Released
2008
Available Format(s)
Cassette / CD
Read By
John Slattery
Publisher
Simon & Schuster Audio
After a construction accident in which he loses his right arm and his divorce, Edgar Freemantle moves from Minnesota to Florida to begin what his psychiatrist described as a "geographic cure." He rediscovers his love of painting and finds that he is good at it but his paintings seem to have something "more" to them. On Duma Key he also finds a new friendship with Wireman, a kindred spirit seeking refuge there as a caretaker for Elizabeth Eastlake. Elizabeth's past also contains painful memories that have been reawakened bringing all of them together to face an evil entity named Perse.
Running time: Approx. 23 Hours
No more than a dark pencil line on a blank page. A horizon line, maybe.
But also a slot for blackness to pour through. . .
A terrible accident takes Edgar Freemantle's right arm and scrambles his memory and his mind, leaving him with little but rage as he begins the ordeal of rehabilitation. When his marriage suddenly ends, Edgar begins to wish he hadn't survived his injuries. He wants out. His psychologist suggests a new life distant from the Twin Cities, along with something else:
"Edgar, does anything make you happy?"
"I used to sketch."
"Take it up again. You need hedges. . .hedges against the night."
Edgar leaves for Duma Key, an eerily undeveloped splinter of the Florida coast. The sun settling into the Gulf of Mexico calls out to him, and Edgar draws. Once he meets Elizabeth Eastlake, a sick old woman with roots tangled deep in Duma Key, Edgar begins to paint, sometimes feverishly; many of his paintings have a power that cannot be controlled. When Elizabeth's past unfolds and the ghosts of her childhood begin to appear, the damage of which they are capable is truly devastating.
The tenacity of love, the perils of creativity, the mysteries of memory and the nature of the supernatural--Stephen King gives us a novel as fascinating as it is gripping and terrifying.
