When I came across “Rose Madder” by Stephen King I expected to get a certain story with a specific atmosphere but I got something completely different with a set of circumstances that were far away from what I initially thought at the sight of the book’s cover. As they say, never judge the book by its cover.
The thing is I was wrong and after realising that the book won’t be what I expected from its cover, I settled on the different take and was still happy to get busy reading it only to discover as the pages wore off that I got what I thought I was getting at the first sight, but first, let’s go back a little…
Rosie is a wife of a copper, Norman, who given his profession, knows very well how to be brutal towards his wife without rising any suspicions. He is great at finding “reasons” what happened to his wife if she is in a need of a professional help. You can easily see where this story goes; with the bastard needing to take some of his medicine really.
Rosie won’t be able to give him whopping he deserves. And he deserves a lot of it as it takes our protagonist 14 years, painful miscarriage, tons of bruises, cuts and one last tiny drop of blood for her to leave the husband.
As Rosie wakes up and notices a blood stain on the bed sheet something brakes inside her and she realises she just can’t simply change the cover as in order to make the bed presentable again she’d need to change every single piece of bedding so it’d match, otherwise Norman would have another reason to teach his wife a lesson… No she just can’t endure it anymore…
So Rosie leaves. Finally after the fourteen years of this terror she leaves. She only takes Norman’s credit card and off she goes and with her you go too, cheering and praying she can find peace but also hopping that Rosie will find a way to dispense the long overdue justice towards that bestial piece of shit, her husband.
Our protagonist changes her name back to her maiden name, she takes shelter among some association that deals with abused women and even decides to sell her engagement ring just to find out it is worth nothing as Norman was a cheap bastard.
But thanks to entering that pawn shop where she was going to get rid of that ring, she meets Bill who falls in love with her, she meets her future employer and she also comes across a painting under which there is written ‘Rose Madder’ that somehow calls out to her and she eventually manages to obtain it. Things are seem to be on the mend.
Well… The idyllic picture soon gets stained as Norman is on Rosie’s toes as he seeks her and he’ll try to kill her when he finally gets to her. And the mad race begins when you start going through the pages quicker and quicker and your breath becomes faster as you are cheering for Rosie’s success. Will she escape her ex husband? Will he kill her?
You won’t find out until you reach for “Rose Madder” and get yourself acquainted with its characters and the titled painting that seems a bit out of place when it comes to the flow of the story. But does it though…?
Marcin's Corner 