Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, July 30, 1995 TAG: 9507280063
SECTION: BOOKS PAGE: F-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: REVIEWED BY NEIL HARVEY
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
I used to be Stephen King's No. 1 Fan, back when I was a book-devouring, mildly disturbed youngster, but to be honest, I haven't seriously enjoyed anything he's published since 1987, since "Misery."
If you're a lapsing King fan, too, and you were sort of hoping that his latest, "Rose Madder," would end his run of lackluster efforts, well ... there's good news and there's bad news.
The bad news is: this is one of his weakest books.
The good news is: at least it's relatively short, which, I suppose, makes it not as lame as, say, "The Tommyknockers."
The book begins as long-suffering homemaker Rosie Daniels walks out on Norman, her abusive, weird-and-getting-weirder husband of 14 years. Not only is Norman a psycho who likes to bite people, he's also a police detective, so when Rosie moves to a faraway city, changes her name and starts a new life, he sets out to track her down.
The story sounds a little like "Sleeping With the Enemy," doesn't it? Actually, it's a lot like that, until Rosie buys a magical painting that, one night, turns her room into a Molly Hatchet album cover; the painting is a gateway to a world where she meets Rose Madder, a vengeful goddess. And let me tell you, when a cannibal cop and a vengeful goddess go head-to-head, look out. It's not pretty.
Unfortunately, it's not very interesting, either.
Almost all of King's books, even the bad ones, hook the reader early, then they blast off and they don't slow down. "Rose Madder," on the other hand, has flat characters, familiar situations, moves at a slug's pace and reads like King typed it in with his left hand while his right hand was channel surfing.
It's also painfully clear that he's much more comfortable handling the chapters dealing with Norman's search for Rosie. When Norm is stalking, beating, and chewing, King is in high gear; when writing about Rosie's decision to change her hairstyle or getting her together with a cheesy new boyfriend, he's obviously out of his element and the book slows down even more.
I don't know what King's problem is. Is he simply writing too much too fast? Is he slumped because the triad of Grisham/Crichton/Waller is stealing some of his Bestseller List thunder? Whatever's the matter, he isn't writing books like he used to, books like "The Shining," "The Stand," and "The Dead Zone," and I wish he'd get back on that track.
Don't get me wrong: I think it's a very good thing that King has written a book about a woman who removes herself from a violent situation, a book that'll be read by countless people. But such an important issue deserves better treatment, particularly from a writer who's an expert storyteller when he wants to be. King often writes about domestic violence, and with palpable anger, but in this case, it would've been an impressive surprise if he'd left out the supernatural mumbo jumbo and the comic book violence in favor of a more honest handling of the subject; that might've been his scariest book. What he gives us, instead, feels primarily like a synopsis for another ABC sweeps week miniseries.
Neil Harvey lives in Blacksburg.
by CNB