Rose Madder [Paperback]

Stephen King (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Signet; 1st Printing edition (1996)
• ISBN-10: 0451934075
• ISBN-13: 978-0451934079
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 4.1 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,570,771 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

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The King of Horror, April 13, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Stephen King/Delores Claiborne-Insomnia-Rose Madder

These three stories are not King's best works, but they are indeed great works. King's books are always interesting and fun to read. He has made an art of horror in modern literature.

The first story, Dolores Claiborne, is really a story about the trying times between a mother and a daughter. Dolores has been accused of killing the elderly lady she has taken care of for years. Her daughter, who she has not seen in years, comes to help her with the her legal problems. Soon the story takes a turn, going back 20 years to another murder that might have been done by Dolores. It was the murder of her husband...This is a very interesting story that takes wild turns and twist until the dramatic end.

Insomnia is the second novel included in this collection. This is a longer story about a man whose bad case of insomnia drives him near madness. But is his sleep problems all mental, or is there an outside force working on him and the town he inhabits? This story won't put you to sleep.

The last story in this collection is Rose Madder. Rose's husband, a small town cop, seemed like a good man when she decided to marry him, but she soon finds out she is wrong. He turns out to be a monsterious wife beater. She lives in hell with him for 10 years before finally walking out on him while he is at work. With nothing to her name she heads to the big city. But still she is not safe from her maniac husband, who begins a killing spree across the country to find his wife, Rose, and to make sure she knows that no one ever leaves him.

This is a great collection of Stephen King's novels. So get it, turn off all the lights in your house, and enter King's nightmare world of horror.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It Show The Voices Of Abused Women., July 29, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Rose Madder (Paperback)

Previous Book Review Stephen King, Rose Madder

Synopsis

Norman Daniels is a complete nutter. Apart from being the nastiest bigot on earth, he regularly beats his wife, Rose, to within an inch of her life. After a miscarriage and several trips to hospital, Rose suddenly decides she's had enough, and leaves. Up until this point, she's never known anything different, and assumed that every marriage was this way.

The story takes a great many turns as it follows Rose's life as a free woman (although Norman is always hot on her heels - he wants to teach her a lesson), and through a paranormal encounter with what seems to be herself in a parallel dimension, she finds the power to turn her life completely around.

My Thoughts

A few years ago, it seemed to me that Stephen King was moving towards a v! ery formulaic style of writing, easy to get used to and to predict. I am happy to say that this has been improving immensely in recent publications. In Rose Madder, he has achieved something I never thought anyone would...

I very rarely find a writer who is able to stir strong emotions in me - reality always stays firmly rooted in the back of my mind ("This is just a book, it's not real"), and so the writing does not affect me too deeply (perhaps this is the reason I am able to read some pretty nasty horror books - and watch gross-out videos - without having nightmares afterwards?). Rose Madder is somehow different. I actually found myself vehemently hating Norman Daniels, and feeling sorry for Rose. Perhaps it is because I have met people who could so easily turn into Norman, or simply because I haven't been reading the ri! ght books - I don't know. Either way, Stephen ! King has matured with age.

I would recommend Rose Madder to anyone without too squeamish a disposition, whether Stephen King aficionados or not. The plot may seem a little thin at times, but the emotional content made it for me, and the almost surreal paranormal side-plot serves as an exciting distraction from the sometimes painful realism of Rose's situation.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent trio, April 13, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Rose Madder (Paperback)

My favorite Stephen King books have always been his Dark Tower series; that is until these three came out. And what convenience to have them altogether. Dolores Claiborne is wonderfully written from the main charactrer's view point. Insomnia definetly made it hard to sleep, couldn't put it down. And Rose Madder, may favorite of the three. Involved a case of domestic violence, a woman fighting for her life and freedom from a twisted cop. A must read trio. King's best three books in one.