Gerald's Game
Thrilling suspense from the No. 1 bestseller
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4.3 • 58 Ratings
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- £5.49
Publisher Description
A game. A husband and wife game. Gerald's Game.
But this time Jesse doesn't want to play. Lying there, spread-eagled and handcuffed to the bedstead while he looms and drools over her, she feels angry and humiliated.
So she kicks out hard. Aims to hit him where it hurts.
He isn't meant to die, leaving Jesse alone and helpless in a lakeside holiday cabin. Miles from anywhere. No-one to hear her screams.
Alone. Except for the stray dog that smells her blood, the voices in her head which begin to chatter, and the board which creaks stealthily at nightfall, signalling that something or someone else is close by.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
While this is one of the best-written stories King has ever published, it will offend many through sheer bad taste. Jessie and Gerald Burlingame have been married for 20 years. Kinky sex is Gerald's game; lately he has taken to handcuffing his wife to the bedposts. During one such session, via a series of bizarre circumstances, Jessie accidentally kills her husband, and for the next 28 hours she is trapped. King effectively uses this tragicomic conceit to take us deep into the mind of ``Goodwife Burlingame.''sic For the first third of the book he is at the top of his form, creating in Jessie one of his most intense character studies. Then, Jessie's ruminations lead her to remember a long-repressed episode of incest that is startling not because it becomes a central element of the plot, but because the details of the sexual relationship between father and daughter are salaciously--and lengthily--described. The gory stuff--how Jessie escapes her handcuffs, for example--is prime King, but this is subsumed in the book's general tastelessness. A lame wrap-up to what might have been a thrilling short story only further compromises the enjoyment readers might have found in this surprisingly exploitative work. 1.5 million first printing; $750,000 ad/promo; BOMC main selection.
Customer Reviews
Gerald's game
Very good story as expected amazing detail. Couldn't put the book down! Only downside for me personally was the ending, very abrupt on a happy note, was hoping for something a bit darker. Just my opinion though. Worth a read
Page turner
I couldn't put this down. A very intense book that keeps you wanting to turn every page! And there's more to the story than seems, loved the conclusion. As always with Stephen King the detail is amazing and you will be fully engrossed.
Genuinely horrifying
I've read most King novels but missed Gerald's Game - maybe it always sounded a bit dull to a teenage fan.
Finally read it and wow - very likely the scariest book he's ever written. And some of his best writing. It's a bizarre blend of the 'locked door' mystery, psychological horror, survival story, abuse narrative and probably one of the few times King has written a perfectly formed grown female character. And when it suddenly starts to add in the supernatural horror it's genuinely chilling in a way that even something like IT never was.
It's also strangely uplifting. Like a grown up version of the girl who loved Tom Gordon.
Loved it.