From The Shining to Misery and The Dark Half, writers have starred in many King novels. In Duma Key (607 pages), he looks at visual art’s potential for the macabre. The novel stars Edgar Freemantle, a construction executive who loses his arm in an accident and discovers that he has gained the ability to affect reality through his paintings. Oh, and there are some creepy dead girls too.
King: I had to write Duma Key from the standpoint of somebody who can’t draw a cat. I mean, I could draw you a cat, but you wouldn’t know what it was unless I told you. So it really was a case of wish fulfillment.
If Desperation is a book that’s full of pain and unhappiness, Duma Key is a book where there actually is hope, because I was feeling in a more hopeful place. The two books are really the polarities of my recovery from my accident. I was feeling a lot better by the time that I wrote Duma Key, and I think it shows in the book.