Duma Key by Stephen King Coming In January '08

Stephen King’s new novel, Duma Key, arrives in stores nationwide in January 2008. As soon as it was announced, readers began trying to guess what the book would be about.

The title itself is highly interesting. My first guess was that the novel would be about a key, like a door key. Or maybe a key on a map. Given the fact that The DaVinci Code seems to still be on everyone’s mind, I had to recognize the fact that perhaps the key – especially when paired with the name Duma, which sounds close to Alexander Dumas – might have some literary bearing. I thought maybe the book would be a literary mystery of sorts.

Now that the actual subject matter the book has been released, I find that I was wrong on all counts. The “key” referred to by the book actually turns out to be one of the small islands off the coast of Florida.

And the story sounds even more mysterious than I would have imagined. It sounds like it’s going to be one of those delicious, Twilight Zone-type of tales that King delivers every so often when he’s in the mood. The story also smacks of King’s own life. I love his writing when he veers off into something that could have been carved from his own experiences.

At first blush, Duma Key stands prepared to deliver exactly that.

The protagonist of the book is self-made millionaire Edgar Freemantle, a mover and a shaker in the construction business. While on the job, Edgar gets hurt and crippled. A crane smashes his truck and he loses an arm in the subsequent operations to save his life. Edgar struggles to get rehabilitated and adjust to his life, and I know a lot of what King went through after being struck by a negligent driver has to be in those pages.

Unable to get his life together, Edgar turns on his wife and family. After he attacks her and tries to kill her, his wife asks for a divorce. Edgar divides up his money among his family and seeks counseling. His counselor asks Edgar if there wasn’t something that he used to do that took the edge of during periods of stress. Edgar says that he used to draw. The counselor advises him to do that.

Article Author: Mel Odom

Mel Odom is the author of over 100 novels. Winner of the American Library Association's Alex Award for 2002 and runner-up for the Christy in 2005, he's written in several genres, including tie-in novels for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and novelizations of Blade, XXX, and Tomb Raider. …

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