THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, July 19, 1995 TAG: 9507190038
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E6 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Book Review
SOURCE: BY GREGORY N. KROLCZYK
LENGTH: Medium: 70 lines
IT WAS A single drop of blood, about the size of a dime, that started her thinking. Rose knew it was her blood, of course, the result of a quick pop in the nose. Norman, her husband of 14 years, usually didn't hit her in the face. That left visible marks. Usually, when he ``talked with her up close'' like this, she could expect anything from a couple of kidney punches to being stabbed with a pencil to being bitten hard enough to scar.
This time though the beating hadn't been so bad. But now there was blood on the bed sheet, and if Norman saw that he just might want to ``talk with her up close'' again. Sooner or later, she figured, he would kill her.
Then something occurred to her that chilled her to her very core: He might not.
With that realization, Rose McClendon Daniels grabbed Norman's bank card, and with nothing except what she was wearing on her back, bolted from the house without looking back.
After withdrawing $350, Rose climbs aboard a bus that will eventually deposit her some 800 miles away. Far enough, she hopes, that Norman will never find her.
Time passes and, with the help of a women's shelter, Rose manages to get on her feet. She lands a good-paying job, finds herself a room, even buys a painting to hang on her wall and meets a man she feels she can trust all in the same day. But deep down she knows that she hasn't seen the last of Norman. For in the real world, Norman is a cop, one who's real good at finding people. He will find her, and when he does. . .
With ``Rose Madder'' (Viking, 420 pages, $25.95), Stephen King the story-teller takes a narrative of modern-day horror and sprinkles it with a bit of myth to give us an entertaining little tale great for the campfire. Alas, this isn't a campfire tale I'm hearing, it's a novel (his 29th) I've read. And Stephen King the novelist has once again failed me.
The first problem is one of plot. For the third time (``Gerald's Game,'' ``Dolores Claiborne'') in as many years, King has given us a novel centered around the victim of some sort of spousal abuse. ``Rose Madder,'' though, contains a supernatural element that the others do not. Unfortunately, while this element is an integral part of the last 60 pages, King didn't bother to make it an integral part of the first 360. Quite to the contrary, other than one rather contrived section, its presence is nearly meaningless. Thus most of the book reads like your typical wife-runs-from-abusive-husband tale, then Boom! we're in the Twilight Zone.
Next, there are the novel's characters. Usually a King forte, here he has instead allowed both Rose and Norman to go so far over the top that they actually become caricatures of themselves. This is especially true of Norman who snaps too quickly and goes way too far. That the novel's supporting characters seem rather staid, maybe even a bit underdeveloped, only serves to exacerbate the problem.
Finally, and perhaps most annoying, is King's use of multiple viewpoints to reveal the same scene. Much like a fight sequence in a Jean-Claude van Damme movie where we see the same kick over and over from a dozen different angles, King shows us an entire scene through one character's eyes, then rolls back the clock and shows us the same scene from the other character's point of view. Used sparingly this device can be most effective, stretching minutes of action into pages of excitement. Overused, as it is here, it simply becomes tedious.
Perhaps one day Stephen King will find a good editor who will make him once again work to construct his novel, who won't allow him to simply spin a good yarn, but instead write the type of novel of which longtime readers know he's capable. Unfortunately, that probably won't ever happen. MEMO: Gregory N. Krolczyk is a writer who lives in Kill Devil Hills, N.C. by CNB