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Alone in their
bedroom, Jessie and Gerald Burlingame are
playing a game of trust and controll. But
when her husband
takes the game too far by handcuffing her to
a bedpost, Jessie lashes out--with deadly
results. But now she is trapped, with no way
to escape the deathly quiet of the room.
Over the next twenty-eight hours, Jessie
will come face-to-face with her most
terrifying nightmares that exist in the last
place she would
ever look...her mind!
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Christopher Lehmann-Haupt - New
York Times
Gerald's Game is a work of psychological terror, except
for one significant detail, and whether this detail is
actually an exception becomes an important part of the
story. Oddly enough, it is on balance optimistic about human
nature, if not very kind to the male sex. But it should be
read by very bright light, with friendly people nearby. And
with no hungry dogs around.
Publisher's 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.
AudioFile - Sheldon Kaye
As the greater part of this story takes place during the
two days Jessie is handcuffed to her bed and by now everyone
knows why and as this 12-cassette program is 13 hours long,
it seems to take place in real time. That time goes by
quickly indeed thanks to King’s provocative, spooky plotting
and actress Lindsay Crouse’s enthusiasm, her skillful
reading, and her facility with the voices in Jessie’s head
as she sorts out her traumatic past and finds the courage to
survive. The few sound effects used to signal the beginning
and the end of a cassette and important shifts in action are
appropriately eerie. S.K.. ©AudioFile, Portland, Maine
USA Today
One of his best.
Newsweek
Cunningly orchestrated...kept us up half the night, we
couldn't put it down. |
