Edgar Freemantle is a millionaire, having made his fortune in
construction. He has a happy marriage and two lovely grown
daughters. But his contentment changes in one moment when a
12-story crane crushes his truck, along with himself, at a job
site. The accident shatters his hip, breaks his ribs, damages his
vision and costs him his right arm. Edgar’s head injury
impairs his brain to the point where he doesn't know his own family
members, scrambles his speech and is unable to remember what
happened. His frustration fuels his rage, and he turns abusive
toward those trying to help him, including his wife Pam. His
psychiatrist, Dr. Kamen, gives the angry, depressed, drug-addicted
patient an unusual treatment: a Lucille Ball look-alike doll for
him to vent his fury upon, but the cure is insufficient.

When Pam informs Edgar that she’s leaving him, he retorts,
"Get out, you quitting birch." Yet that last pain in a chain of
horrors comes close to totally destroying him. He contemplates
suicide. But how can he do it without his life insurance company
contesting the settlement? Even more importantly, how can he kill
himself in a way that won't hurt his daughters, especially his
sensitive favorite, Ilse? Dr. Kamen intervenes, suggesting that he
move away for at least a year. Although he (and Kamen himself) is
skeptical that leaving the area will help his despair, Edgar feels
something that almost resembles hope. And when Kamen asks him if
anything besides his work and family has ever made him happy, Edgar
remembers that he loved to draw when he was a child.

Edgar proceeds to rent a huge pink house on Florida's Duma Key.
Before he moves, though, he has an experience in which his
(amputated) right arm seems to put a suffering dog out of its
misery by choking it to death. Or did it? He also dreams a
terrifying nightmare, in which Reba, his anger management doll,
grown to the size of a real child and with her mouth smeared with
blood, tells him, "The bad frog chased us!" (At this point, the
reader experiences a sudden urge to flip on another light or three
in a night-darkened house.)

Settled into "Big Pink," Edgar sketches and then paints, sometimes
in a frenzy and with the sure knowledge that his missing right arm
is, at the very least, guiding him. Those dream-fever art attacks
result in incredible paintings, some of which are beautiful while
others are ominous. Edgar repeatedly paints a ship he has not
physically seen in the ocean outside his window. When Ilse plans to
visit him with good news, his right arm tingles and itches until he
draws the person he somehow knows is connected with Ilse's coming
announcement: a young man in jeans and a Minnesota Twins
shirt.

As he sketches, Edgar knows not only that the subject of his
portrait has given his daughter a ring, but also where it was
bought. When she arrives, he discovers that his drawing is eerily
psychic, down to the tiniest details. The story's atmosphere turns
darker with foreshadowing as Edgar and Ilse attempt to explore the
jungly deserted end of the island. However, they are unable to
enter it, partly due to the vegetation but mostly because Ilse
becomes deathly ill.

Meanwhile, Edgar meets his neighbors. The elderly Elizabeth
Eastlake owns the houses on the island, including Big Pink. Her
caretaker, Wireman, is both damaged and wise. Their fates are
inextricably linked with Edgar's. A mystery threads through the
plot: what exactly happened to Elizabeth's twin sisters decades
ago? Some lives are rebuilt while others are damaged beyond repair
when frail human beings battle a mysterious presence.

DUMA KEY pulls readers in on the first page, not releasing them
until the very end of this hefty spellbinder. Of course, that's
nothing new for Stephen King, that fine teller of tales. Yet this
story feels fresh and heartfelt. (King survived a horrendous
accident himself; parts of the novel feel like a "What if?"
alternative reality to his recovery.) There is a poignant sweetness
to Edgar's resurrection, especially in his connections with family
and friends, with accompanying joy, unbearable sorrow and a
distinct upwelling of hope.

We also encounter a goodly amount of King's trademark creepy heeby
jeebies. But by the time things get really crazy, we've
related to Edgar so long that we fight the monsters shoulder to
shoulder with him. DUMA KEY is King at his yarn-spinning best; it's
no wonder that his "Constant Reader" population continues to grow
as the years roll by.