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A Meaty Tale: The Powells.com Interview with Julie Powell

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   Cleaving: A Story of Marriage, Meat, and Obsession

   Julie Powell

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Linda Shelnutt, April 21, 2006 (view all comments by Linda Shelnutt)
Case Study In Soul Stench: Annie-ax, Evil Samaritan

Throughout this book I drug my feet (oh so thankful they were both still hanging on my ankles), cringing, in what was to me the ultimate in horror, not only in the physical entrapment of being incapacitated, in horrendous pain, and at the mercy of the most insidious psychopath who could implement any type of torture she could conjure, any time of day or night as her victim, the reader as author, lies helpless in her guest bed.

The gradual but relentlessly growing awareness that Annie Wilkes was not a caring, sane woman, that she was a very very Evil Samaritan, that she was indeed psychologically challenged to the bottom of her putrid soul ... the gradation of that insidiously seeping, flickering awareness of Annie Wilkes's twisted ebony heart was true horror. I don't recall ever reading the development of psychosis in a character being accomplished so clearly, so chillingly realistically.

This may be King's most symbolic, significant novel.

Throughout the book I wondered, is this what it would feel like to be a famous author, a creative soul trapped by the tastes of fans? One of the worst spiritual imprisonments would be to become known, loved, and sought after for a certain quality in a product, then be held hostage to that quality, to be compelled to continue to recreate, regurgitate that quality forever and forever with no hope for an amen, with no hope to ever take a tangent or get a new lease on writing.

"I'm your Number One Fan." Each time Annie Wilkes said this, my hair would have stood on end if it weren't so thin, limp, and lacking, if I hadn't already pulled it all out in the first couple chapters of the book.

If anyone understands the very essence of misery, it's Stephen King. If anyone can impart the ultimate in that feeling in a novel, it's King. Man, oh man, he did it. Her put misery on the bookshelves for keeps.

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Product Details

ISBN:

9780451169525

Author:

King, Stephen

Publisher:

Signet Book

Location:

New York

Subject:

Fiction

Subject:

Horror

Subject:

Horror fiction

Subject:

Horror stories

Subject:

Horror tales

Subject:

Novelists, American

Subject:

Juvenile

Subject:

Horror - General

Subject:

General Fiction

Subject:

Fans (persons)

Copyright:

1987

Series Volume:

no. 1

Publication Date:

June 1988

Binding:

Mass Market Paperbound

Grade Level:

General/trade

Language:

English

Illustrations:

Y

Pages:

352

Dimensions:

6.90x4.19x.98 in. .37 lbs.