June 1, 2013
I'll admit that I felt like I was "cheating" a bit when I picked this book up at the library. After all, with this whole book-reading challenge thing, I'm supposed to be reading authors and genres that I don't typically delve into. And I've actually read quite a bit of Stephen King. He's one of my favorite authors, in fact. Horror isn't my favorite genre in the least, but I love his writing. He creates these characters who seem so real and are so fascinating, especially as he shows them in some of their darkest or most frightening and vulnerable moments. At times I've been disappointed with how he's ending his books (Needful Things, for example, was a very tense story full of interesting characters, and I just was not satisfied with the ending in the least), but overall I appreciate those characters and their personal stories, perhaps even more than the main plot.
In this story, he weaves those pretty well. Trisha is a 9-year-old girl, kind of a "tom-boy," you might say, who is dealing with a lot of family shit. Nothing too unusual in itself; her parents have split up and her mom moved her and her dorky (but nice) older brother to her hometown. Her father drinks a lot (too much). The cause of the parents' split isn't clearly defined, probably because Trisha isn't totally aware of it herself, but perhaps the dad's drinking was a big factor in it. Her mom and brother fight constantly; he's a computer nerd, and in suburban Boston, that wasn't so much of an issue...in more back-woodsy New Hampshire, it is, and he's bullied at school. Trisha's own issues seem to stem from dealing with her family's troubles; mostly, she's a cheerful, bright but not exceptional kid, who loves baseball...and has a crush on Red Sox pitcher Tom Gordon (see his picture below...he was a good-looking guy back in 1998 for sure).
One Saturday in June, Trisha and her bickering mom and brother are taking a hike in Maine. She wanders off the path to pee, and loses her way. Her initial mistakes are irritating; she ought to know that, the second you realize you're lost, you stay put, right? But as the story went on, and she wanders helplessly, staying alive but desperately looking for a way out while she is being hunted by some deadly creature, it got harder to judge her decisions as I sat comfortably on my couch. I admired her bravery in the situation, lost in the woods for nine freaking days, knowing that she was being hunted by some kind of unearthly creature (it finally manifests itself in the form of a bear, but not quite a bear; I found this ending to be somewhat appropriate, not a huge disappointment). In the end, she stood her ground and fought for her life; she did not run away. She had the guiding spirit of an imagined Tom Gordon to advise her.
Her Walkman radio, and the idea of Gordon getting to play, kept her going during the difficult, frightening, and disgusting days in the New England wilderness. That was all that she had with her, after her little Gameboy busted when she had a hard roll down a rocky slope. Though this story is fairly modern (published in 1999, one of the newer King works I've read), nowadays it wouldn't happen; a kid Trisha's age would have a Smartphone or something, and would probably get enough of a signal to be able to call for help, or use GPS, or whatever. Pretty amazing how technology has changed that much in even 15 years.
I cannot help but compare myself to Trisha. Nine years old in 1998 would make her only a year younger than I was then. Would I have been as brave as she was? Shit, I probably wouldn't be that brave even now. Then again, a person does what she has to do in order to survive, right? The book mentions at one point (I think as Trisha is wading, in her stocking feet, through a nasty muddy swamp) that human beings can adapt to anything, and I've heard that before. And I guess its true.
As far as Stephen King books go, this one is probably the shortest I've ever read. It would have been nice if he'd lengthened it out just a little bit, maybe with just a small bit to show whether or not the parents get back together (they briefly reunited the night that their daughter went missing), but overall I felt like the length was appropriate. Then again, I've breezed through some hefty ones before. He writes stories of all sorts of lengths; some of his best work are his short stories and novellas (I absolutely love the collection Different Seasons, I even used a couple of the stories from that with my seniors at my last teaching job). Even though the character in this story is so young, I still think that it's mostly meant for adults, maybe young adults as well (as there is some mention of 'fucking' a child, as the police receive a false tip about Trisha being picked up by a child molester). This wasn't my favorite King novel, not by a long shot, but overall it was a pretty satisfying read. So I may have cheated a bit in the challenge, but I was craving a little Stephen King (especially after the weeks of plowing through Tolstoy). I'm still reading, and I'm still posting about it for anybody who may want to read about it (for God knows what reason), so I guess that's what matters, right?
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Tom Gordon, when he played for the Red Sox. Trisha was in love with his eyes, and his "stillness" on the pitcher's mound. He did not play for Boston very long, and jumped around teams (including the Yankees, the Cubs, and the D-Backs) until his retirement in 2009.
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