You (stephen king)

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She (in the English original: Misery ) is a novel published in 1987 by the New York Viking Verlag by the writer Stephen King . The German translation by Joachim Körber was published by Heyne Verlag in the same year.

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Paul Sheldon is a famous writer. His most popular books are about the heroine Misery Chastain . Paul hates this series of books, however. When he has finished his new book Fast Cars in a hotel room that he always uses for this purpose, he sets off for Colorado, where he suffers a traffic accident and passes out. He wakes up from a coma in the house of former nurse Annie Wilkes. Annie is a huge fan of the 42-year-old writer. Most of all, she loves his misery books. After a few days, Paul noticed signs of a mental disorder in Annie. She does not take Paul to the hospital, but isolates him at home without telling anyone. Paul, who has broken both legs several times, is unable to flee. She makes him addicted to pain relievers and so has power over him. Annie reads the manuscript of Paul's new book Fast Cars . She doesn't like it because it's not about her favorite heroine Misery. She also dislikes the raw language.

When Annie buys the latest recently released Misery book, she becomes furious that Paul is letting his heroine Misery die in the end. In an angry act of vengeance, she forces him to burn the manuscript Fast Cars . He is also supposed to write a new Misery book for her, in which she comes back to life. When Annie finds out that Paul has left the hospital bed in her absence and is hiding a knife, she chops off his left foot with an ax. Later, in a mad attack, she separated his thumb from his left hand with an electric kitchen knife. Paul writes the book, and in about six months it's ready. To celebrate the completion of the book, Paul has planned a furious finale. He pretends to celebrate the event with Annie before they both choose suicide together. When the time comes, Paul pretends to burn the manuscript and kills Annie in a fierce fight.

Interesting facts / links

  • Originally, King and the Viking publishing house planned to publish the novel under the pseudonym " Richard Bachman ", since the publications under the pseudonym largely lacked supernatural elements. However, the unmasking by the bookseller Brown meant that it was published regularly as a Stephen King work.
  • In 1990 the book was filmed under the original book title " Misery " by director Rob Reiner with Kathy Bates and James Caan . The film was a huge hit with audiences and earned Bates an Oscar . Stephen King was positive about this adaptation .
  • Stephen King received the Bram Stoker Award in 1988 for the novel in the "Best Novel" category.
  • After the two-person play Sie came the one-woman play Das Spiel , whereupon King jokingly announced in a press conference that his next book would be called The Livingroom and would be without people. In fact, a one-person play was released in 1999 with Das Mädchen .
  • It is the prelude to a series of Kings' books and stories that address the fears of writers. This was followed by Das Monstrum , Stark - The Dark Half , Sara and Love , as well as numerous short stories and novels (e.g. The secret window, the secret garden from Langoliers ).
  • Annie knows about Jack Torrance, the caretaker of the Overlook Hotel ( Shining ), because she tells Paul about him. ("It was a famous old hotel called Overlook. It burned down ten years ago. The caretaker burned it down. He was crazy. Everyone in town said that.")
  • Paul Sheldon's novels are read by many of the characters in King's works: Naomi Higgins ( The Library Cop at Night ), Ellen Carver ( Desperation ), and also Rose Daniels ( The Picture ), who reads a book that doesn't appear in you : Misery's trip .
  • Radio Bremen and the Süddeutsche Rundfunk produced the material in 1994 under the film title Misery as a radio play with Brigitte Janner as Annie Wilkes and Werner Rehm as Paul Sheldon.

Stephen King was addicted to alcohol and cocaine for years, wondering how addiction would affect his writing. King was afraid he wouldn't be able to write without drugs. In his novel Misery , he sees his addiction personified in the character Annie Wilkes. “A writer is being held captive by a deranged former nurse. She was my delirium. It was my metaphor for my addiction. A crazy nurse, ”Stephen King told Spiegel magazine.

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  1. And then they eat you , interview with Stephen King in Der Spiegel , 4/2012, pp. 118-122.

Literature and web links