Let me explain: Many of the novels I read have what I think of as plain white backgrounds. The back-story of each character, of each town, of each event and each setting -- most of them are left unexplained. The necessary details, the ones that affect the story being told, are included, but the unnecessary details, the ones that are often unique and defining, are not. This doesn't mean that those books are poorly written or lacking (some of my favorite books use this "plain white" background style). Those books are just a tiny bit less vibrant. What I've come to realize is that often this usually isn't even noticeable until compared with a "colored" background book, a book by a master like Stephen King.
Every one of King's books that I've enjoyed has this "colored" background (some of his books I despise, just for the record), and Joyland is no exception. The town the novel is set in has a history, one more detailed than that college town where I went to school. Each character, no matter how large or small, has details to make them come to life. The grouchy old ride operator has psoriasis so badly on his hands that he must wear leather gloves all the time. The main character's librarian housemate is practicing for a Scrabble tournament. And Devin Jones, the main character himself, is writing from an older age, one complete with a career and family and the myriad of details that make up a life.
King has a tendency to write as a much older first person narrator, one who is looking back on the events of the novel. I first noticed this when I read The Green Mile long ago -- which I really should re-read, now that I think about it -- and it remains a style that I enjoy in his books. Maybe it's the perspective that those narrators can then offer to the events, or just that cozy feeling of being told this story and knowing that some things, at least, turned out okay. In any case, I enjoy it, and I find that this style contributes to King's ability to write beautiful, vivid, and endearing characters.
I'm never totally sure if I absolutely love King's characters or if I just really, deeply admire the ability demonstrated in their creation. Sometimes, definitely, I love the characters of a novel (see: The Dark Tower series). Sometimes, I hate their guts (see: Flagg and his men in The Stand). But sometimes, like here in Joyland, I like the characters but I more than anything else just admire how human they truly are. Nothing feels stock about the characters in Joyland, and again it goes back to the details of each character. They are real. The heartache Devin deals with, the friendliness as he passes a family on a beach that gradually morphs into true friendship, the 'carney' people who populate Joyland's employee ranks -- everything is real. There are just so few books I can say that about, so few books where I don't have to put it aside just once and go, "huh, that's a weird thing for them to do" or "that's really unrealistic," that I have to exalt it when I find one.
In a lot of ways, this is like life: you don't necessarily realize something is important to the direction of your life until it is. You don't necessarily see all the background and build up to your own life events. Maybe if you are extraordinarily reflective, or good at putting the pieces together, or that special kind of talented where you look at chaos and see the patterns, then maybe you see how your life comes together. The rest of us... well, life can surprise us.
And of course, like all good mystery novels, Joyland contains a pretty solid twist. The way King inserts this twist into the novel is quite interesting: As the novel begins, the background of the murder comes out, as one character tells its chilling tale to Devin. As I read, I started to put pieces together, and there are enough clues scattered throughout that I knew there was a twist coming, I even knew that Devin was going to figure out who the murderer was and all that. But what was so masterful was that I didn't see the twist ITSELF coming -- I didn't put together who the murderer was and how they are/are not already embedded into Devin's life and thus the story itself. I won't give anything away. I just want to admire the talent and, truly, the restraint on King's part not to make the twist more obvious.
Joyland also contains a slight intrusion of the psychic world, a hint of power just beyond our world, just a touch of it. I include this because I find it an integral part of Stephen King's writing, one that seems more universal in his works than the horror he's known for. People don't realize just how normal his writing can sometimes be, instead overshadowed by Carrie and Dreamcatcher and Cujo. But much of what I've read (which I can't claim to be even close to all of it) has a more simple supernatural feel, one that's present but not overpowering. That simplicity makes that psychic world seem almost possible -- if there were things like psychics and ghosts and such in our world, if all those incidences of the 'unexplained' were really indicative of something greater out there, this quietness would be how it would manifest.
Of course, I have no way of knowing if that's true -- people do claim to see ghosts or be psychics and so on, and I am not the person to prove them wrong. But for now, my own interactions with the supernatural are generally limited to novels like this.
I really enjoyed Joyland and I think many other Stephen King fans will as well. Frankly, due to its murder-mystery plot, I think a lot of non-King fans would probably enjoy this novel too.
