Rugged Stuff

King Does Country

By R. Keith Rugg, 11-12-08

	Stephen King's 'Duma Key' is now out in paperback, and 'Just After Sunset' is out in hardback, his first short-story collection in six years.

In my review of Lee Ann Womack‘s recently released album, Call Me Crazy, I refrained from including one of the tracks in my grading of the disc.  “The Bees,” I said, brings to my mind imagery from Stephen King’s Misery.  Keith Urban’s contribution to the song notwithstanding, I have yet to hear from anyone disagreeing with my assessment (other than a friend at MCA/Mercury), so I’m going to take the silence as assent.

And lest you think that linking country music with America’s premiere living storyteller- Stephen King- is too much of a stretch, I’m here to make the connection even stronger, via King’s latest offering, Duma Key, now out in paperback.

Now, Stephen King has a long and solid relationship with popular music.  Check out one of his early novels, Christine.  Divided into three books- Teenage Car-Songs, Teenage Love-Songs and Teenage Death-Songs- and each chapter in these books begins with a quote from an oldies rock ‘n’ roll song.  He and some other writers (including, among others, Dave Barry and Amy Tan) have performed occasionally as the rock band, The Rock Bottom Remainders.  He has even had his own Rolling Stone column, “The King of Pop.”

King’s knowledge of rock, and his expert use of that knowledge in his writing, is part of what makes him so effective as a storyteller.

But hidden just one layer down is an equally deft awareness and utilization of country music.  Go back through your library of dog-earred paperbacks and see for yourself.  Take ‘Salem’s Lot, for example.  A tale of a vampire infestation in rural New England hardly brings the boot scootin’ boogie to mind, yet you’ll find more than a handful of references to country music scattered throughout, giving a depth and realism to the story.  The publishers even used a cover blurb quote from Stephen King to promote the book Rednecks and Bluenecks: The Politics of Country Music a few years ago.

In Duma Key, however, you don’t have to sift through anything to find the country music- he smacks you right in the face with it.

In a nutshell, this novel is about a building contractor- Edgar- who is mangled in a construction-site accident, suffering severe physical and mental trauma.  The brain injury affects his speech, making it difficult for his mind to pull up the correct words when he speaks.  His psychologist gives him a rag doll to use as a mental tool to help re-associate the act of thinking and speaking.  (Trust me, it works a lot better when Stephen King tells it.)

Anyway, the kicker is that, although the doll is actually named for the first-person narrator’s aunt- “Reba”- his psychological process links the doll’s red hair with a line from McEntire’s song “Fancy” (“It was RED!”)- with the name Reba.  And it helps Edgar to gain control of his speech and to build a new life as an artist in a leased housed on a desolate Florida key.  (King makes it work.  REALLY.)

Of course, some other things subsequently happen, like dolls being possessed by malevolent spirits and killing people.  Par for the course.

Country music pops up again in the story, in a way not so important to the story line, but in a way that perhaps reveals some of King’s own musical bias. 

On Duma Key in Florida, where Edgar has leased a house, there are several other houses, usually rented by the month by snowbirds.  Edgar’s friend, Wireman, is the caretaker and handyman, and as the rental season begins, this exchange takes place.

Wireman:  “The people coming into the other four houses are all new.  I can hope that none of them will be the rock-and-roll-all-night, party-every-day type, but what are the odds?”

Edgar:  “Not good, but you can at least hope they left their Slipknot CDs home.”

Later, however, Edgar speaks of the people who rent a house near his-

“A couple with a sports car moved into the house just south … and the distressing strains of Toby Keith began to waft to me around the cocktail hour.  On the whole, I might have preferred Slipknot.”

Which is a great segue into a couple of posts coming up just a little bit later, when the topics will be dissing Toby Keith and Reba McEntire’s excursion into the horror (sorta) genre.  (Those of you who expressed support for the Dixie Chicks during the ‘country music and politics’ postings might want to start popping your blood pressure pills right now…)

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