Customer Reviews

The Journals of Eleanor Druse: My Investigation of the Kingdom Hospital Incident

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The white lettering on the front cover of The Journals of Eleanor Druse: My Investigation of the Kingdom Hospital Incident cover glows ominously in the dark. The unexpected effect is eerie and a little unsettling. The tiny word "Fiction" in faint red text on the back cover stands out less clearly and is the only thing that indicates the book is a novel.

Its predecessor, The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer , tied in to the Rose Red miniseries, was a bestseller partly because many believed King wrote it (it was actually written by Ridley Pearson) and partly because some people thought the book was based on a real supernatural investigation.

The Journals opens with a letter to King by Eleanor (Sally to her friends) Druse, asking for help in carrying out her research into the events at Kingdom Hospital in Maine, where she has uncovered an otherworldly crisis. She wants King to have her journals, recorded between late 2002 and 2003, in case something happens to her.

The septuagenarian is a volunteer and regular patient at Kingdom Hospital, well known by staff and patients alike. One of her oldest friends, Madeline Kruger, is hospitalized on a stormy winter night after attempting suicide. In 1939, Sally and Maddy were both admitted to the old Kingdom Hospital, suffering from whooping cough, shortly before the hospital burned to the ground.

Maddy leaves behind a message indicating that something happened to them sixty years ago that Sally has successfully banished from her memory. Perhaps something related to the mysterious lesion that appears on a brain scan taken after Sally collapses and strikes her head when she witnesses something horrible after Maddy dies.

Sally is a believer in mystical events and often conducts siances with her fellow patients at the hospital. She carries healing crystals and meditates to try to communicate with those who have passed on before her. After Maddy's deathbed revelation, Sally becomes aware that the tormented spirit of a young girl haunts Kingdom Hospital, struggling to convey another message.

Sally's badgers her unambitious, beleaguered son Bobby into acquiring Maddy's old records and papers to help her uncover what she has been repressing for six decades while she simultaneously deals with persistent spirits at the hospital - among them a sinister shade she calls Dr. Rat - and the various levels of incompetence exhibited by the hospital's staff, including scalpel-happy Dr. Stegman, in exile from Boston General, who has left a trail of surgical horror stories on his record.

The Journals overlaps some of the events to be played out during the fifteen-hour series, which debuts on ABC on March 3rd, but it also provides backstory only available to readers of this book. The anonymous author knows his or her medicine, especially neuroscience, and the volume makes for interesting reading on its own, though it ends with Sally's mission only partly complete.

To discover more about the mysteries being played out in Kingdom Hospital, readers will have to turn on the television and see what Stephen King has in store for them this spring.

When Eleanor Druse is called to the hospital deathbed of an old childhood friend who has attempted suicide, she experiences gruesome hallucinations, both visual and auditory, and then blacks out. These events leads doctors to conclude that Eleanor has a brain abnormality and epilectic seizures. Eleanor believes no such thing. Instead she is certain that her extrasensory abilities have allowed her to view ghosts that haunt Kingdom Hospital.

Reminiscent of The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer and its tie-in to the TV miniseries Rose Red, this novel disguised as nonfiction is a tie-in to the Stephen King TV series Kingdom Hospital. It consists of Eleanor's journals of her investigation into the paranormal occurrences at the hospital, the identity of a child whose phantom cries only she can hear, and the secrets of her own past. The novel reveals an explanation for only part of the mysteries Eleanor is investigating. Her introduction to the journal, a cover letter to Stephen King, warns "Please read these pages as an introduction only to what I believe will one day be a complete scientific assessment of the remarkable occurrences witnessed by myself and others at Kingdom Hospital..." Although this book sets the scene for the TV series that follows, it can stand alone on its own merits.

I recommend this novel as a well-crafted blend of the factual and the fictional. You will learn something about neurological diseases and their treatment as the doctors deal with Eleanor's hallucinations. You will shiver at the spookiest of supernatural events as Eleanor attempts to bridge the gap between the past and the present, and between life and the first state of the afterlife.

Eileen Rieback

This is just a really fun read. Once you are hooked in bt Eleanor's loser son telling her what is going on, you turn page after page as she uncovers creepy and ultimately unspeakable things going on at the veerable Kingdom Hospital. The book does a nice job setting out that Eleanor is "special" in her ability to sniff out the paranormal and that despite everyones protestations that there is something terribly wrong at the hospital. It is troubling that through most of the book we are never quite sure whether things are really twisted or whether she is crazy and imagining things due to electrochemical malfunctions in her brain The medical professionals will cringe at the prima donna's showcased in this creepy book. I miss the Stephen King who formerly wrote books of a readable length that I could run through in a few nights of diligent reading. This book is a return to form that seems to have a little more of a rock and roll beat. I hate TV but I can't wait for the show.

In 1996, Stephen King was in Estes Park, Colorado, where filming of "Stephen King's The Shining" TV-mini series was taking place. In a video rental store, he saw a copy of Lars Von Trier's Kingdom Hospital, and he rented it and watched it in the very same town (Estes Park) where, nearly twenty years earlier, he was inspired to write The Shining. (see[...] for a wonderful interview with Kingdom Hospital's director Mark Carliner that explains these origins in detail).

No one was able to secure the rights nor much interest in what Stephen King initially saw as a potential hit-TV show, until fate intervened three years later, and King was struck by a van and nearly died. While recovering from the accident, Stephen King spent a lot of time in hospitals, and Von Trier's idea recurred to him. He wrote 15 hours of television scripts for a new TV show, Kingdom Hospital. Based largely on those scripts, ABC secured the rights to Von Trier's original idea, and preproduction began on the show.

The Journals of Eleanor Druse is a 244-page fictional account of a woman who visits that hospital in Lewiston, Maine, only to discover that the hospital has a sordid history and may be haunted. The story is told in the 1st-person point of view of this old lady who most people think is more than a little daffy. Eleanor claims to hear a young girl crying in the hospital's elevator, and the story takes on a conspiracy tone wherein the doctors do not believe Eleanor (or are trying to cover up what she knows). Keep in mind all of this is told from Eleanor's perspective, and as such the credibility of the narrator itself becomes suspect, which is also part of the fun of the novel.

To me, the most interesting idea King develops in The Journals of Eleanor Druse is the conflict that occurs when someone believes they've experienced a religious event, and scientists tell them that what happened was only the result of chemicals in their brain. In Eleanor's case, she is thought to be epileptic. Some of our very best writers (see Connie Willis's "Passage" and to some degree Carl Sagan's "Contact") in the past few years seem to be exploring that division between what constitutes a religious experience and what is merely a result of too much serotonin in the temporal lobe. Is humanity's belief in God some mass delusion caused by a species with highly evolved imaginative faculties? It's a hell of a question, and one (as a young fiction writer myself) I will probably explore in several novels during the next decade.

The Journals of Eleanor Druse only offers glancing shots at this very profound question, and with blurbs like "Watch Stephen King's Kingdom Hospital on ABC-TV" on the cover of the book, it's tempting to write this book off as an extended ad to help build hype for a TV show. There are very few books that Stephen King has written in the past decade that have genuinely captured my interest, and I only wish the so-called "Master of Horror Fiction" would act more like a Master than the witty used-car salesman he seems content to be.

Stacey Cochran
Author of CLAWS available for 80 cents

If you don't like King's adaptation of "The Kingdom", then that's fine. Each to his own. But I am absolutely fed up with this "King stole it" crap. First off, go to King's own website. It clearly cites "The Kingdom" as the original source for the ABC series. The Time magazine article (Feb. 24th, 2004) also credits von Trier.

If ABC only wants to credit von Trier in the opening or closing credits of the episodes, that is their right. Most likely they are not including von Trier's name in the TV spots that are currently advertising the serires because MOST AMERICANS HAVE NEVER HEARD OF VON TRIER!

They have, however, heard of Stephen King and King's fans are exactly the demographic that this show is going to be targeting. A handful of von Trier fans (most of which are probably going to stop watching early on claiming the original is better) are not going to keep this show's ratings up enough to remain on the air.

So do your homework before you start making baseless claims.

Overall, this book is very well written. The character of Sally Druse is very likeable. Also, be on the lookout for several literary jokes made throughout, which, refreshingly, the author didn't feel the need to explain to the audience. You either get them, and they enhance your reading of the book, or they are over your head. Nice to see an author with faith in his/her audience. I read it in one sitting yesterday in preparation for the premiere tonight. Personally, I felt the book was worth the money even though it ends abruptly and waits for the show to pick up the story.

Those with an interest in or penchant for the paranormal will be riveted to this reading by the author. A career spiritualist, Eleanor Druse, lives in Maine (as does Stephen King whose "Kingdom Hospital" will be on TV) and spent considerable time organizing the journals she has kept regarding her experiences with Kingdom Hospital.

After surviving a near death experience when she visited a friend at that hospital, Druse spends some time at Boston General Hospital suffering from an unknown illness. Upon returning home she hears rumors about strange happenings at Kingdom Hospital and determines that she must investigate. She begins after soliciting the help of her son, Bobby, who is an orderly there.

Among her discoveries is the fact that the Hospital is built on the site of a textile mill that was destroyed by fire after the Civil War. This conflagration also took the lives of many workers, child laborers included.

Druse becomes convinced that the spirit of one child, Mary Jensen is imprisoned within the Hospital. She also senses that there are other evil spirits lurking among the corridors.

"The Journals of Eleanor Druse" is a "Kingly" reading sure to chill and intrigue.

- Gail Cooke

I listened to the unabridged audiobook version of "The Journals of Eleanor Druse." It was a wonderful, riveting read that went by quickly! More than once I found myself driving a little bit out of the way, or just sitting in my car once I arrived at my destination so I could hear just a little bit more of this story.

Other reviewers have given the plot set-up and a few details. They mention Eleanor "Sally" Druse, her health issues, and her investigation of a possible haunting of Kingdom Hospital. All of this is accurate. I think it is important to make it clear that there's so much more in this book--layers of story! There's the question of whether Sally is having seizures or actual paranormal experiences. Her struggle to maintain control of her own healthcare as she ages, is fascinating. There's the mystery of the life and death of her childhood friend, Madeline Kruger (sp.?) ... there's the mystery of the little girl, and her history with Kingdom Hospital. And, there's simply Kingdom and its story.

What I liked: I loved getting to know Sally, and witnessing her revelations. This was a truly wonderful character sketch--not just of Sally, but of her son, Bobby, and the other supporting characters. I thought Sally was a particularly interesting character because of her interest in meditation and the metaphysical. She brought just the right mix of belief and skepticism to the story. I picked this one up with some hesitance--I wasn't up for an extremely scary story. I was very happy to find that this book had just the right amount of spookiness. The tension and mystery in the atmosphere made for a very exciting read. There was so much interesting stuff to explore--especially the history in the walls of the new Kingdom Hospital. I wish this book had been longer!

What I would change: The end. I think it cut off before a really satisfying conclusion to the storylines had been reached. Sometimes this can work, in this instance, it felt unnatural and forced. I would still recommend this book to others as a worthy read--but, be prepared for a very abrupt ending. On a very basic level, all storylines are resolved, but really, it felt like a bit of a cliffhanger ... I don't know if the TV series resolves the story. I've got the discs on order!

Eleanor Druse is a woman with a gift: she can communicate with the spirit realm. While visiting a friend at Kingdom Hospital, she has a near-death experience and discovers that humans aren't the only inhabitants of Kingdom. The story starts out a bit slowly, but by the second chapter, I was completely hooked. The pace never lessens and the characters are believeable, especially vain neurosurgeon Stegman. The book leaves off just as the Stephen King-produced miniseries begins, and it should be a must-read for any King fan.

On the order of The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer this story has the power to hold attention, relate to and hate characters, cringe at details and want more. The crusty old woman who tells the tail is a cross between Murder She Wrote and Miss Marple - and the vocabulary is a little too "high tone" for such an elderly dowager, but at the end you are flipping end papers looking for more. Excellent read - and you should!

I dislike reading reviews that try to do to much summarizing and I am sure that there are a multiplicity of them below, so I will stick to other topics.

This is a very smooth read. The prose is deceptively simple, the language clear and evocative. I appreciate that clarity in this novel. Though that simplicity is never dull, nor does it ever insult the intelligence of the reader. It seems to share the cripsness and careful wordchoice of really good poetry (think Ted Kooser) While reading through it I never got stuck on a sentence, found any particularly bad grammer, turns of phrase, cliches etc. The dialogue/setting/action/ and images are in nice balance. The (re?)creation of the character of Druse is remarkably good. Its not rocket science, and its not probably ever going to have a doctoral thesis written about it (but then again...*s*), but I like it.