contemplative
rapidreaders where we choose 2 books a month to read and discuss! A lot of book communities on LJ are dead, but not us! Right now we're straying a bit from our normal reading and taking on a well-known contemporary author: The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon by Stephen King. If you've never joined a book club before and want to start with something fairly easy to read, this is the time to join! Anyone can post and vote in our polls, even non-members so if you'd like to join, read along, or just stop in once in awhile and check out some of our discussions, stop by anytime!May 18-31st
The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon by Stephen King
It runs about $8 and has 272 pages.
Summary: No recounting of the plot will convey what King manages to create in this short novel. A girl of nine accompanies her mother and brother on a brief trip, hiking a small portion of the Appalachian Trail. The girl, Trisha, wanders off the path and manages to get lost. She has some family issues: Mom and Dad have divorced, and her brother is constantly squabbling. But by removing Trisha from the family, by isolating her into the woods, the novel becomes one of human survival.
What begins as a bit of a simple tale — little girl lost — soon turns to the larger questions of what is at the center of creation, what motivates any of us, and the place where darkness and human imagination cross.
This is not a shocker, and no one will stay up till dawn having nightmares over Trisha and the darkness she must face. But The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon is a major step forward for King into the realm of fiction that matters, fiction that is about what humans face as one century turns to another: the meaning at the center of existence.
