The Joy of JOYLAND

by | Jun 6, 2013 | Columns

I think I’m breaking every rule in the history of Horror World columns.

I’m going to review a book that will almost certainly be reviewed elsewhere on this site.

I don’t really see a problem with this (although the Goddess of Horror World may not agree). After all, divergent opinions are welcome in most fields of criticism.

Actually, I just made up that last line. If anyone reading this is in a field of criticism, you’ll have to forgive me.

More importantly, if it weren’t for the author of the about-to-be-reviewed book, there might not even be a horror genre, as least as we know it today. Or this site. So, when you look at it that way, I’m actually doing a favor for the genre we love so much and for Horror World.

JOYLAND by Stephen King is the latest release from Hard Case Crime, a publisher that made their bones publishing crime noir novels, mostly reprints from the 50s and 60s and some new stuff that reads like reprints from the 50s and 60s.

And then they published THE COLORADO KID by King. Now, THE COLORADO KID has about as much in common with previous HARD CASE CRIME novels as THE LITTLE MERMAID does with a Takashi Miike film festival. But if Stephen King offers to let you publish his new novel, what are you going to do?

Good news for crime fans, JOYLAND fits a little better in the Hard Case Crime niche because (unlike THE COLORADO KID) there is an actual crime–several, in fact–and detective work and a solution to the mystery (which may partially explain the book’s dedication to Donald Westlake). But those are actually just the side dishes. The toppings on the salad, if you will. The real heart and soul of JOYLAND is something else entirely.

What it is, is this: one of the best novels of King’s career.

JOYLAND soars with the energy and enthusiasm of a young writer and is built with the tools of a seasoned and confident craftsman. Reading it reminded of how I felt when I first read THE DEAD ZONE or CUJO, back in the day.

I hesitate to give much of a plot summary for fear of ruining the sheer pleasure of discovery that I got from nearly every chapter of the book. It’s safe to say that JOYLAND concerns a young man named Dev, who, in the early 1970s, travels south to take a summer job at an amusement park to escape a romance that is crumbling. He and the reader soon become immersed in a world that is a half-step above a county fair carnival, with all the attendant atmosphere and lingo (some real, some creations of the author).

King always excelled at building a world for his characters to walk through, a world that is solid and familiar, just like out own. He does the same thing, of course, with his characters. He gives them the well-rounded characteristics of people we know. Then, when things going horribly wrong (and you know they always go horribly wrong) our fear and concern is amped up to terrifying levels. It’s what King does best, and what many others authors try to imitate.

The world of JOYLAND is so solidly constructed that you can almost smell the hot dogs and sweat and oil of the amusement rides (or, in the parlance of the profession, chump-hoisters and zamp rides). But it’s the emotional world that lifts the novel to the upper reaches of King’s oeuvre. We feel Dev’s pain as his old relationship collapses, and we believe his wonder when he slowly realizes there might be life beyond the girl who dumped him. It’s a life that includes a sick boy who knows more than he should and the boy’s beautiful and frightened mother, and the strange and wonderful employees at Joyland (led by elderly Bradley Easterbrook, who sums up the carny philosophy when he tells the new summer help, “We sell fun.”)

And there is that murder. And, maybe, a ghost or two. King manages to wrap it up in under 300 pages with a satisfying ending, which, as King’s constant readers know, isn’t always the case.

When you finish JOYLAND you will not mistake it for the work of  Hard Case Crime stalwarts like Westlake or Peter Rabe or Day Keene. There are no hard-drinking PIs in trench coats or dangerous dames in cocktail dresses. There’s just a scary story about growing up, by a writer who does that sort of thing better than almost anybody. Perhaps King’s upcoming DOCTOR SLEEP will turn out to be an instant classic. But until then, JOYLAND is my favorite book of the year. Whether or not you count your self among King’s fans, this is a book you shouldn’t pass up.

Okay, the review is over. Next time, it will be a return to the snark and the silly.

***

Mark Justice is the author of THE DEAD SHERIFF: ZOMBIE DAMNATION, LOOKING AT THE WORLD WITH BROKEN GLASS IN MY EYE and the DEAD EARTH series with David T. Wilbanks.