Madness (novel)
Wahn is the German title of the novel Duma Key by the US writer Stephen King , published on January 22, 2008 . The German translation by Wulf Bergner was published on February 18, 2008 by Heyne Verlag .
content
At the center of the plot is the building contractor Edgar Freemantle, who loses his right arm in an accident on a construction site and sustains serious injuries to his right leg and head. These head injuries lead to moments of aphasia and thus also to uncontrollable fits of anger.
When his wife Pamela can no longer bear this and files for divorce, Edgar thinks of suicide, but his psychiatrist, Dr. Came has a brilliant idea: Edgar should move to another place and resume his old hobby of painting. So Edgar breaks all tents behind him and moves to the barely built-up island of Duma Key in Florida .
Indeed, his talent is blossoming again; Edgar himself is surprised by his artistic skills and expressiveness. The explanation is that it is not he who paints himself, but a mysterious force on the island that works through him. Edgar soon realizes that his paintings are more than just harmless images.
In the further course of the book it becomes clear that the old resident Elisabeth Eastlake also painted many pictures in her childhood and that these also had to do with the mysterious death of her twin sisters. She dies after visiting Edgar's exhibition and discussing the picture with the ship "Perse".
useful information
- In 2008 the book won the Bram Stoker Award in the Best Novel category.
- Wahn is Stephen King's 30th novel to make it to # 1 on the New York Times bestseller list .
- Madness is based on King's own short story Memory , which is completely absorbed in Chapter 1 of the novel. Memory appeared as an appendix to Stephen King's novel Torment , which he published under his pen name Richard Bachman.
- Stephen King has been spending the winter at his Florida residence for several years. The inspiration for this novel came to King, on one of his long walks, when he saw a sign saying Beware of Children . On the spot he asked himself which children to watch out for - the idea of delusion was born. Edgar is pursued in dreams and visions by two dead twin girls.
- Once again, King processes his own serious accident in this plant, which almost cost him his life in 1999.
Web links
- Detailed table of contents in KingWiki
- Review of Wahn on literature.de