Writing even a short book with only one character in the bulk of it is a challenge. When that book is over 400 pages long it can be difficult at best to keep a reader engaged. This is the feat that Stephen King mostly pulls off in Gerald's Game. Sure, there are other people in the book, but for the most part we are with Jessie Burlingame. Jessie is at the lakehouse she owns with her husband. She is handcuffed to the bed. The keys to the handcuffs are on a bureau and out of reach. And her husband is dead on the floor. This is the result of a kinky sex game gone awry, a squabble that ended in tragedy. Now Jessie is stuck and has very grim prospects of being found before succumbing to hunger, thirst, or something else. More on that in a bit.
The lion's share of the novel is spent with Jessie dealing with the voices in her head who are forcing her to relive a traumatic experience from her childhood. It's an experience that has informed her relationships the rest of her life, because it was never dealt with in a healthy way. It's something that all too many woman will likely find familiar and relatable. Then there is also her struggle to free herself, and to not give in to thirst. On top of this there is a stray dog, who ends up being not much of a danger to Jessie herself, but makes her husband Gerald into its own personal pantry.
Then comes the part of the book that at first I didn't like at all, and ended up becoming my favorite aspect fo the story. You see, Jessie doesn't remain alone in the house. She wakes up to find an eerie visitor in her room. And this being a Stephen King novel the reader joins Jessie in the assumption that this malevolent intruder is of the spiritual variety. This is why I initially didn't like this turn in the story. I thought it was interesting enough seeing her deal with her dilemma and the demons in her mind without shoehorning in any actual demons. But I did not give King proper credit. The way this thread plays out ends up being the best part of the story.
If I have a complaint about Stephen King, it's that all of his characters speak and think in the same idiosyncratic way that I suspect King himslef does. And I think many of us do play similar little word games in our minds, at least those of us who are readers and interested in words. But it can seem that the characters all think a little too similarly sometimes. This book doesn't lean as much into that, but it's there. And while the book doesn't lean into gore like some of his other works, when it does it is typically over the top (although this doesn't bother me as much usually). Now for the things I love about King's work. He has a way of showing how even the most seemingly insignificant decisions, or the impulsive acts that we do without any decision making process at all, can have the most horrific and life altering consequences. He shows how the small weird things in life, the tiny synchronicities, can capture our imaginations and stay with us for years despite never haing any great meaning or import. And he shows how even the people with the best of intentions can have nasty, mean thoughts in the right circumstances. This book has all of those elements as well. It's not quite top tier King (Cujo, It, Tommyknockers, etc.) but it's still pretty darn good.
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