If Stephen King Wrote the Screenplay for "127 Hours," It Would Look Like This

Source: Goodreads

Gerald’s Game by Stephen King (1992; Pocket Books, 2016, 480pp).

Hoping to jazz up their sex life, Jessie’s middle-aged hubby, Gerald, handcuffs her to the bed at their secluded summer cabin for a good, old-fashioned sex game. What could have been just another unpleasant evening for Jessie to endure suddenly takes a deadly turn when, minutes after slapping the cuffs on her, Gerald drops dead of a massive heart attack. Now she’s trapped, miles from help. The handcuff keys are located on a far-away dresser-top. The telephone is in the other room. And—as she soon finds out—there’s a starving stray dog outside looking for meat. Unfortunately for Jessie—but especially for poor Gerald—someone forgot to close the back door…

Do you remember that movie 127 Hours, where James Franco finds himself trapped in a ravine with a boulder crushing his arm? Gerald’s Game is kind of like that: like Hours, it focuses on a protagonist trapped in dire circumstances, who experiences a requisite period of self-examination, and comes to a personal revelation that prompts her to attempt an all-or-nothing escape. Unlike 127 Hours, which is well-paced and inspiring, Gerald’s Game is by turns fleet-footed and plodding, an absorbing character study that runs on for far too long. Had King pared his idea down to a short story, he probably would have been the better for it. And while there are some genuinely prime scares in the story, these moments are all too often out-weighed by grisly descriptions of the stray dog nomming on pieces of dead Gerald. In other words, if you gross-out easily, avoid this book like the plague. For King’s regular fans? It’s not bad, but certainly not his best.

Recommended for Fans of Gone Girl

Source: Goodreads

The Wronged Sons by John Marrs (Self-Published, 2013, 279pp.)

One day, Simon Nicholson, husband and father of three, disappears without a trace. His wife, Catherine, is left raising her children alone, wondering what could possibly have happened to him. Was he kidnapped? Murdered? Did he hit his head and lose his memories? Is he wandering around somewhere, not knowing who he is? The answer comes twenty-five years later when Simon suddenly appears on Catherine’s doorstep, alive and seemingly unharmed. The remainder of the narrative is told in alternating points of view from both Catherine and Simon, and gradually reveals exactly what happened on that fateful day in June.

Once you really get into the novel, it’s nearly impossible to put it down. On the downside, the novel has the tendency to be a little heavy-handed at times. It also takes a while getting to the big reveal, and while I admit that the story is right to take its time, I grew a bit impatient with the pacing towards the end, and ended up skimming the last 50 pages. Despite this, however, this is a definite recommendation for fans of Gone Girl.

Informative but Disturbing

The Sarah Puzzle by Annie-Laurie Hunter (Self-Published, 2013, 358pp.)

A young girl is found living in an abandoned building slated for demolition. No one knows how old she is, or what her name is. She’s taken to the pediatric psych ward of a local hospital, where she refuses to speak. Gradually, though, under the staff’s nurturing care, she gives them a name (Sarah), and begins telling her story. The Sarah Puzzle traces her first year spent in therapy. Although it is very informative about what goes on with the therapy process in hospitals, it’s not a casual story for the sensitive or the faint of heart. We learn that Sarah spent her early years under the care of a child sex trafficking ring, and the story 

contains graphic descriptions of sexual abuse in children. Although the descriptions run the risk of being a little repetitive at times, it makes them no less shocking. Towards the end, the story gets even more intense as Sarah uncovers her most disturbing memories. A grueling journey for both the story’s characters and the reader that will leave neither unscathed.

An Effective Thriller About Two Unlikeable People

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn (Crown, 2012, 432pp.)

Young marrieds Nick and Amy Dunne are in trouble. Like so many people today, they find themselves bogged down in the mire of today's rotten economy, their jobs (magazine journalist and Cosmo quiz-writer respectively) made obsolete by the Internet. Due to money troubles and general incompatibility, their five-year-old marriage has crumbled, leaving them locked in a hateful, claustrophobic relationship. Then, on the day of their anniversary, Nick returns home to find Amy missing. When police find trace amounts of blood in the kitchen, they begin to suspect that Nick is the culprit. Is Nick being framed, or is he truly responsible for a horrible crime? By examining both past and present, Gone Girl traces the ugly meltdown of a marriage, and the terrible consequences it brings.

Although I won’t hesitate to proclaim Gone Girl to be a tense psychological thriller and an excellent choice for airport reading or beach trips, I have to admit that I had mixed feelings about the novel as a whole. Like the 1989 Michael Douglas movie, War of the Roses (which details the worst divorce battle in history), Gone Girl focuses on the absolute worst aspects of two fairly unlikeable people. While I must applaud Flynn for going against the grain in this aspect, I can’t think of two characters I would rather NOT read about ever again. The reader will either delight in Nick and Amy's despicable natures or want them both to die horrible deaths. It’s one of those books that makes you glad that you read it (just to see what the fuss was about), but also equally glad when you finish it and move on to something prettier.

Disappointing, With Some Good Elements

Mercy Row: A Philadelphia Story by Harry Hallman (BookBaby, 2013, 176pp.)

Mercy Row is a dark, gritty story set in Depression-era Philadelphia. Focusing on the bloody battles waged between the powerful Byrne family of North Philly and the Italian mafia of South Philly, Hallman’s novella is not for the faint of heart. Its opening scene is one example why: Franklin Garrett, the building supervisor for Byrne Construction, is seen rescuing his boss’s teenage son, Jacob, from the lascivious clutches of another inmate in the holding tank of a jail. While this happens to be the story’s only scene of attempted sexual assault, there’s still plenty of blood and flying bullets, and the body count is rather high. Aside from the gore, though, the first half of the story is actually quite engaging. Out of Garrett’s act of kindness, a partnership is formed between himself and the boss’s ambitious heir apparent. The two get their own gang together to eliminate the Italian competition from Philadelphia and build a new empire. While the two aren’t the most well-rounded of characters, they are still sympathetic enough to make you care about what happens to them. Unfortunately, when the story hits the halfway mark, things start to go downhill. Even though ten years have passed since the first half of the novella, the author glosses over this entire period by simply summarizing events for us in a few paragraphs. The pacing starts to lag, and the author steers the story towards ground already covered by Puzo’s The Godfather. 

Ultimately, Mercy Row will disappoint some readers. Although the story has sympathetic characters doing interesting things, much of the material remains underdeveloped, and makes the story feel more like a rough draft than a finished product.

If You Like “Room” You'll Like “Memoirs”

Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend by Matthew Dicks (St. Martin’s Press, 2012, 320pp.)

We’ve all had imaginary friends at some point or another. The thing is, most of us give them up before too long. So what happens to those imaginary friends when we forget about them? Memoirs is a kind of autobiography of Budo, the imaginary friend of autistic kindergartner Max. Max needs him more than most children: he doesn’t like using the school bathrooms unless they’re completely devoid of other occupants (Budo keeps watch outside the door); he hates it when his mother kisses him goodnight (Budo has to keep track of how many goodnight kisses his mother bestows upon him while he’s asleep). Budo doesn’t mind his duties, though. All this means that Max needs him, and the more Max needs him...the longer he can exist. As Budo explains:

“It’s very strange to be an imaginary friend. You can’t suffocate and you can’t get sick, and you can’t fall and break your head, and you can’t catch pneumonia. The only thing that can kill you is a person not believing in you.” (140)

Dicks has given Budo an elaborate set of rules to abide by. No one can see him but Max, and his abilities are limited to what Max has imagined for him: he can pass through doors and windows, but not through walls; he can’t communicate with adults or other children (but he can talk to other imaginary friends). He can’t pick things up, either. All of these things come into play when one of Max’s overzealous special ed teachers decides that she knows more about Max’s well-being than his own parents (what were they thinking, enrolling an autistic child in a public school?) So she decides to take custody of Max—without Max’s parents’ permission (which technically is kidnapping). Naturally, Budo wants to help Max return home to Mom and Dad—but that would mean encouraging Max to take things into his own hands—and that could threaten Budo’s very existence.

I won’t lie. Memoirs takes its time setting up the rules, and it’s about eighty-five pages in before the story really gets started. Dicks also focuses more on the premise than the characters. Budo (How do you even pronounce that? Budd-o? Boo-do?) spends a lot of time repeating himself, giving example after example about  how imaginary people are different from real people: “It’s not the fence that blocks [an imaginary friend] from entering. It’s the idea of the fence. ... I don’t leave footprints because I’m not actually touching the ground. I’m touching the idea of the ground” (60). “I look like I breathe, but all I breathe is the idea of air...” (140). And at one point, Budo accidentally backs into the corner of a wall (“The idea of the corner, I mean...”) (233). Yeah, yeah, we get it already.

As other readers have noted, though, there are times where Budo’s childlike voice pushes the story into the territory of YA cross-over instead of adult fiction. This is not to say that Memoirs has plenty of elements to make a good story: Max’s evolution from inflexibility to self-sufficiency, his poor parents’ struggles with having an autistic child, not to mention the almost unbearable suspense of the novel’s second half (if you find yourself struggling through the first half, don’t worry. It picks up really soon). So if you’re not too fond of childlike narrators, you may want to look for something else. If you liked Emma Donoghue’s Room, however, chances are that Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend will be just the right fit for you.

Similar Books:

• Room by Emma Donaghue

The Return

The Return by Carter Vance (Self-Published, 2010, 293pp.)

While vacationing at his friend’s chateau in France, Geoff, an American banker, discovers an ancient library belonging to the Knights Templar, an organization that is supposed to have disbanded years ago. Out of curiosity, he decides to learn more about the Templars, and learns that their society is actually still active. Meanwhile, Maria Davidson-Morales makes a deathbed confession to her only child, Sarah: the Davidson-Morales family is descended from Jesus Christ Himself. The family has produced only girls for generations, but legend has it that one day, the line will finally yield a male child that will signal His second return.

The Return traces much of the legend that was covered in Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code, a controversial bestseller that employed the premise that Mary Magdalene was not a prostitute, but the wife of Jesus Christ and mother of his child. It further explores the idea by introducing other historical elements, such as the Ark of the Covenant.

Unfortunately, The Return just doesn’t work as a novel. The plot is rushed from beginning to end, compressing 500 or 600 pages worth of material into just under 300: holy artifacts are tracked down and Satan’s legions line up to prevent the second birth of Christ. Characters are stunted by time constraints and never really manage to come to life. The reader is allowed to catch brief glimpses of interesting things, but the story never slows down to focus on any of it. So while it has an interesting storyline, The Return still needs a lot of work.

Similar Books:

• The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown

Excellent Thriller with Character Development

What Happened in Granite Creek by Robyn Bradley (CreateSpace, 2011, 362pp.)

A quadruple amputee war veteran; a battered woman, her mean-spirited husband, and the three daughters they are devoted to: these are the players at the heart of this savage, compelling drama. What makes this thriller special? It focuses on what many of its genre skip out on: character development.

The story begins when Jamie, a 26-year-old veteran, returns home from a tour in Iraq to Granite Creek, New Hampshire, minus his arms and legs. Because his schoolteacher mother can’t always be home to care for him, the neighbors take turns “visiting” with Jamie for a few hours at a time—though they are quickly driven away by his rage and bitterness. But Koty Fowler, a bullied mother of three, is able to connect with him in ways that the others cannot. What begins as friendship soon turns into something more, leading to a tragic whirlwind of events that leaves no one’s lives untouched. At the novel’s conclusion, the reader is left to question: who exactly is to blame for what happened in Granite Creek? An excellent thriller, highly recommended.

Click on cover for image source.

If Takashi Miike Remade It’s A Mad Mad Mad Mad World, It Might Look Something Like This

Katja from the Punk Band by Simon Logan (ChiZine Publications, 2010, 280pp.)

Located on a nameless, drug-infested Eastern Bloc island, this grotesque comedy of errors centers on a chemical vial, and the people who fight to get their hands on it. Word has come down through the grapevine that whoever manages to smuggle themselves onto the mainland and deliver the vial to a mysterious man in red will win their ticket out of poverty. Characters include a misfit punk guitarist, a junkie, a couple of drug lords (one of whom is an S&M performance artist), and a battered wife and her lover who are fleeing her abusive husband. A fast-paced, plot-driven tale from the start, it makes the mistake of relaying multiple character POVs in overlapping layers, so some of the dialogue and action are unnecessarily repeated. Although the characters aren’t psychologically deep, they are quirky and bizarre enough to hold your attention nonetheless. If director Takashi Miike remade It’s A Mad Mad Mad Mad World, it might look something like this.

Click on cover for image source.

A Thrilling But Careful Examination of Two Fragile, Determined Women

Mine by Robert R. McCammon (Pocket Books, 1990, 442pp.)

Mary Terrell misses the Sixties. Back then, the Doors were still in their prime, drugs were plentiful, and Mary and the other members of the radical “Storm Front” militant group took a stand against the evils of capitalism and Big Brother. Now thirty years after a violent confrontation with the FBI forced the group to scatter into hiding, Mary is a washed-up, mentally unstable forty-something who flips burgers at a minimum wage job. She finally decides to fulfill her dream of reuniting with Lord Jack, her long lost lover and the Front’s former Charles Manson-wannabe leader. Well past her child-bearing years and determined to reclaim her stolen youth, Mary kidnaps a newborn baby from a local hospital and strikes out for California to present Lord Jack with “their” son. But Laura Claybourne, the mother of the infant in question, is certainly not going to give up her first born child without a fight. A high-octane thrill ride as well as a nostalgic glance back at the 1960s, Mine is a unique novel that grabs the reader by the throat and refuses to let go until the last page of its riveting conclusion. Winner of the 1990 Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel.

Click on cover for image source.

A Strange and Slightly Unsettling Read About Mothers and Sons

Room by Emma Donoghue (Little, Brown and Co., 2010, 336pp.)

All his life, Jack has lived in the peace and solitude of Room, a place with no windows but the one skylight in the roof, and no doors except the one with a keypad that requires a code in order for it to open. His constant companion is his mother, known to the reader as “Ma.” To him, their life is a perfect one. They pass the time with domestic routines, games, and telling stories. All they need is each other, he thinks. That and Old Nick, of course. He’s the one who brings them food and clothes when they need them. But he only comes at night. Then one day, Ma tells Jack a new story, one about herself, explaining how she was brought against her will to Room by Old Nick seven years ago. The novel isn’t about their captivity, however, so much as it’s a story about a mother and son. Donoghue uses this situation to highlight their relationship by using five-year-old Jack as the narrator. His innocent child’s voice rings true throughout the novel, though due to the rambling, distracted nature of the prose, it can be hard to plow through at times. The author also presents an interesting dilemma: when Jack finally does encounter the outside world, he finds it confusing and unpleasant. He wants to stay in Room where it’s “safe,” despite the reality that his mother has been held against her will. In this case, is more harm done than good? The answer is entirely up to the reader.

Click on cover for image source.

Similar Books:

• Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend by Matthew Dicks