Pulp of the Week - Joyland by Stephen King

Joyland is Stephen King's new novel from Hardcase Crime. This paperback original tells the tale of Devin Jones, a college student who gets a summer job at a small seaside amusement park (the titular Joyland) in South Carolina. This being Stephen King, there is a lot going on, something beyond the unexpected and heartbreaking exit of his girlfriend who is transferring to another school and ultimately to another man.

There is a single, lone dark ride at Joyland, a ramshackle car in the dark called, The Horror House. Years before, a young woman was savagely murdered there by her date. People say the ride is haunted by the girl that was butchered there. The killer was never found. In the back of his mind, Devin would love to solve this horrific crime, and his sympathetic college friends pitch in to help. They are the mostly off stage research assistants.

Despite being sullen and withdrawn, Devin can't help but notice the boy in the wheel chair that sits out in the yard of a magnificent home along the beach. A boy that is whisked away at the sight of strangers by an attractive young woman. There is a moment of opportunity and the boy engineers a meeting with Dev.

 As the weeks go by his relationship with the boy grows, Dev learns how to play by the young reluctant mother's rules. He also learns how to be a carny, and speak like a carny. And, despite it being forced on him, loves his new found role playing the park's mascot. Hiding behind the mask sets him free and the kids love him.

This being a King book, not everything is as it seems and there is something odd going on in Joyland and with the people Dev meets. Something that lurks in the dark places of the heart. This story has a lot of magic to it, and a bit of 'the fog of memory' in its telling. Joyland is a really good book and I highly recommend it. Joyland is a quick read and it's funny how fast you can read a book when it is really good (and not 1500 pages long.)

While Joyland is short for a King novel, its length falls in line with the majority of books on my shelf—books accumulated during the 70s, 80s, and 90s—books I think of as a regular size, around 250 to 300 pages. I realize that those days are over and now books are much longer, but his is the length I like. Maybe that is why I am drawn to pulp and YA novels like Leviathan and The Hunger Games. The stories are fast and to the point. King fits everything needed in this book. Love. Loss. Joy. Sorrow. Longing. Redemption.

The setting along the shore reminds me of the childhood vacations at Cape Cod mashed up with the carnivals and thrill rides of the old quaint Euclid Beach Park or the early Cedar Point, before it exploded into a mega coaster mecca.

Thanks, Stephen, for still writing great, personal stories and for supporting a brand like Hard Case Crime. I'm not sure when Hard Case went to trade paperbacks (or if they always were), but despite the larger size, I still love paperbacks. The package that they have put together is outstanding, from the juicy titles and cover copy to the lurid and fantastic Glen Orbik art.

I give Joyland an 9 out of 10.

Pulp of the Week - Honey in his Mouth

.

.

Written by Lester Dent

Lester Dent is most famous for writing the bulk of the Doc Savage novels, starting with the first in March 1933 and continuing on to the last one published in the summer of 1949. He also had many other stories published in the pulps. But he had always wanted more and after Doc Savage Magazine ended its run he continued to write.  One of the those things was a novel written in 1956, but not published until long after his death.

Noted Doc Savage novelist, and official Lester Dent file searcher, Will Murray came upon the manuscript and Hard Case Crime published it in Oct 2009. Two years later I finally got around to reading it. I wish there were more lost Dent novels.

Among the things that Dent learned to do while writing a few million words of Doc Savage was to write action effortlessly, and to create a character in just a few words. In Honey in his Mouth, Dent creates Walter Harsh - not quite a grifter, but also not quite on the up-and-up. Harsh had figured out a scheme where he would take portrait photos of people and then get them to buy prints of the pictures, and there are always more pictures that the people might want and they cost more than they were expecting.

Walter also happens to have a girl - Vera Sue Crosby. She is a piece of work and is ready to leave Walter when he suddenly is approached by a group that wants to pay Walter $50,000 to make like he is the El Presidente of a small dictatorship. It seems that Walter is the dead ringer for the dictator.

With that set up, Dent sends Walter and Vera Sue on an scheme that spirals from simplicity into complete chaos. While the book is not Pulitzer material, it is a taut thriller and a heck of a lot of fun. Dent writes just enough good in Walter that we root for him as he tries to escape his circumstance, but just enough bad to keep this a crime novel.

I liked Honey in his Mouth enough to give it an 8 out of 10. The cover painting is an original for the book and is painted by Ron Lesser.

.

.