Red’s Book Review: Rose Madder by Stephen King

I figured I’d churn out short reviews of books as I finish them. I sped through the last 100 pages of this on Tuesday, and generally speaking, I doubt I’ll give it much more thought after writing this. It’s a Stephen King book. Not one of his best, and perhaps one of his worst in the sense that it seems like he is following a template, making sure to hit all the obligatory Stephen King plot points and gory details. He does that, so if you haven’t read anything else by King, it probably seems super original.

I did like the idea of entering a painting and interacting with the people within. As usual, there were slight references to his other books including the Dark Tower series and Misery. It satisfies on the surface level by punishing the bad guy, and rewards the good guy. It also includes the usual King epilogue where it seems the good guy has lingering issues and makes you wonder about the future, but that epilogue went on too long. This was one where I was ready for it to be over when the bad guy was vanquished.

I want to finish this off by taking a tangent. Lately I’ve been thinking about coincidences and connections. The root of which probably starts with the nonfiction piece I wrote “Simulating Success,” and continued with Snake’s comments and my response. Anyways, I always find it interesting when a book I am reading somehow connects to something I either just read or plan on reading. You know, like there's some magic in it speaking specifically to me.  In this book, there is a reference to the Tommy James and the Shondells song – Hanky Panky. Now, King almost always includes popular music references in his stories, and more often than not, he includes songs from the 50s and 60s, as those were the songs he most likely listened to growing up. It’s coincidental here because I knew that I was going to read, Me, the Mob, and the Music, next, which is the autobiography of Tommy James. Also coincidentally, James mentions early in his book that his family goes to live near his Aunt Gert (probably short for Gertrude) in Michigan. This was funny because there is a character in Rose Madder named Gertrude, who goes by the name of Gert. If the name had been Bill or Jenny, I probably wouldn't have made a connection, but Gert just isn't one you hear very often these days. Does any of this matter or mean anything? No, probably not, but it’s an interesting idea – maybe one for a story where someone discovers some sort of clues or solves some sort of problem by connecting seemingly meaningless dots in random pieces of literature.