Misery

Misery is a novel by Stephen King, written in 1987.

Related Topics:
Stephen King - 1987

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The story begins with Paul Sheldon slowly waking out of a coma. Gradually, his memory returns to him: he is a wildly popular romance novelist (the main character of which is named Misery Chastain) who has crashed his car in a winter storm and has been badly injured. His rescuer, Annie Wilkes, is a trained nurse and has taken him to her secluded country home to be cared for by her personally. As luck would have it, Annie is Paul's "number one fan" and eagerly awaits all his publications. As time passes, however, Paul realizes that there is a flip side of the coin as well: Annie is psychotic, and as he will discover later, she has a violent criminal past. He first becomes aware of this when Annie begs him to let her read his latest Misery, at the end of which Misery dies. Paul figures he owes it to her for saving his life, but when she finds out that he intends to kill "her Misery" she goes nuts, hobbles Paul's legs with an axe so he can't leave, and forces him to rewrite the book. The remainder of the book is concerned with how he handles her insanity and eventually escapes captivity.

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King has stated that he intended for Misery to be the next Richard Bachman novel, following Thinner.

Related Topics:
Richard Bachman - Thinner

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In On Writing, he realized that the situation of the novel was a metaphor for the drug addiction he was suffering from at the time.

Related Topics:
On Writing - Drug addiction

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The novel was adapted into the screenplay for a 1990 American film of the same name, directed by Rob Reiner. James Caan and Kathy Bates star as Paul and Annie, respectively. Richard Farnsworth also appears. The film was a critical and commercial success, making $61,276,872 (USA) domestically on a $20,000,000 budget. Kathy Bates won the Academy Award for Best Actress: she thereafter vaulted into the first rank of Hollywood actresses.

Related Topics:
1990 - American - Film - Rob Reiner - James Caan - Kathy Bates - Richard Farnsworth - Academy Award for Best Actress - Hollywood

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Annie Wilkes was voted the 17th greatest villain of all-time by the American Film Institute in their special feature AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains and Bravo! named the film the 12th scariest of all time.

Related Topics:
American Film Institute - AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains - Bravo!

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The book tied with the Robert R. McCammon novel Swan Song for the first Bram Stoker Award for best novel.

Related Topics:
Robert R. McCammon - Bram Stoker Award

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