Joyland

Well, I'm on vacation. And as with anyone one vacation, now is the time to get some back-logging done. First up, a book I snagged at the airport. Stephen King's latest novel, Joyland.

I'll be honest (not that I would lie to any of you), but I did not enjoy this book. I am a big King fan, but with over 50 published novels (and a bunch of short stories) it's fair to say that not every one of them is going to float my boat. This is a murder-mystery story from the publisher Hard Case Crime - the name speaks to its brand image in that they specialize in producing hardboiled crime novels. (Apparently to keep with the image of those old pulp crime novels from decades ago, they don't even release these books on e-reader. Cool, huh?) This is King's second book form this publisher, the first being The Colorado Kid. (Never read the book, but the name sounds like it refers to a character in The Stand. Can anyone back me up on this?) Back to why I dislike this story.

What I was hoping for was a tale about murder, fear, the super natural... most of everything that King's writing in renown for. This book does actually have all of these elements, but I would say it only constitutes for about 20% of the story - and that's being generous. The story primarily revolves around a 21-year-old college boy from New England (shocker!) who travels down to North Carolina for his summer job working at a C-grade amusement park, Joyland - think Canobie Lake Park only back in the 60's before the Corkscrew was erected. Anyways, 80% of the story revolves around this boy losing his first major girlfriend, making new friends, a new love, and, in general, just trying to figure himself out while stationed at this shitty summer job he's actually quite fond of. The other 20% is the fun stuff. A few years earlier there was a couple who went on this haunted house ride in the amusement park and only the man left the ride. Later that night the amusement park crew found the girl's body lying off to the side of the ride with her throat slit. With rumors that the girl's ghost still haunts the ride, our hero does his best to solve the murder with the help of his friends, one of which is a dying little boy who's a medium (Stephen King using the device of a character who can cryptically speak to the dead, another shocker!). This part of the story, while not amazing, is entertaining enough. Kept my mind off a miserable flight at least. And with this novel barely reaching 300 pages it's not a huge time commitment. Make your own judgement call on whether or not you want to read this. I would say it deserves a pass as his long awaited sequel to The Shining will be released at the end of the summer. Doctor Sleep. 

However, the next book on my list looks like a bit more arduous and probably pretty weird. One of Sween's favs. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles. Konichiwa, bitches! I'm going Murakami.