The Journals of Eleanor Druse: My Investigation of the Kingdom Hospital Incident

I really wanted to give this a 4.5 rating, but since that's unavailable, I chose 5 stars. The story, written by Richard Dooling (not Stephen King), starts off slowly. It does take a little while to get warmed up to it, thus the reason for 4.5 stars instead of 5. But about 1/3 of the way through, you feel a sense of eerieness surrounding you, and the suspense builds to the point you can't put it down. There is one aspect that bugs me and is unrealistic: Without giving away any of the story, there are earthquakes that happen in Boston. What bugs me is that no one seems to realize that earthquakes in Boston are hugely unusual. Why not toss in a scene where someone is watching a news broadcast about the unusual earthquakes -- or anything that would convey that yes, this is a rare event. The story needed a little more realism here, but all in all, it's a quite satisfying read.

I loved the book, and I love the series. It was money well spent on the book, and I will buy the DVD when it comes out. I am fascinated by Mary and Antubis, as well as the other characters. To those complaining about King "stealing" the story, or not giving credit where credit is due...if you watch the show, it clearly gives credit in several different places to the originator.

In 1996, Stephen King was in Estes Park, Colorado, where filming of "Stephen King's The Shining" TV-mini series was taking place. In a video rental store, he saw a copy of Lars Von Trier's Kingdom Hospital, and he rented it and watched it in the very same town (Estes Park) where, nearly twenty years earlier, he was inspired to write The Shining. (see http://www.scifi.com/sfw/advance/23_interview.html for a wonderful interview with Kingdom Hospital's director Mark Carliner that explains these origins in detail). No one was able to secure the rights nor much interest in what Stephen King initially saw as a potential hit-TV show, until fate intervened three years later, and King was struck by a van and nearly died. While recovering from the accident, Stephen King spent a lot of time in hospitals, and Von Trier's idea recurred to him. He wrote 15 hours of television scripts for a new TV show, Kingdom Hospital. Based largely on those scripts, ABC secured the rights to Von Trier's original idea, and preproduction began on the show. The Journals of Eleanor Druse is a 244-page fictional account of a woman who visits that hospital in Lewiston, Maine, only to discover that the hospital has a sordid history and may be haunted. The story is told in the 1st-person point of view of this old lady who most people think is more than a little daffy. Eleanor claims to hear a young girl crying in the hospital's elevator, and the story takes on a conspiracy tone wherein the doctors do not believe Eleanor (or are trying to cover up what she knows). Keep in mind all of this is told from Eleanor's perspective, and as such the credibility of the narrator itself becomes suspect, which is also part of the fun of the novel. To me, the most interesting idea King develops in The Journals of Eleanor Druse is the conflict that occurs when someone believes they've experienced a religious event, and scientists tell them that what happened was only the result of chemicals in their brain. In Eleanor's case, she is thought to be epileptic. Some of our very best writers (see Connie Willis's "Passage" and to some degree Carl Sagan's "Contact") in the past few years seem to be exploring that division between what constitutes a religious experience and what is merely a result of too much serotonin in the temporal lobe. Is humanity's belief in God some mass delusion caused by a species with highly evolved imaginative faculties? It's a hell of a question, and one (as a young fiction writer myself) I will probably explore in several novels during the next decade. The Journals of Eleanor Druse only offers glancing shots at this very profound question, and with blurbs like "Watch Stephen King's Kingdom Hospital on ABC-TV" on the cover of the book, it's tempting to write this book off as an extended ad to help build hype for a TV show. There are very few books that Stephen King has written in the past decade that have genuinely captured my interest, and I only wish the so-called "Master o

This is just a really fun read. Once you are hooked in bt Eleanor's loser son telling her what is going on, you turn page after page as she uncovers creepy and ultimately unspeakable things going on at the veerable Kingdom Hospital. The book does a nice job setting out that Eleanor is "special" in her ability to sniff out the paranormal and that despite everyones protestations that there is something terribly wrong at the hospital. It is troubling that through most of the book we are never quite sure whether things are really twisted or whether she is crazy and imagining things due to electrochemical malfunctions in her brain The medical professionals will cringe at the prima donna's showcased in this creepy book. I miss the Stephen King who formerly wrote books of a readable length that I could run through in a few nights of diligent reading. This book is a return to form that seems to have a little more of a rock and roll beat. I hate TV but I can't wait for the show.