Rounded out today by finishing another Stephen King book. And today it is "Rose Madder".
After seeing a drop of blood on a bed sheet, Rose Daniels come to the realization that she has from the very dangerous marriage before it is far too late.
However this escape won't be as easy a she thinks it will be, not as easy as fleeing to a different city, having a new name, getting a new job and having a new man. Norman, Rose's husband, was a cop. And he has a cop's training, cop's technology and a cop's instinct like a bloodhound.
What's worse is that Norman is just Norman. And Rose knows that she was married to an absolute monster. And now she realizes that he is tracking her down. But there is a place that she has found to hide in that could be more dangerous than that.
"Rose Madder" is not just dark in a supernatural sense, but in a very, very real sense. It isn't the first time that King tackled the subject of abuse. Abuse, of any kind, is not a very comfortable subject. This makes this novel all the more disturbing.
Now the horror here switches about about from the domestic to the surreal. And also the story bounces from character to character too. Segments featuring Norman are the most disturbing. At the beginning we're shown that Norman is absolutely a monster in every sense of the word, and as the story goes along we see how deeply messed up he actually is, and also his already worsening mental state.
Aside from all that it is also a nightmarish journey for Rose as she slowly reinvents herself from a battered woman to what she would eventually become at the end.
This is a very dark and very surreal read, and one that is also compelling too, and a great turner!
by i-the-muso-1968
2 Comments
And one that many consider to be King’s worst book, including King himself. Definitely up there with Tommyknockers and Dreamcatcher and Insomnia.
I liked some of the characters personalities, but the book was a huge disappointment. The ending was worse than any of the others of his I read, and his endings are usually his weakest link.