Gerald's Game

Written in 1992, Gerald’s Game is a suspense/psychological horror novel by Stephen King, one of the most notable horror writers of the latter half of the 20th and early 21st centuries. King often focuses on regular or “everyman” characters, and many of his works are set in Maine, as is Gerald’s Game. Although Gerald’s Game is not one of King’s more famous works, it fits neatly into his repertoire as a psychological exploration of lasting trauma and the struggle for survival. King dedicated the book to several women in his life, including his wife, Tabitha, and this decision implies that the specifically feminine perspective that dominates the novel was inspired by these women. As with many of King’s works, the novel takes place in the present, which in this case is 1992, and the narrative also includes flashbacks to the 1960s. While King is primarily known for his prowess in crafting intensely detailed horror stories, he often leavens the seriousness of his prose with frequent jokes and offhand references to pop culture, and this tendency is also apparent throughout Gerald’s Game.

The novel covers Jessie Burlingame’s struggle to escape handcuffs following the death of her husband, Gerald Burlingame, during what was intended to be a sexual encounter. Just before his death by a heart attack, Gerald attempts to assault Jessie, and she is thrust into the memory of childhood abuse that she suffered at the hands of her father, Tom Mahout. Hopelessly trapped in a vulnerable position after Gerald’s death, Jessie is forced to reconcile her prior trauma with her present situation in order to escape, and she is threatened in the meantime by a mysterious figure who appears in the bedroom with her. All the while, a stray dog, Prince, takes advantage of Jessie’s vulnerability to consume Gerald’s corpse, adding another layer of fear to Jessie’s drive for survival. Throughout the narrative, King explores several recurring themes, including Identity as a Combination of Personality, Objectifying Women Through Toxic Masculinity, and The Lasting Effects of Unresolved Trauma. These elements lend a unique perspective to this work as Jessie navigates her own perception of herself, femininity, and the complex interrelationships between men and women.

The novel was adapted to film in 2017 by Mike Flanagan for release on Netflix, and the film follows the novel closely, eliding over some of Jessie’s experiences with other women, like Ruth and Nora, who are instead replaced by Jessie and Gerald as hallucinations.

This guide uses the Scribner Reissue Edition of the text, published in 2016 on the Amazon Kindle platform.

Content Warning: This work contains detailed descriptions and discussions of sexual assault, child sexual abuse, mutilation, and the desecration of dead bodies.

Plot Summary

The novel opens with Jessie Burlingame and her husband, Gerald Burlingame, as they drive to their lake house on Lake Kashwakamak. They are going during the off-season, in October, because Gerald wants to play a “game” of handcuffing Jessie to the bed during sex. Once inside the house, Gerald handcuffs Jessie to the bed, but she realizes that the situation makes her uncomfortable and tells Gerald to let her out of the handcuffs. Gerald reacts negatively, getting angry and then acting as though he is about to assault Jessie despite her rejection of the game. As the situation escalates, Jessie begins hearing voices in her head that express different perspectives, and she sides with the voice of one of her friends from college, Ruth Neary. Jessie kicks Gerald in the stomach and genitals, causing him to have a heart attack and die. With Gerald dead on the floor, Jessie realizes that she has no way of escaping from the handcuffs, which are too tight to slip through.

During the first day, a dog, Prince, comes to the house, and, when he realizes that Jessie cannot hit him, he begins to eat Gerald’s corpse. All the while, Jessie is hearing the voices more frequently. She identifies one of them as Goodwife Burlingame, which is a voice that encourages Jessie to adhere to traditional feminine gender roles, even though they may discourage Jessie from escaping the handcuffs. Another prominent voice in her psyche is that of Ruth Neary, who encourages Jessie to fight and escape the handcuffs herself. There are also a multitude of UFO voices that Jessie hears, each of which seems to be a manifestation of intrusive thoughts. Jessie manages to hit Prince with an ashtray, but it does not dissuade the dog from returning to periodically bite off more chunks of Gerald’s corpse. As Jessie struggles to figure out a way to escape the handcuffs, she is also thrust into memories of a solar eclipse that happened in 1963, during which her father, Tom Mahout, sexually assaulted her.

Jessie tries to remain calm, using techniques she learned in therapy with Nora Callighan, but she struggles to avoid self-criticizing. Ruth’s voice keeps her from falling asleep, and she manages to drink some water that Gerald left on a shelf above the bed. During the night, Jessie sees a man in the corner of the bedroom with inhuman-seeming proportions. The man shows Jessie a box full of body parts and jewelry, which terrifies her. Jessie is not sure if the man is real or a hallucination, but Prince leaves and this indicates that he, too, saw the man. The next day, Jessie sees a pearl earring and a footprint on the ground, both of which indicate that the man is real. Jessie becomes convinced that he is Death and that he will return the next night to kill her.

During the second day, Jessie reconciles the trauma of the eclipse and relives the memory of how her father, Tom, convinced her mother, Sally, to let Tom and Jessie spend the day of the eclipse alone together at their family lake house at Dark Score Lake. The narrative outlines Jessie’s recollections of the event. In Jessie’s memory, Tom arranges for young Jessie to watch the eclipse through smoked glass, but he tells her to wear a sundress that is too small for her. During the eclipse, Tom has Jessie sit on his lap and masturbates while she watches the eclipse. Jessie is traumatized by the event, but Tom convinces her that she cannot tell anyone what happened because it would destroy their family. Following this trauma, Jessie represses her emotions, distancing herself from her family and failing to confront the assault until she is handcuffed to the bed.

By confronting the memory of the assault, Jessie is able to connect various instances in her life to her trauma, including hitting her brother at his birthday party and kicking Gerald off the bed in the beginning of the novel. By releasing her inner child, whom she calls Punkin, Jessie figures out that she must cut her own wrist to pull her hand out of the handcuffs. The process is violent and painful, but Jessie manages to pull her hand out of the cuff after sustaining severe damage to her skin and nerves. Once she is out of the cuffs, Jessie tries to use the phone, but she quickly decides that the phone lines were cut the previous night by the man she believes to be Death. She gets the keys to the car, but as she goes to leave, she sees the stranger in Gerald’s study, again showing her his box of body parts and jewelry. She gives him her wedding rings to placate him, then she drives toward the highway. However, she crashes the car when she discovers that the man is in her back seat.

Months after escaping the handcuffs, Jessie writes a letter to the real Ruth Neary, explaining all of Jessie’s trauma from her childhood and throughout her experience in handcuffs. Jessie finds out that the man in the corner was real. His name is Raymond Andrew Joubert, and he is a wanted criminal who desecrates grave sites and commits sexual crimes against men. Jessie confronts Joubert in court, spitting in his face as an act of retribution for herself. After writing the letter to Ruth, Jessie finally achieves a sense of peace and comfort, having resolved the traumas that she has experienced.