Joyland

I pretty much took the day off yesterday, not only because it was Sunday and I like to kick back, but also because it was somewhere in the 90s, bizarrely humid and I could barely manage to make my lungs work, let alone walk or talk.
 
A perfect excuse then for a good book, some snacks and an ice cold Dos Equis to get myself through the day.
 
Grocery shopping earlier in the week, I saw Stephen King's new book, Joyland, on display at the checkout counter.  He's one of my favorite writers, not that I'm into horror or scary things, but because he can write a sentence, a paragraph, a story like nobody else.  That's not to say I've liked all his books.  I haven't.  And frankly I prefer his older work to some of the newer, especially the stuff after his near-death accident.
 


Joyland is old Stephen King.  Sucked me in immediately, I couldn't stop reading, and was completely mesmerized by the story.
 
I don't usually write book reviews; reading is so subjective and personal, and we all have our own opinions and preferences. 

So, this post isn't exactly a review but more a quick description of the story (from the back cover), and a few quotes from the book that just added to my ongoing love affair for a writer at the top of his game.
 





Blurb:
 

College student Devin Jones took the summer job at Joyland [an amusement park, 1973], hoping to forget the girl who broke his heart.  But he wound up facing something far more terrible: the legacy of a vicious murder, the fate of a dying child, and dark truths about life--and what comes after--that would change his world forever.  Joyland is at once a mystery, a horror story, and a bittersweet coming-of-age novel...

 

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A few bits from Devin:

 

"When you're twenty-one, life is a roadmap.  It's only when you get to be twenty-five or so that you begin to suspect you've been looking at the map upside down, and not until you're forty are you entirely sure.  By the time you're sixty, take it from me, you're fucking lost."

 

"When it comes to the past, everyone writes fiction."

 

"Nothing screws with memory like repetition."

 

"I remembered something my mother used to say. 'The devil can quote scripture.'"

 

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Even out of context, can you feel his words, how they effortlessly draw you in?  I honestly don't think there's anyone writing today who can tell the story of a boy's--or a young man's--coming-of-age quite like Stephen King. 

 

I love this writer...and I really loved this book.