as symptoms of withdrawal from the Novril. He also drinks too much, has writer's block and cannot bring himself to get back to work. However, one day, he gets an idea and begins to type a story based on his experiences from a new view.
[edit] Major themes
Unlike much of Stephen King's work, Misery does not deal with demons, ghosts, or supernatural powers, but rather with the darkness inherent in the human mind. The story revolves around only two characters and the closed environment of Annie's house. However, the major theme is likely to be Stephen King's inability to escape being a popular author, despite a desire to be taken more seriously. Annie Wilkes is his 'public', forcing him to write something he does not wish to write. The book ends with him telling Annie to "suck my book" and forcing the pages of the unwanted novel down her throat. Ironically, however, Paul still publishes his book, bringing the character of Misery back from the dead.
[edit] Film, TV or theatrical adaptations
- William Goldman adapted the novel into the screenplay for a 1990 American film of the same name, directed by Rob Reiner. James Caan and Kathy Bates star as Paul and Annie, respectively. Lauren Bacall, Richard Farnsworth, and Frances Sternhagen are the only major supporting actors. The film was a critical and commercial success, making $61,276,872 (USA) domestically on a $20,000,000 budget. Kathy Bates won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance (see Misery (film))
- The novel was also adapted into a moderately successful Off-Broadway play.
[edit] Trivia
- Misery is one of many King novels set in Colorado.
- The book contains an inside reference to an earlier King novel, The Shining naming 'The Overlook Hotel' in which the book is set. Annie explains to Paul that she met an artist named Andrew Pomeroy, who was sent by a magazine to sketch the ruins of the hotel (the Overlook blew up at the conclusion of The Shining). They became lovers, but Annie considered his drawings "terrible" and, believing he cheated her, killed him shortly thereafter.
- In the book, Annie chops one of Paul's feet off from the ankle. In the movie, she cripples him by smashing both of his ankles with a sledgehammer.
- At one point in the book, Paul ponders the possibility of drugging Annie with Novril by slipping it into her food. He decides, however, that it wouldn't work, and such an idea would only work in a movie. This is extremely ironic, because in the film, Paul does try to drug Annie and it doesn't work.
- King has stated that he intended for Misery to be the next Richard Bachman novel, following Thinner.
- Some paperback versions of the book have a "mock" cover inside the front cover. It is done in the style of a typical romance-novel book cover, portraying a man and a woman in a romantic pose. It bears the title "Misery's Return" (the title of the book Paul is forced to write). The man is easily recognizable as Stephen King. This mock-cover also appears briefly in the movie, when the sheriff (Richard Farnsworth) buys Paul Sheldon's books.
- In On Writing, King stated that he realized that the situation of the novel was a metaphor for the drug addiction he was suffering from at the time.
- Also in On Writing, King tells that his first work on the novel was done at a hotel in Great Britain, at a desk once used by Rudyard Kipling. It was only after he finished his writing session that he was told that Kipling had also reportedly died while working at that desk.
- Annie Wilkes was voted the 17th greatest villain of all-time by the American Film Institute in their special feature AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains, and Bravo! named the film the 12th scariest of all time.
- The book tied with the Robert R. McCammon novel Swan Song for the first Bram Stoker Award for best novel.
- Stephen King has stated that he wrote most of the book by hand.
- The Misery Chastain novels are mentioned in Rose Madder, another novel by King.
- Misery was parodied in the Good Eats episode "Ill Gotten Grains".
- The story was also parodied in an episode of The Critic.
- In the Drawn Together episode "Unrestrainable Trainable", when Clara is praised for taking care of Wooldoor following an accident, she conspires to keep him in her care, at one point smashing his feet with a sledgehammer just like in the film version.
- In the Read or Die manga, a novelist named Nenene Sumiregawa is kidnapped by a fan who forces her to write a novel. He calls her Paul S, while she calls him Misery Man.
- After Stephen King's traumatic accident in June 1999, Kathy Bates sent him a "get well" card that read, "Got Novril?" (referring to the codeine-based painkiller in the movie and novel).
- In Stephen King's novel Desperation, Ellen Carver mentions reading "Misery's Paradise" by Paul Sheldon. It is not known if this novel was part of the original series of books or if it was written after "Misery's Return."
- On Saturday Night Live, Dana Carvey announces in a sketch that he will cease playing his popular recurring character, The Church Lady , and then crashes in a snowstorm with Jon Lovitz, who pathetically asks if he can now play her (Lovitz' stalled career was a running joke on SNL the season after his official departure). Carvey is rescued by guest star Roseanne, playing the Church Lady's disturbingly obsessed Number One Fan, who intends to hold him until he promises to resume playing her. Lorne Michaels tries to find the missing Carvey, but becomes increasingly disinterested, deciding instead to promote the 'Makin' Copies' character. The skit ends with Carvey and Roseanne in horror-movie-esque face-smash fight, but Roseanne comically keeps getting back up. She and then Carvey are shot by the still-alive Jon Lovitz, who claims the Church Lady character for himself.
- A 4th Season Quantum Leap episode, 'Moments To Live', features time traveler Sam Beckett as a soap opera actor kidnapped by a deranged fan, in a situation that overall seems inspired at least in part by 'Misery'.
- In episode 3 of Acceptable Tv's short Mr. Sprinkles, Misery is parodied with Mr. Sprinkles in the place of Paul Sheldon
[edit] Movie
[edit] Editions
- ISBN 0-606-03859-0 (prebound, 1987)
- ISBN 0-670-81364-8 (cloth text, 1987)
- ISBN 0-451-16952-2 (mass market paperback, 1988)
- ISBN 84-01-49997-6 (hardcover, 1992)
- ISBN 0-573-01850-2 (hardcover, 1999)
- ISBN 0-7432-3359-X (mass market paperback, 2002)
- ISBN 0-7862-5020-8 (laminated, 2003)
