Joyland

The narrator, Devin Jones, looks back 40 years on the summer of 1973—which he describes as the last year of his childhood—midway between his sophomore and junior years at the University of New Hampshire. He was 21 and had just been dumped by his first love.

The elder Devin sets the stage by opening the story in the fall after his summer job is over. The fall is when his true coming-of-age begins, after the amusement park has shut down and his girlfriend, Wendy Keegan has left him for someone else. The narrator describes this as the most beautiful autumn of his life, yet he was never so unhappy after the loss of his first love.

From philosophical observations about love, loss, and looking back, the narrator dives into a more concrete description of walking up the beach, describing the clear air and the warmth of the air. The town is more or less buttoned up now that the amusement park is closed. The summer homes are shut up for the winter —all but one. Every day, Devin walks the three miles to work along the beach, and every day, he passes an old green Victorian house that makes him think of a castle. Most days, when the weather is good, he sees a woman and child sitting on the boardwalk. The woman is very beautiful. The boy sits in a wheelchair with a blanket over his legs and his dog, a Jack Russell terrier, beside him or at his feet. Devin always waves to the boy, and the boy waves back, but his mother doesn’t.

The narrator jumps further back in time to explain how he came to be living in the town of Heaven’s Bay and working at an amusement park. His heart was broken by Wendy Keegan. She was his first love, and she didn’t deserve him, although it will take most of Devin’s adult life to realize it. Wendy is the sweet girl-next-door type. They met in their freshman year and had been inseparable ever since. Devin assumes they are going to spend the summer working at the university, but out of the blue, Wendy announces that she and her friend Renée have summer jobs in Boston and will be sharing an apartment.

Devin is shocked, especially when Wendy tells him that they could use some time apart. She then complicates the situation by suggesting that Devin might be able to visit and sleep over once in a while, but she doesn’t quite look at him as she says this, and it never comes to pass. In fact, Devin is still a virgin and frustrated about it. Wendy has never been quite ready, and Devin has never pushed the issue.

Not looking forward to a boring summer job on campus without Wendy, Devin stumbles on an advertisement for a summer job at an amusement park in North Carolina and submits an application. He is interviewed by Fred Dean, who tells him to walk around the park and explore the rides then come back and tell Fred whether he wants the job.

Older Devin gives a little background on the park. Joyland is independently owned and small compared to Disney or Six Flags, but it’s big enough for two main drags, two roller coasters, and a waterslide. There’s a children’s section called the Wiggle Waggle, where parents can leave young children to be watched over while adults and older children enjoy the bigger rides. There’s a concert hall and a single “dark ride” that will play a pivotal role in Devin’s summer adventure. The park’s mascot is Howie the Happy Hound, an anthropomorphic German shepherd who looks a little like Scooby-Doo.

Devin takes a ride on the Ferris wheel, run by Lane Hardy, whom Devin admires. He wishes he could look just like Hardy, including the black derby hat that he habitually tips from one side to the other.

At the top of the wheel, Devin looks out over what seems to be a brand-new world, nothing like the New England where he grew up.

After his ride on the Ferris wheel, Devin strolls the park. He is intercepted by Madame Fortuna, the palm reader aka Rosalind (Rozzie) Gold. She tells Devin that he will meet someone who has second sight and that he is on the edge of great sorrow and possibly danger.

Devin asks if she sees a beautiful, dark-haired woman (Wendy) in his future, but Rozzie tells him the dark-haired woman is in his past. In his future is a little girl wearing a red hat and carrying a doll, as well as a little boy with a dog, and one of the children has the sight.

Devin gets the job. One of the factors in his hiring is the lifesaver certificate he got when he was 16. Leaving the park, he encounters Lane again, who asks him if Rozzie Gold gave him her usual Fortuna nonsense. With a chuckle, he tells Devin that 90% of Fortuna’s predictions really are nonsense, but the other 10%.

Devin asks Lane if Rozzie ever gave him any predictions that came true. Lane tells him the day Rozzie reads his palm, he’ll be out of there. Lane tells Devin to stop at Mrs. Shoplaw’s Beachside Accommodations to rent a room for the summer. As Devin is leaving, Lane tells Devin about the Horror House ride; Rozzie won’t go in because she thinks it might be haunted by a girl who was murdered there. He tells Devin that if he wants to know more about the murder, he should ask Emmalina Shoplaw.

Devin loves the room Mrs. Shoplaw gives him. He asks her about the Horror House ghost. She tells him that four years earlier, a girl named Linda Gray visited Joyland with her boyfriend. They went into the Horror House ride together, but he came out alone. Halfway through the ride, he cut her throat and threw her out of the car. He then took off his bloodstained shirt—he’d worn a clean one underneath—and gloves and threw them out further along the ride. That’s the thing that really gives Mrs. Shoplaw chills, that the killer must have planned the murder meticulously beforehand. Then, he’d simply gotten off the ride and walked away.

The killer was never found, but one of the Hollywood girls (who take pictures of park visitors to sell to them) took a picture of Linda and her boyfriend at the Annie Oakley Shootin’ Gallery. The boyfriend angrily refused to pay for their photo.

The shot of his face was useless anyway because he wore sunglasses, a goatee, and a baseball cap pulled low over his face. The picture was so generic that it could have been anyone. However, the picture picked up a tattoo of a bird’s head on his right hand, but no one came forward to identify it. Ever since then, several people who worked at Joyland claim to have seen Linda standing beside the track in the Horror House.

About six months after the murder, a reporter for the Charleston News and Courier reported that there had been four similar murders before Linda Gray—all of the young women might have been killed by the same guy.

Devin thinks the story is probably an urban legend, but he really hopes it’s not. If he saw her himself, it would be a great story to tell Wendy. Maybe if his story was intriguing enough, Wendy would be tempted to come down and see the ghost herself. Older Devin breaks in to tell the reader that Wendy never came to Joyland.

Devin returns to school for finals week. He has been trying to phone Wendy, but she has been out with Renée every time he tries to call. He finally gets through to her, and she is suspiciously vague about what she and Renée have been doing. When he tells her he loves her, her response seems perfunctory, and he tells himself she is just tired. Still, he is uneasy.

Older Devin tells the reader about the future young Devin dreamed about: He would be married to Wendy, they would have a couple of kids, and Devin would write well-reviewed novels and teach an occasional prestigious creative writing class for gifted students. Looking back, the older Devin associates those plans with a peculiar and semi-magical place on the UNH campus.

Under a flight of basement stairs, there is an “office” belonging to the entirely fictional Professor George B. Nako. The walls are papered with fake diplomas, watercolors described as “Albanian Art” and student papers on ridiculous subjects. Shortly before Devin’s last final exam, Wendy meets him in Professor Nako’s office. She and her roommate are leaving campus in an hour. Devin never sees her again.

None of Devin’s dreams come to pass. The older Devin makes a fairly good living writing for a commercial in-flight magazine, and he never mentions a wife or family to the reader. He does say that many years later, he returned to UNH for a weekend seminar and found that Professor Nako’s office was gone—all but a sheet of paper with a single line in tiny print, stating, “Professor Nako now teaches at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.”

A few days after saying goodbye to Wendy, Devin arrives in Heaven’s Bay, ready to begin his new job in Joyland.