From the book jacket:
Roused by a single drop of blood on the bedsheet, Rosie Daniels wakes from fourteen years of a nightmare marriage and suddenly takes flight. She uses her husband's ATM card to buy a bus ticket, determined to lose herself in a place where Norman won't find her. She'll worry about all the rest later.
Alone in a strange city, she begins to make a new life, and good things start to happen. Meeting Bill Steiner is one; and finding a junk-shop painting is another. It may be bad art but it's perfect for her new apartment -- and somehow, it seems to want her as much as she wants it.
Still, it's hard for Rosie not to keep looking over her shoulder, and with good reason. Her husband is a cop, with the instincts of a predator. He's very good at finding people. The fact that he's losing his mind might even be an advantage.
Rose-maddened and on the rampage, Norman Daniels becomes a force of relentless terror and savageness, a man almost mythic in his monstrosity. For Rosie to survive, for her to have a chance in her brave new world, she must enter her own myth -- a world that lies beyond the surface of a work of art -- and become a woman she never knew she could be: Rose Madder
Moe's Review
Rose Madder was one that I hadn't read before I started this project. I had seen it for years in the book stores but the name of the book always turned me off, not a real valid reason to not read this book but it's the truth, I put off reading it for years because I thought the title was dumb.
I am glad that I got over my dislike of the name of the book because this is definitely a strong book by the King. Rose Madder tells the story of Rosie, a woman who has been battered for the last 14 years by her sadistic husband Norman who also happens to be a cop. She finally builds up enough courage to leave him and although quite ignorant of the world around her finds her way to a women's shelter where she begins to rebuild her life. Of course, Norman is hot on her tail and completely out of his mind but incredibly cunning and sadistic.
I really enjoyed the meat of the story. Norman makes for a great protagonist, he is vicious and sadistic but smart and devious as well. Rosie makes a sweet heroine in the story, she is believable in her failings in life on her own for the first time, she is also brave and endearing. The writing is very good King, tight and focused for the most part, and builds excellent tension as Norman chases down Rosie.
My largest disappointment with the book is the supernatural aspect of the picture Rosie buys. I don't want to go into it too much for those of you who haven't read it. It just didn't seem necessary to me, I felt this would have been a much stronger book if he had left it completely in the realm of reality. It would have made the book much more terrifying to me and it would have shown that a woman is a capable of leaving an abusive partner without having any outside help.
A very good King book. Norman is definitely one of Stephen King's more vicious bad guys that he has wrote, I know that I sure wouldn't want Norman to talk to me "up real close". |
Place a bid
