Gerald's Game was originally published in May of 1992.Warning, this review does contain spoilers.
Gerald and his wife Jessie go to their cabin in remote western Maine for a somewhat romantic getaway. Jessie is handcuffed to the bed to fulfill a recent fantasy of Gerald's. Not wanting to participate this time, Jessie kicks Gerald in the gut and the groin. Gerald falls to the floor having a heart attack and dies. Jessie is still handcuffed to the bed.
Jessie begins having delusions as her body is starving for water. She hears the voices of an old college friend and her former psychiatrist. She realizes that her marriage as robbed her of the life she wanted for herself. The cabin is visited by a dog who helps himself to various parts of Gerald's body. She also sees a "man", that may or may not be real, who she refers to as the "Space Cowboy" after the famous Steve Miller Band song.
Jessie eventually escapes the hand cuffs by cutting her arm all the way around on broken glass. She loses a lot of blood and passes out. When she awakes she runs out to the car and drives away. When she sees the Space Cowboy in the back seat she crashes her car. Later, the entire event is covered up with the help of one of her husband's associates.
Gerald's Game uses isolation to provide the scarier parts of this novel. The extreme vulnerability of being hand cuffed to a bed with a dead body in the room is brutal. But the overcoming of an abusive relationship and horrific circumstances rings strong at the end of the novel. There is quite a bit of gore and blood towards the end and should satisfy any horror aficionado.
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