The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon : A Novel [Hardcover]

Stephen King (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 6, 1999

What if the woods were full of them? And of course they were, the woods were full of everything you didn't like, everything you were afraid of and instinctively loathed, everything that tried to overwhelm you with nasty, no-brain panic.

The brochure promised a "moderate-to-difficult" six-mile hike on the Maine-New Hampshire branch of the Appalachian Trail, where nine-year-old Trisha McFarland was to spend Saturday with her older brother, Pete, and her recently divorced mother. When she wanders off to escape their constant bickering, then tries to catch up by attempting a shortcut through the woods, Trisha strays deeper into a wilderness full of peril and terror. Especially when night falls.

Trisha has only her wits for navigation, only her ingenuity as a defense against the elements, only her courage and faith to withstand her mounting fear. For solace she tunes her Walkman to broadcasts of Boston Red Sox games and the gritty performances of her hero, number 36, relief pitcher Tom Gordon. And when her radio's reception begins to fade, Trisha imagines that Tom Gordon is with her -- her key to surviving an enemy known only by the slaughtered animals and mangled trees in its wake.

A classic story that engages our emotions at the most primal level, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon explores our deep dread of the unknown and the extent to which faith can conquer it. It is a fairy tale grimmer than Grimm, but aglow with a girl's indomitable spirit.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Trisha McFarland is a plucky 9-year-old hiking with her brother and mom, who is grimly determined to give the kids a good time on their weekends together. Trisha's mom is recently divorced, and her brother is feuding with her for moving from Boston to small-town Maine, where classmates razz him. Trisha steps off the trail for a pee and a respite from the bickering. And gets lost.

Trisha's odyssey succeeds on several levels. King renders her consciousness of increasing peril beautifully, from the "first minnowy flutter of disquiet" in her guts to her into-the-wild tumbles to her descent into hallucinations, the nicest being her beloved Red Sox baseball pitcher Tom Gordon, whose exploits she listens to on her Walkman. The nature writing is accurate, tense, and sometimes lyrical, from the maddening whine of the no-see-um mosquito to the profound obbligato of the "Subaudible" (Trisha's dad's term for nature's intimations of God). Our identification with Trisha deepens as we learn about her loved ones: Dad, a dreamboat whose beer habit could sink him; loving but stubborn Mom; Trisha's best pal, Pepsi Robichaud, vividly evoked by her colorful sayings ("Don't go all GIRLY on me, McFarland!"). The personal associations triggered by a full moon, the running monologue with which she stays sane--we who have been lost in woods will recognize these things.

In King's revealing Amazon.com interview, he said the one book he wishes he'd written was Lord of the Flies. When Trisha confronts a vision of buzzing horror in the middle of the woods, King creates his strongest echo yet of the central passage of Golding's novel. --Tim Appelo

From Publishers Weekly

"The world had teeth and it could bite you with them anytime it wanted." King's new novelAwhich begins with that sentenceAhas teeth, too, and it bites hard. Readers will bite right back. Always one to go for the throat, King crafts a story that concerns not just anyone lost in the Maine-New Hampshire woods, but a plucky nine-year-old girl, and from a broken home, no less. This stacked deck is flush with aces, however. King has always excelled at writing about children, and Trisha McFarland, dressed in jeans and a Red Sox jersey and cap when she wanders off the forest path, away from her mother and brother and toward tremendous danger, is his strongest kid character yet, wholly believable and achingly empathetic in her vulnerability and resourcefulness. Trisha spends nine days (eight nights) in the forest, ravaged by wasps, thirst, hunger, illness, loneliness and terror. Her knapsack with a little food and water helps, but not as much as the Walkman that allows her to listen to Sox games, a crucial link to the outside world. Love of baseball suffuses the novel, from the chapter headings (e.g., "Bottom of the Ninth") to Trisha's reliance, through fevered imagined conversations with him, on (real life) Boston pitcher Tom Gordon and his grace under pressure. King renders the woods as an eerie wonderland, one harboring a something stalking Trisha but also, just perhaps, God: he explicitly explores questions of faith here (as he has before, as in Desperation) but without impeding the rush of the narrative. Despite its brevity, the novel ripples with ideas, striking images, pop culture allusions and recurring themes, plus an unnecessary smattering of scatology. It's classic King, brutal, intensely suspenseful, an exhilarating affirmation of the human spirit. 1,250,000 first printing; major ad/promo; BOMC and QPB featured alternates; simultaneous audiocassette and CD, read by Anne Heche.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Scribner; 1ST edition (April 6, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684867621
• ISBN-13: 978-0684867625
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (875 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #414,657 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Stephen King is the author of more than fifty books, all of them worldwide bestsellers. Among his most recent are the Dark Tower novels, Cell, From a Buick 8, Everything's Eventual, Hearts in Atlantis, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, and Bag of Bones. His acclaimed nonfiction book, On Writing, was also a bestseller. He is the recipient of the 2003 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. He lives in Bangor, Maine, with his wife, novelist Tabitha King.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

116 of 125 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not too Scary, but Wonderfully Told, December 29, 1999

By 

Kevin Wohler (Lawrence, KS USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon : A Novel (Hardcover)

On one of my bookshelves, next to a series of large tomes by Stephen King, there now stands a small, 200-page book that looks out of place. Between Gerald's Game and Insomnia, King's new book is tucked away, seeming as if it doesn't belong there at all. Yet although The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon is a departure from his normal method of storytelling, it is still vintage King.

The title character is Trisha McFarland, a nine year-old girl (but big for her age), daughter of divorced parents, and the glue that has been holding together her feuding mother and older brother. As they set out for a hike through the woods in Maine (where else?), Trisha stops for a moment to go off the trail in an effort to get away from the family bickering. Separated from her mother and brother, Trisha attempts to find her way back to the trail only to discover that she is completely lost.

With a stoic resolve that King manages to make completely believable, Trisha sets off on an adventure, trying to find her way home. Her only link to civilization is her Walkman radio, which she cares for with a reverence. As she listens to the Boston Red Sox game, she begins to fantasize that closing pitcher Tom "Flash" Gordon is talking to her.

As the hours turn to days, Trisha comes to the realization that something else is in the woods with her, too. She doesn't have a name for it, but she begins thinking of it as "the thing" in the woods and later knows it as The God of the Lost. Little by little, Trisha slips between reality and the dark place where King likes to play. She sees things in the night, feels the breath of it on her neck, but the reader is never sure if it's real or merely the imaginings of a young girl whose stress level is beyond the breaking point.

Soon the barrier between reality and hallucination is gone, and Tom Gordon becomes not just an idle fantasy to pass the time, but a "real" person helping her through this nightmare. Tom gives her the strength she needs and comes to her when everything is all but lost. Through it all, Trisha tries desperately to discover what she believes and what she can believe in.

King does a wonderful job of telling the story almost entirely from Trisha's point of view. He does cheat once or twice to tell the reader what is happening in the search for the missing girl, but these breaks are few and far between. The audience is stuck with Trisha, lost in the woods, and unsure if she will ever be saved.

While The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon often seems out of character for King. More than a horror novel, it is a tale of survival and humanity fighting against nature. But there are still moments that mirror his past work, too. This is not to say that he is repeating himself, but rather that fans will see that this is a a King novel after all.

The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon may never be considered King's best (or best selling) novel, but it is intimate and inviting. There is no real horror, but it is a compelling tale wonderfully told.

32 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars what the Blair Witch Project should have been, December 2, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon : A Novel (Hardcover)

Stephen King, through the mind of a young girl, gives a graphic picture of the terror one might feel alone and lost in the woods. I would think that anyone who enjoyed The Blair Witch Project would find this book appealing, because it fleshes out the feelings and emotions that were only hinted at in that movie. If your idea of a great Stephen King book is The Regulators, then you will probably want to pass on this one, but if you enjoyed his more thoughtful works, such as the recent Bag of Bones, The Stand, etc. then this should be a good read for you. I will admit, I was starting to worry that maybe my favorite author had lost some of his touch, but my faith has been restored. The things that scare us most are the things we create in our own minds, and The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon chillingly exemplifies that.

23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars What lurks in the darkness of the forest?, April 1, 2001

By 

Denise Bentley "Kelsana" (The California Redwoods) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon : A Novel (Hardcover)

Trisha is out for a hike in the vast woods of Maine with her mom and brother when she finds herself lost and alone. What follows is a trek that covers more miles than this nine year old should have to face alone, with only a pittance of food and a walkman on which she is lulled to normality by listening to the exploits of her favorite baseball team and pitcher, Tom Gordon. What starts out as a little girl trying to cope with a difficult situation ends up being a horrifying expedition leading to hallucinations. Along the way she finds the bloody remains of mauled animal carcasses, and there is this ever-present feeling that she is being stalked.

I admit it was a page-turner, I wanted to know what would happen next, but it was mild compared to some of King's books. I enjoyed how the author developed the main character's change in mentation; we slowly watch her get weaker. The more time that passed the more Trisha's thought process and fears became warped and out of proportion. This book is a short quick read you can probably finish in a day. ....