Joyland – Stephen King

Devin Jones looks back on the summer of ’73 with mixed feelings. Twenty-one, two years into college in New Hampshire, with a steady (if unconsummated) relationship with girlfriend Wendy, he finds himself abandoned for the summer when she goes off to work at some dream job with a friend. On a whim he answers an advert for summer help at Joyland, a North Carolina coastal amusement ride park, successfully interviews and moves south for the season.

The location is idyllic (it’s a stroll along the beach from his seaside town digs to the park); the work is hard, particularly “wearing the fur” in a hundred degree heat as the park’s mascot “Howie the Happy Hound”, but fun - ensuring the visitors have an enjoyable day. He makes good friends with the other casuals, including Tom & Erin at his digs, but the regular ‘carnie’ folk are a mixed bunch, some suspicious, some supportive, some hostile and all unconventional.

He is soon intrigued by two mysteries. First the ‘Horror House’ dark ride is reputedly haunted by the ghost of a girl found murdered therein a couple of summers earlier, the crime still unsolved. Second, more personal, involves a disabled boy and a young woman whose opulent beach house he passes each morning and evening; the boy waves, the woman doesn’t. Their names, he later discovers, are Annie and Mike Ross, mother and son.

The narrative (it is Devin looking back) and the mysteries unfold over the long hot summer. Devin’s emotional highs and lows would be at home on the ‘Delirium Shaker’ – Joyland’s roller coaster – as dumped at long distance by Wendy he finds himself attracted to both digs-mate Erin and the distant Annie. At work his performances in the fur (and competence in first aid) make him a hero with the kids, but the harsh realities of Mike’s condition are a constant worry. Then Erin’s digging into the unsolved murder provides both danger and the opportunity to unmask the killer. As the southern end-of-summer heat builds to thunderstorms, so his summer of adventure builds to an exciting climax (or two).

Stephen King is of course a master of storytelling and I particularly like his shorter and less supernatural work such as this. Strong on character, plot, tension and atmosphere this is an exceedingly good read.