Apr 07, 2001 12:51 AM
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The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon by Stephen King is not one of my most favorite books by this author, but I did enjoy reading it. It was eerie, thoughtful, suspenseful, and in parts, even funny. It reminded me a little of King’s previous book, Gerald’s Game, in that the story revolves around a lone character in a perilous situation whose imagination is running wild.
The story begins with nine-year old Trisha McFarland going on a hike with her recently divorced mother and her brother, Pete. The hike was supposed to be six miles of family bonding on the Maine-New Hampshire Appalachian Trail. Trisha’s brother and mother are bickering and she is fed up with it. She ventures off of the trail slightly to “answer nature’s call” and to take a break from the argument. Quickly, Trisha realizes she is lost and cannot find her way back to the trail.
The remainder of the book is Trisha’s journey, which lasts for days, lost in the woods. It is a story of survival, both physical and emotional. Trisha has a backpack with her that contains what was supposed to be that first day’s picnic lunch, which doesn’t last very long. She also has her portable radio from which she listens to her favorite Red Sox team who is in the play-offs. Her favorite player is relief pitcher, Tom Gordon.
For the first couple of days, Trisha has enough food to get by on. She also has her radio and Tom Gordon for emotional comfort. After those first few days, however, with the food gone and the batteries running low on the radio, Trisha begins to get physically and emotionally weak.
She survives by eating whatever she can in the woods, but some of these things leave her with a bad case of diarrhea. In her diminished mental capacity, she begins to imagine that Tom Gordon, her hero, is there to keep her company. She also imagines conversations with her best friend, Pepsi, and she reminisces about her dearly beloved father and conversations they have had about God and nature.
Now this would not be a Stephen King book without a little horror, and King is more than happy to terrorize this unfortunate little girl. Trisha begins to suspect that “something” is stalking her through the woods. She begins to find slaughtered animal carcasses and she becomes convinced that “it” is killing and leaving these for her benefit. Her imagination really begins to run wild, and truthfully, so did mine!
I won’t spoil the ending for you, so I will stop the story synopsis here. This was an intense and inspiring story of survival. The book was well written and kept my attention with the suspense. King is a master storyteller and I felt like I was sucked into this story against my will. I read this book in two sittings basically because I wanted to know what was stalking her and whether it would eventually “get” her (as King fans know, anything is possible in his story). I actually lost some sleep the first night, worrying about poor little Trisha and thinking what it would be like for her to be lost in the woods with a mysterious “something” stalking her. When I got up the next day, I had to finish the book to set my mind to ease.
This is a great book and I would recommend it to anyone who likes mystery and suspense. The reason I said that this wasn’t one of my most favorite King books, is because there are many other King books at the top of my list, such as, The Stand, The Shining, Firestarter, and Insomnia, that others just can’t get close.
To Mouthshut: Why is this the only Stephen King book listed?
