Misery
Published: 8, June 1987
Author: Stephen King
Genre: American, Classic, Drama, Fiction, Horror, Literary, Literature, Media Tie-In, Psychological, Serial Killer, Suspense, Thriller
Check out the review of this book here:
Summary
Paul Sheldon, an author of the best-selling Misery Chastain series of Victorian-era romance novels, has completed the series' last book, Misery's Child, in which Misery is murdered off.
Paul gets drunk and drives his '74 Camaro to Los Angeles instead of flying back to New York City after finishing the manuscript for his new crime book, Fast Cars, which he believes will get significant literary praise and jumpstart his post-Misery career.
In the small, isolated community of Sidewinder, Colorado, he is stranded in a snowstorm and wrecks his automobile.
When he wakes up, he discovers that he has been saved by Annie Wilkes, a local former nurse who is a die-hard Misery fan.
Despite his shattered legs, she keeps Paul in her guest bedroom and nurses him herself with her clandestine supply of codeine-based medications. Paul becomes hooked to Novril, a drug Annie withholds from him in order to threaten and manipulate him.
She starts reading Misery's Child, which was just released and coerces permission to read the Fast Cars manuscript, but she doesn't like the deeper subject matter or language.
Annie's mental instability is quickly identified by Paul, who notes that she is prone to catatonic spells and has abrupt, unpredictable fury outbursts.
When she discovers about Misery's death, she abandons Paul in her home for more than two days, denying him food, drink, and painkillers. During this period, Paul checks his legs to determine the extent of the damage and discovers that they were crushed and disfigured in the accident.
When Annie returns, she pushes a frail Paul to burn the Fast Cars book in exchange for painkillers.
Annie sets up an office for Paul, complete with an antiquated Royal typewriter with a non-functional N-key, writing paper, and a wheelchair, in order to create a new Misery novel that would resurrect the character.
Paul writes a new novel, Misery's Return while biding his time and comparing himself to Scheherazade.
He enables Annie to read the work in progress and fill in the missing N's. The text contains fragments from Misery's Return, a horrifying scenario in which it is discovered that Misery was buried alive while unconscious, as Paul writes.
Paul uses his wheelchair to exit his room multiple times, hunting for more medications and touring the property. He finds a scrapbook full of newspaper clippings revealing Annie to be a serial killer; her victims include a neighboring family, her own father, and many elderly or critically injured patients and 11 infants while she worked as a head nurse, the last of whom resulted in her standing trial but acquittal in Denver.
Annie announces that she has noticed Paul leaving his room and punishes him by chopping off his foot with an axe and cauterizing his ankle with a blowtorch, thus "hobbling" him.
Months pass, and Annie slices off Paul's thumb with an electric knife when he complains that additional typewriter keys, including the "t" and "e," have broken and refuses to tell Annie how the story ends until he has written it.
Annie kills a state policeman by driving him over with her riding lawnmower when he comes to Annie's residence looking for Paul. The remains are hidden by Annie, but the trooper's disappearance catches the attention of police enforcement and the media.
Annie moves Paul to the basement and makes it clear that she will not allow him to reside there.
After finishing Misery's Return, Paul sets fire to a dummy copy of the text, which Annie tries to salvage. Paul tosses the typewriter at Annie and begins a furious struggle with her, exiting the room and locking the door with Annie still inside.
When the police arrive in pursuit of the slain soldier, Paul hides and warns them. Annie is discovered dead in the barn, probably having escaped through a window on her way to murder Paul with a chainsaw.
Misery's Return is intended to be published when Paul returns to New York, and it becomes a worldwide bestseller owing to curiosity in the conditions in which it was written.
The notion that Paul publish a factual account of his own experiences is met with resistance.
He can walk with a prosthetic, but he still has flashbacks about Annie, painkiller withdrawal, drunkenness, and writer's block.
Paul weeps both for his destroyed life and for the delight of being able to write again when he gets spontaneous inspiration to create a new novel.
Useful Search Related Words & Keywords
Andrew Scheinman, Annie Wilkes, Car Accident, Edge Of Your Seat, Ever Read, Fast Cars, Frances Sternhagen, Highly Recommend, James Caan, Jeffrey Stott, Kathy Bates, King At His Best, King Book, Misery Chastain, Number One Fan, Paul Sheldon, Richard Farnsworth, Rob Reiner, Steve Nicolaides
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