The Books: “Misery” (Stephen King)

Daily Book Excerpt: Adult fiction:

Misery by Stephen King

I love it when Stephen King writes about writers. It excites me. Sometimes when a writer writes about a writer – it’s either self-congratulatory, or boring – the “stuff” of their life is not interesting enough to make a good book, but they cannot write about anything else. It’s like a rock star who becomes so huge that eventually all he can do is write songs about being on a tour bus, and the cocaine and fast women fame brings him. I mean, that’s fine – The Eagles have written a ton of good songs in that realm – so has Eminem – but you can tell that the scope of their lives has closed down a bit … there is nothing to write about now but fame, and themselves as famous people. Sometimes books about writers have that feel. But to me, Stephen King never does. Maybe because he has been so successful in a certain “genre” (which will become very important in Misery – because Paul, too, has made his name in a genre of writing – romance novels) – but for whatever reason, his books where writing comes into play are among my favorites. I love it when he gets personal. Because I think King holds the key to a lot of the mystery of writing (something I am very interested in): how does a man produce so much?? How does he write so much? What is his discipline? How does he do it? Does he sit down every day? Does he have a specific writing time? I am amazed by his output and by, generally, how good much of it is. Yes, he could definitely be edited more – but I am not as much interested in the final product as I am interested in his process. Because it is no small thing, what he has accomplished. It is extraordinary. He IS a writer. He lives it. Misery, in that sense, is King’s most personal novel.

Because so much of it is a battle not between Paul and Annie Wilkes (his lunatic biggest fan) – but a battle between Paul and the typewriter. Paul and his own imagination. Paul and writer’s block. It’s just GREAT. Anyone who has ever sat there, staring at a blank page, knowing you have to fill it up – even if you’re a real writer and trying to write a novel, a screenplay, a poem … or if you have to finish a paper in college, or grad school … that feeling of terror, of having to create something out of nothing … NO ONE will write it for you. It MUST come from your mind. But … where does one start? How does one begin? Misery is about the terror Paul feels being trapped by Annie Wilkes, yes. But on a deeper level, it is about the terror of the blank page. I love that. That’s why i chose the excerpt I did.

Paul is a famous romance-novel writer. His big success is the “Misery” series – a typical bodice-ripping melodrama, and the heroine, a fiery black-haired goddess, is named Misery. Paul, though, is sick of Misery. He is sick of the whole thing and feels he needs to end the series, and move on with his writing career. Do something new. Misery needs to die. Paul is in a horrible car accident on a snowy road in Maine – and his body is badly mangled up. He is “rescued” by a woman who finds him … who turns out to be Annie Wilkes, a crazy lady who lives by herself – who is obsessed with the Misery books. And in her mind, Misery MUST NOT DIE. He needs to write another book, and it must be called “Misery’s Return”. Meanwhile, Paul is an invalid – his legs don’t work – he has not been to the hospital at all – so he is in agony, and Annie, to put it mildly, is terrifying. It’s the terror of being in the presence of someone who does not know the difference between reality and fiction. Misery is Annie’s dearest love. She doesn’t just read the books. She lives them. And yes, it’s awesome to have fans who believe so deeply … but it’s best if you never meet these people – or if you do meet them, keep it confined to a book signing where you can skip around the crazies if need be. Annie Wilkes orders him to write another book. Meanwhile, it is obvious that Paul needs medical care. But she has set up a booby-trapped house – he can’t get to the phone, he can’t do anything … It’s one of the most infuriating books I have ever read. Like: Bitch, let me OUT of your house. That horrifying feeling of being helpless, trapped … But she means business. Now that she has him, she will refuse to let him go.

If you remember the book, you know how bad things get. Annie Wilkes is not just crazy, but she’s dangerous. Paul, to placate her, begins to write Misery’s Return – but it goes so against his artistic sensibility – like: no, I am DONE with Misery. You can’t write a book to-order. You have to move on when the “muse” tells you to move on. But here – Annie Wilkes becomes the muse. The demanding muse. Write THIS. So Paul, struggling with the agony in his legs, and his invalid state … has to write the book that Annie wants, if he wants to have a shot at surviving. It’s not easy. How do you write when you are SO not in the mood? I struggle with that myself. But I learned from Madeleine L’Engle that: if you wait for inspiration, you might never get started. The point is to write every day. That way you are preparing the ground, so to speak, for inspiration to land. It’s quite prosaic. You are not in a high-flying state of imaginative creation … you sit down, and you write. And maybe once in a while you write something that’s good. It’s like you don’t have to be “in the mood” to have great sex. It’s awesome if you are “in the mood” – nothing better – but sometimes, once you’re THERE, even if you weren’t originally “in the mood” – it becomes something even better.

Paul has to show Annie what he has written at the end of each day – and she is a harsh critic. She is every writer’s worst nightmare (but – in a strange way, she’s also someone you DREAM of attracting – someone who is THAT into what you have created?? It’s a compliment, in a weird way). But it’s not like she’s a passive reader. Oh, no. She has opinions about everything. She runs Paul ragged. How do you write with that nagging voice in your ear at all times? Again, I think King is being very personal here. We all have our “Annie Wilkes'” – even if it’s just a voice in our heads. The voice saying, in a neverending refrain, “That’s not good enough.” “You’ll never be good enough.” “Who do you think you are?” “You suck.”

And it is THAT that artists have to grapple with. To me, the deeper analogy of the book is clear. Annie Wilkes is not a typical movie-monster, although she is terrifying. Madness un-medicated and un-diagnosed. But she is also the demon of self-hatred that stalks many of us – especially when we want to sit down and create something. Or when we want to CHANGE the pattern of our self-expression – as Paul is trying to do. King has obviously been enormously successful – and anything he writes will be published now – he is not so much “trapped” by the genre that made his name – although maybe that’s not quite true. Maybe he does feel pigeon-holed unfairly, who knows. But when a writer (or a musician – uhm, Dylan going electric), or an actor – decides to change their persona, their expression – it is often greeted with howls of protest, and not just protest but rage: “Who does that person think he is?” That’s what I think King is really expressing in Misery – and that’s why I find it to be his most personal book.

Here’s an excerpt.

EXCERPT FROM Misery by Stephen King

Paul looked at the typewriter. The typewriter was there. N’s! He had never realized how many n’s there were in an average line of type.

I thought you were supposed to be good, the typewriter said – his mind had invested it with a sneering and yet callow voice: the voice of a teenage-gunslinger in a Hollywood western, a kid intent on making a fast reputation here in Deadwood. You’re not so good. Hell, you can’t even please one crazy overweight ex-nurse. Maybe you broke your writing bone in that crash, too … only that bone isn’t healing.

He leaned back as far as the wheelchair would allow and closed his eyes. Her rejection of what he had written would be easier to bear if he could blame it on the pain, but the truth was that the pain had finally begun to subside a little.

The stolen pills were safely tucked away between the mattress and the box spring. He had taken none of them – knowing he had them put aside, a form of Annie-insurance, was enough. She would find them if she took it into her head to turn the mattress, he supposed, but that was a chance he was prepared to take.

There had been no trouble between them since the blowup over the typewriter paper. His medication came regularly, and he took it. He wondered if she knew he was hooked on the stuff.

Hey, come on now, Paul, that’s a bit of a dramatization, isn’t it?

No, it wasn’t. Three nights ago, when he was sure she was upstairs, he had sneaked one of the sample boxes out and had read everything on the label, although he supposed he had read everything he needed when he saw what Norvil’s principal ingredient was. Maybe you spelled relief R-O-L-A-I-D-S, but you spelled Norvil C-O-D-E-I-N-E.

The fact is, you’re healing up, Paul. Below the knees your legs look like a four-year-old’s stick-drawing, but you are healing up. You could get by on aspirin or Empirin now. It’s not you that needs the Norvil; you’re feeding it to the monkey.

He would have to cut down, have to duck some of the caps. Until he could do that, she would have him on a chain as well as in a wheelchair – a chain of Norvil capsules.

Okay. I’ll duck one of the two capsules she gives me every other time she brings them. I’ll put it under my tongue when I swallow the other one, then stick it under my mattress with the other pills when she takes the drinking glass out. Only not today. I don’t feel ready to start today. I’ll start tomorrow.

Now in his mind he heard the voice of the Red Queen lecturing Alice: Down here we get our act clean yesterday, and we plan to start getting our act clean tomorrow, but we never clean up our act today.

Ho-ho, Paulie, you’re a real riot, the typewriter said in the tough gunsel’s voice he had made up for it.

“Us dirty birdies are never all that funny, but we never stop trying – you have to give us that,” he muttered.

Well, you better start thinking about all the dope you are taking, Paul. You better start thinking about it very seriously.

He decided suddenly, on the spur of the moment, that he would start dodging some of the medication as soon as he got a first chapter that Annie liked on paper – a chapter which Annie decided wasn’t a cheat.

Part of him – the part that listened to even the best, fairest editorial suggestions with ill-grace – protested that the woman was crazy, that there was no way to tell what she might or might not accept; that anything he tried would be only a crapshoot.

But another part – a far more sensible part – disagreed. He would know the real stuff when he found it. The real stuff would make the crap he had given Annie to read last night, the crap it had taken him three days and false starts without number to write, look like a dog turd sitting next to a silver dollar. Hadn’t he known it was all wrong? It wasn’t like him to labor so painfully, not to half-fill a wastebasket with random jottings or half-pages which ended with lines like ‘Misery turned to him, eyes shining, lips murmuring the magic words Oh you numb shithead THIS ISN’T WORKING AT ALL!!!!” He had chalked it off to the pain and to being in a situation where he was not just writing for his supper but for his life. Those ideas had been nothing but plausible lies. The fact was, things had gone badly because he was cheating and he had known it himself.

Well, she saw through you, shit-for-brains, the typewriter said in its nasty, insolent voice. Didn’t she? So what are you going to do now?

He didn’t know, but he supposed he would have to something, and in a hurry. He hadn’t cared for her mood this morning. He supposed he should count himself lucky that she hadn’t re-broken his legs with a baseball bat or given him a battery-acid manicure or something similar to indicate her displeasure with the way he had begun her book – such critical responses were always possible, given Annie’s unique view of the world. If he got out of this alive, he thought he might drop Christopher Hale a note. Hale reviewed books for the New York Times. The note would say: “Whenever my editor called me up and told me you were planning to review one of my books in the daily Times, my knees used to knock together – you gave me some good ones, Chris old buddy, but you also torpedoed me more than once, as you well know. Anyway, I just wanted to tell you to go ahead and do your worst – I’ve discovered a whole new critical mode, my friend. We might call it the Colorado Barbecue and Floor-Bucket school of thought. It makes the stuff you guys do look about as scary as a ride on the Central Park carousel.”

This is all very amusing, Paul, writing critics little billet-doux in one’s head is always good for a giggle, but you really ought to find yourself a pot and get it boiling, don’t you think?

Yes. Yes indeed.

The typewriter sat there, smirking at him.

“I hate you,” Paul said morosely, and looked out the window.