Duma Key takes the reader into a deep dive into the protagonist Edgar Freemantle’s life of pain and partial recovery.    Stephen King himself was critically injured and spent part of his recovery time on a nearby key.    Some of the themes and motifs of the books Misery and IT are wound into a story of a man trying to find himself while staying in an isolated spot on the beach right on the Gulf.   He turns to art as an outlet for his sense of loss and alienation.    His drawings and paintings are inspired by what calls to him – the sea, the waves, the percussive choir of the shells at high tide, and other voices he doesn’t yet understand.   Duma Key is a long book and for the first 2/3 of the story, the plot progresses slowly, but there is a pervasive creepiness to the key and his interactions with the other residents of the Island (Elizabeth, Wireman, and Jack) speak to a haunted past and unfinished business.    This is a ghost story that slowly takes shape.   Tragedy and revenge precipitates a course of action with a supernatural evil force, but not without loss.

The novel is far more than a horror story, though.   Edgar suffers from memory loss and brain damage.   King is interested in how memories help us to stay connected with our world, and conjecture what it would be like to be on shifting tides of disconnection.    He forms new connections through his art, through the historical events of the key, through people from
his past life, and through waves of influence from a malevolent source.    Much of Edgar’s story is like a fever dream and we need to fill in the spaces as readers.    Intermixed into this narrative are twelve chapters with several versions of the same title – “How to Draw a Picture.”      We learn indirectly about the past events of Duma Key and how they are interwoven into the present lives of Elizabeth, Wireman,  and Edgar.   The final part of the book is a horror-thriller, a fast-paced race to resolution, but vividly imaginative, and memorable.

For the first half of the book, I was entranced.    Then I was disturbed.  Then I happily got onto the wild ride to the finish.    Duma Key is not Stephen King’s best work, but it is a book that will get its hooks into you.     Recommended 4.4 out of 5.0 stars4.4, but with some warnings: