In a bit of a bind.
Men still think the same things about us they have always thought, Ruth – I’m sure of it. A lot of them have learned to say the right things at the right times, but as my mother used to say, ‘Even a cannibal can learn to recite the Apostles’ Creed.’
Stephen King, Gerald’s Game
TRIGGER WARNING – Child Sexual Exploitation and Rape
Having said goodbye to Castle Rock and gotten clean in his last book, this period of King’s writing is one I’ve always looked upon as a period of reinvention for himself. Needful Things was the most purely Stephen King book I could imagine, brilliant but also written in a way I suspect to exorcise those tropes that had become synonymous with his novels and force himself into trying something new. His 90s output is not a period I am overly familiar with, but Gerald’s Game strips back a lot of those writerly crutches and deliberately places King into a scenario that is deliciously difficult to write himself out of.
King has written enough books that it is inevitable that there are still comparisons to be made with some of his previous books. Gerald’s Game has echoes of The Long Walk, Cujo, Misery, and The Library Policeman, but what makes this story stand out compared to those previous efforts is King entering the story, as best as he can, on the female perspective. His 80s output is decidedly masculine, and though there are women characters in his books, they tend to do things boobily with hips swaying. This is particularly evident in his books with large casts, where the need to differentiate women usually amounts to weeping mothers (‘Salem’s Lot, The Stand), wide-eyed damsels (It with young Bev, The Stand) or objects of romance (It with adult Bev, Needful Things). This is made all the more disappointing when his first book, Carrie, is so keenly observed with not just Carrie White’s experience, but all the other women present in that book. Arguably, Cujo has Donna Trenton, but it lacks the richness of characterisation Carrie or Jessie Burlingame have.
I think it is with this book, as well as other during the 90s, that King is making a conscious effort to combat some of the laziness his previous female characters possessed. By no means is he perfect, but comparing the characterisation of Frannie in the book The Stand (even the revised edition) with the King-penned episode of the recent adaptation (see more here) shows the change he has made in ensuring women have their own interior lives, motives, and feelings divorced from beings simply an extension of a male character’s sphere of influence.
Jessie Burlingame is King’s best realised woman character since Carrie White. King’s struggles with female characters have been in trying to give them fears and concerns that aren’t immediately connected with the men in their lives, whether that be fathers, sons, husbands, boyfriends, serial killers, or even writers. I think King makes a clever choice in writing this story in making Jessie’s journey all about divorcing herself from the male influence, past and present, most immediately by kicking Gerald in the chest and balls and giving him a heart attack.
As such, the book’s progress allows king to peel back the layers of Jessie’s character (much as she will peel her own skin off later in the book, a period of around two chapters reading where I forgot to breathe) in order to examine the misogyny and abuse she has suffered throughout her whole life. King has written about child abuse before, hinting around the edges in It and giving a graphic account in The Library Policeman, but never has he addressed it in quite the same way as he has here. I don’t know how a child abuse survivor would react to this book – and to be quite honest, I would probably advise them not to read this particular book – but the guilt Jessie undergoes, how it shapes hers submissive character yet ultimately pushes her felt far more truthful than how it was dealt with in The Library Policeman. Here, King has the space to properly deal with incredibly uncomfortable aftermath of such an event, but also firmly frames within the breach of trust between Jessie and her father rather than Sam Peebles and a random pedophile he has no relationship with. The majority of cases of abuse happen within families, and so Jessie’s trauma at the hands of her father rings horribly true. What happens is never treated less than a horrific breach of trust between a child and someone whom they love, and the respect with which King treats that experience (and by extension anyone who has been through similar) I think shows King understands more fully this time around what he is dealing with.
There are some who might question why a book should deal with this kind of thing at all. Why should horror deal with child abuse? Because it is horror, it is, if anything a safer environment to process it. Fantasy, Horror, even Superheroes, allow us a safer space to process or discuss these kinds of things. And if it gets those who wouldn’t approach straighter versions of these stories, whether they avoid fantasy or are true accounts, to experience them and consider other’s experiences, then that cannot be a bad thing.
Gerald isn’t given much time to develop in the book, but his turn towards being a rapist is enough for the reader to get the main feminist theme of the book is Jessie’s reclamation of herself, her identity and her own personal power. Part of the book is taking the power away from her father and Gerald, as well as accepting the help of the voices of the women she has known to rebuild herself and she only has herself to do it with. As much as it is a ‘locked room’ story, the voices in Jessie’s head motivate her to regain power: Goody Burlingame, acts as a sort of oppressed Superego, indicative of the quiet but good woman who motivates by being something for Jessie to react against; Ruth Neary her old college roommate, the feminist Id, pushing her to punch and scream and fight; and Ruth, her psychologist, the subconscious trying to help Jessie process everything all in service to save the Ego that is Jessie. It is only when Jessie learns to balance these voices that she can process them and emerge from her handcuffs alive. She may not have overcome men everywhere, but she has at least overcome the men in her life, and is wary of anyone else who would try to stop her now.
King has written a few other books that have a locked down set of characters in a location, but nothing to same extent as this. This book feels like a real writer challenge. Other ‘locked room’ stories by King have a lot more wiggle room; Cujo has a whole car and cuts to other stories, and Paul Sheldon could get around in a wheelchair at least. But Jessie has the least wiggle room of any characters, and the exploration of her interior and tight focus on her experience within those four posts is what makes this such a physical book. The Long Walk explored the physical ramifications of exertion in a horrific way, but every cramp Jessie endures only endears the reader to her plight more as we never leave her side. When it comes to the de-gloving scene, the reaction to it, at least for this reader, was visceral. I defy any reader not to read that and not squirm at least a little bit. The last quarter of the book can’t live up to it.
The Space Cowboy, Raymond Andrew Joubert, is one of King’s more horrible creations (with physical echoes of titular Library Policeman I thought, as well as real-world inspirations like Jeffrey Dahmer and Ed Gein I’m sure), but to an extent feels unnecessary. Once Jessie has escaped the handcuffs, the book struggles to maintain momentum. It can be argued that Joubert’s necrophillia is another example of masculine control, albeit a rather ghoulish one, and Jessie’s final confrontation is what allows her to finally move on. But it feels tacked on, and is the one bum note of the book that until that point held my attention like a vice.
It’s not a perfect book, and the the interior voices King summons up for Jessie can be annoying at times. But one gets the impression from it that King has begun to listen to the criticism of his previous female characters, and is making a real concerted effort to address them. The 90s would see a number of books by King where he tries to centre them on female experiences rather than male monsters, and Gerald’s Game is one helluva a way to start a new decade.
Observations and Connections
Most of the references come thick and fast towards the end of the book. However, one big link with another work isn’t confirmed until a later book, so I shall, at present, decline to comment upon that until next time.
Though we’re technically in New England, we are but a stone’s throw from Maine. Harlow, which was first mentioned in The Body, is near the lake where this is set. Chamberlain, the town from Carrie, is also fleetingly mentioned. Joubert travels about, and spent some time institutionalised at Juniper Hill, which was first mentioned in It but has become the standard asylum anyone in King’s books gets sent to. Joubert is caught in Castle County, with mention made of a ‘fire’ that consumed the town recently that happened in Needful Things (first appearing in The Dead Zone and many others). It’s made clear that Pangborn has moved out from Castle Rock, as Norris Ridgewick is now sheriff, with LaPointe his deputy.
Finally, the stray dog who ate Gerald’s body is constantly referred to as the dog that used to be known as Prince, which leads me to suspect that Stephen King is more of a Michael Jackson fan.
UP NEXT: Prepare to make witness for the statement of Dolores Claiborne.
Deeper Thoughts for the Horror Inclined 