Joyland - 400th Blog Update

Greetings, ‘Joyland’ is a 2013 novel written by horror icon Stephen King and was published under the ‘Hard Case Crime’ label. As can be gleamed from the name, the publisher specialises in printing the types of hardboiled crime stories that were so popular with readers in the 1940s and 50s. King had previously released ‘The Colorado Kid’ with them in 2005 shortly after the founding of the company a year prior. He would collaborate with them again in 2021 when he released ‘Later’ which is described as a combination of horror and crime genres. While ‘Joyland’ does have crime elements within the story, it falls heavily into the slice of life genre too for the majority of its plot but with the typical supernatural motifs King is known for. At 288 pages it isn’t a particularly long book. It is very much a character driven piece and has a fairly simplistic plot as far as King’s other titles go. Unlike most of his other works, there are no film or television adaptations of this story yet although the development of a show had been announced in 2018 with no further notifications in recent years.

The story is set in North Carolina in 1973 and is told from the perspective of a young college student by the name of Devin Jones. The cash strapped Jones is in his early 20s and in a deteriorating relationship with his first girlfriend Wendy when he takes a job for the summer at an amusement park called Joyland. He is tasked with operating the rides which he comes to master quickly under the tutelage of Lane Hardy, an old pair of hands in the carnival business. Devin finds that he is especially gifted at being the silent mascot Howie the Happy Hound which the children adore. Early on in his stint at Joyland, Devin meets the local fortune teller Rozzie who puts on an Eastern European accent for her customers and dresses herself in stereotypical Gypsy clothing when on the clock. Like the character she created for her show, Rozzie’s prophetic powers are also fictitious. Sometimes, however, she believes she has actual supernatural insight and offers Devin her premonition. Rozzie vaguely prophesies that there will be two children who will play an important role in Devin’s life.

One is a girl sporting a red hat and another is a boy who has a dog. Rozzie reveals that one of them is paranormally gifted. Devin takes the message on board but he isn’t convinced by the cryptic foreshadowing. While working at the park, he befriends his co-workers Erin and Tom who all become intrigued by the dark history of ‘Joyland’. A woman named Linda Gray was brutally murdered some years earlier and her body was found discarded in the Horror House attraction. Long-time employees swear that the fearful attraction is haunted by her ghost who is unable to move on into the next life. As the summer continues, Devin is prancing about as Howie in front of an engaged audience when he notices a girl in a red hat is choking on a hotdog. He sprints towards the girl and saves her from certain death. The moment sees Devin hailed as a hero in the local papers and he begins to wonder if Rozzie’s prophecies weren’t as bogus as he first thought.

Regarding the aforementioned simplicity of the storyline, when I got towards the middle of the book I was wondering if it really was going anywhere as it seemed to be more interested in the minutia of Devin’s life than in the mystery of the murdered woman it was teasing. Despite a bit of aimlessness in the middle ‘Joyland’ did ramp up to an exciting conclusion that tied everything up nicely. Overall, I enjoyed this book and its portrayal of carnival life which is depicted by King of having its own lingo that is used throughout the work. On a small note, this blog has reached its next big milestone as this is the 400th entry on the site. It has taken quite a while to get here with 100 entries being reached in December 2010, 200 on New Year’s Eve of 2013 and 300 coincided with the 10th anniversary back in July 2018. At the current rate of output the big 500 won’t be reached until 2032. That seems very far away but then again 2025 did too at one point. We shall all have to wait and see if that milestone can be crossed.

Plot = 7/10

Characters = 7/10

Wording = 8/10

Overall = 7/10

Quote of the Day

This is terrific work, if you like rejection.

Bob Woodward

All the President’s Men