The Journals of Eleanor Druse: A Stephen King Fake-out Book
Written: Feb 21 '04 (Updated Nov 10 '04)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: The cover glows in the dark.
Cons: In only 15 words?
The Bottom Line: Whether written by King or someone else, the book serves as a fair introduction to the series, but the series better be a whole lot better than the book.
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| cdm72's Full Review: Eleanor Druse and Stephen King - The Journals of E... |
First, let’s clear up a couple of misconceptions.
1) The author of this book is Eleanor Druse. There is no such person.
2) This book is a tie-in to the upcoming Stephen King original television series “Kingdom Hospital”. Stephen King did not write this book.
3) Stephen King’s “Kingdom Hospital” is not original. It’s based on a Danish series created by Lars von Trier in 1994.
So that’s out of the way.
When the King mini-series “Rose Red” came out a couple years ago, a tie-in book was promptly published alongside it, The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer: My Life at Rose Red which was supposed to give more insight into the story of the haunted mansion. Speculation as to who was the author of this book abounded until King finally revealed Ridley Pearson as the man charged with the heavy responsibility of adapting King. My guess is he’s behind The Journals of Eleanor Druse as well. But that’s just a guess. (since originally writing this review, I've learned it was Richard Dooling, Kind's writing partner on the series, who wrote this book.)
Eleanor Druse is a 75-year-old woman who is woken in the middle of the night by her son, Bobby, an orderly at Kingdom Hospital in Lewiston, Maine. She’s told one of her childhood friends--one she hasn’t spoken to in years--is on suicide watch and that she, Madeline Kruger, had mentioned Eleanor--who also goes by Sally--in her suicide letter. Eleanor quickly gets dressed and braves the winter streets to get to the hospital.
When she arrives, she finds Madeline in a padded room, dead. Eleanor has a vision of ants flowing out of Maddie’s wounds and she passes out, hits her head on the marble floor, and wakes up 3 days later in a Boston hospital.
This is where the book fails, right here. This is supposed to be a journal-type narrative of this woman’s “investigation of the Kingdom Hospital incident” it says so right on the cover. But Eleanor Druse spends the first half of the book in Boston, undergoing tests to rule out seizures as the cause of her passing out the night Maddie Kruger died. Seriously, half the book. She finally makes it back to the Kingdom on page 109. This book is only 244 pages.
When she finally gets back, she begins her investigation in earnest, talking to hospital staff, Maddie’s family--that doesn’t go over too well--and old friends who are patients in the Sunshine Ward on the roof of the building.
Eleanor’s experiences in the Kingdom also grow the longer she’s there. She hears crying in the shaft of elevator 2. She sees an old man who may be a doctor, may be a patient--may even be an exterminator--with a long scar across his head. He seems familiar, but Eleanor can’t place from where she knows him, if at all.
By tracking down old research reports and reading Maddie’s own journal, Eleanor is able to piece together the events she’s blocked from her memory; a failed transorbital lobotomy and the cause of the fire that destroyed the original Gottreich Hospital in 1939. Taking a cue from a story Madeline had told her a long time ago, Eleanor sets about trying to put things right inside the Kingdom. The journal ends here. I suppose we won’t know if she was successful until the series begins its run on March 3rd.
What I liked:
Sure, there were things about this book I enjoyed. First, I love the fact that King is bringing this series to America. I’ll guarantee you it won’t be even half as good as the original Danish, but at least some of the people who see it and discover its origins will be intrigued enough to track it down, and I’ve been telling people since I saw it in 1995 to rent it. So there’s that.
I also liked that it was short. The original Kingdom was only a 6-hour mini-series, but King, naturally, has taken that idea and turned it into a 13-episode season-long story. But the tie-in book was only 244 pages which ain’t bad.
I admire the amount of research that must have gone into this book. Eleanor Druse is a professor at Faust College in Lewiston, so it’s not a surprise when her thoughts are so well-developed and articulate. With that in mind, the author, whoever it is, really made sure to the medical facts straight, from the tests the doctors run on Eleanor to the results, and even later on when they discover how to hear what Eleanor hears in the elevator by listening to the vibrations coming from her ears. Interesting stuff and very well-done.
What I didn’t like:
I didn’t much care for Eleanor as a character. She’s a pushy old woman who thinks that just because she’s 75 that gives her free reign to do as she pleases. And I got tired of hearing about her crystals real quick. Eleanor hasn’t been in a hospital in a very long time, not since she discovered the healing power of crystals. And believe me, she goes on about them.
I didn’t like the limitations of the story. It’s a first-person narrative, so of course the only real story we get is Eleanor’s. But this is a 13-episode series, so I can only pray Eleanor’s story is only one facet of the overall tale. Especially since she spends half of it in a different hospital altogether. There are many many characters operating here, so I hope we get to see into their lives as well when the series airs.
The “journal” starts with a cover letter to Stephen King, imploring him to read the hand-written papers and, if he is intrigued enough, perhaps he can have a secretary or assistant type them for Eleanor Druse as she has no personal assistant.
“If anything happens to me, and if subsequent research proves that the girl’s spirit is still abandoned, confused, and suffering, then please find someone to help her. As you will see in the papers I have enclosed, she can indeed be reached, and in time I believe that she will be able to tell us why she cannot rest.
“God be with us all.
“Most sincerely, and with great admiration for your work,” she signs the letter.
I thought King making himself a character in the Dark Tower series was the height of conceit. I was wrong. I only hope he doesn’t appear as himself in the series.
To wrap up, I began this book like I do all King-related books, with great enthusiasm for what lay ahead. I finished it with a sigh and a shake of my head, uttering, “Well, that’s over, then,” before I move on to my next book. I have high hopes for the Kingdom Hospital series. I only hope this “journal” isn’t representative of the series as a whole because I was less than impressed with Eleanor Druse’s story. Actually quite bored with it at times. But I attribute at least some of that to my dislike of the character herself. I can’t get behind a book when the main character is a bore. But at least cover glows in the dark. That’s cool huh?
Recommended:
No
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