I’m Stephen King fan of old, or I’m just old really and nowadays a 690 page tome by him fills me with fear, before I’ve usually even opened the book and read a page. Long unwieldy books like Rose Madder, Desperation Lisey’s Story, proves the point that less is sometimes more.

Yet Duma Key surprised me, for the story was clear and precise: this book was about loss in every sense of the word and the main character Edgar Freemantle was one of the best and most well-round leads King has created for years.

Maybe it rings true after tragedies, one sometimes has to reinvent themselves to survive, or maybe ordinary worries fade away once death and your own mortality stares you in the face.

This was King back at his cleverest and more subtle best

Blurb

When Edgar Freemantle moves to Duma Key to escape his past, he doesn't expect to find much there. But Duma Key and its mysteries have been waiting for him. The shells beneath his house are whispering to him, and something in the view from his window urges him to discover a talent he never knew he had. Edgar Freemantle begins to paint. Even though he has lost an arm. And the hand he uses is the one he lost ...