I am a professed Stephen King fan, and one of my don’t call it a goal, but it is like a goal, for 2024 was to read more of his backlist. I have been avoiding Misery for many years because I like reading more about monsters that are supernatural vs. monsters that are evil people. But 2024 is the year I decided I would give it a chance and overall I am glad that I did.
The plot of Misery is that author Paul Sheldon has been in a nasty car accident on the roads in Colorado, but fear not he was rescued from the crash by his number one fan, Annie Wilkes. Annie, who happens to be a nurse has taken Paul to her place to nurse him back to heath. Which is the first of many, giant red flags that Annie starts waving early on in the book. As you might suspect Annie keeping Paul in her home as she nurses him is not standard procedure, but then again Annie is not a standard nurse.
The book starts in the middle of the action. Paul is floating in and out of a narcotic-induced sleep and as the story is told mainly from his point of view since he is not sure
of what’s going on the reader is also as confused as Paul. It’s soon sorted out that Annie rescued Paul, and she happens to be a fan. A big fan. But a big fan of Paul’s series of Misery novels which are Victorian romance/adventure novels, featuring a female lead named, well Misery. And as we learn from Paul, misery is pretty much what the books have caused him. He does not enjoy writing them, hates the title character, and has killed off Misery in the latest and final instalment of the series. He was on his way to mail out a manuscript for his new novel when he got into the car crash (ironically the novel was called ‘Fast Cars’). Then Annie gets a copy of the new installment of the Misery series and she is – not happy.
Misery was published in 1987 and is not the first (nor the last) time King has centred a writer as a story’s protagonist, and as many of the characters in King’s stories, Paul is in for one rough ride. What I found fascinating about the book was the relationship between Paul and Annie and how it represents a very extreme (very very very extreme) relationship between a creator and his number one fan. And in the case of Annie, she is a very demanding number one fan, and knows what she wants and what is “right” and what is “not”. Even if that goes against what the author has decided.
I know I personally had a whole lot of feelings after King ended one series in a way that didn’t – thrill me at first. Not enough to want to go Annie Wilkes but I realized I did start to feel I had some ownership over the characters King had created. The ownership that fans can feel over any media that they consume can get kind of crazy. I admit that I, have gotten a little … wacky about media I feel I have some ownership over. I have also watched some wackiness play out online that reminds me of how Annie feels about the fictional heroine Misery. I sort of wish the book had got a bit more into the relationship between the creators and the fans not just how Annie felt about Paul’s works, but fans and creators in general.
I really enjoyed what we got in the form of Annie Wilkes. Well maybe “enjoyed is the wrong word. Because Annie is terrifying. Even if you haven’t seen the movie, you might know one of the key things Annie does to Paul and it is in violation of so many nursing standards … it is also written out in a way that is chilling. As are the described actions that Annie takes against other people who enter her orbit. Annie is not a nice nurse, she is in violation of any kind of nursing oath she may have taken. There is nothing overtly supernatural about Annie, she gets away with a fair bit of bad business, but it makes sense in the logic of the novel, but she is up there with the terrifying antagonists that King has created.
The book often feels like a fever dream, and I get it. I get why King’s book with non-supernatural antagonists are so scary. Annie scared me almost as much as Pennywise does.
And to answer the question posed in the title of this review, no, Annie Wilkes is very much not okay.
PS: As noted by the time this was published, King had written several novels where authors were the protagonists, but reading this one I kept thinking of Jack from The Shining, probably because both books take place in Colorado, and both feature snow storms as a plot point. (Also for those invested in the King Extended Universe, there is a shout-out to the Overlook Hotel and what happened there in this book.)