Misery

The novel's protagonist, Paul Sheldon, awakes in pain, completely disoriented. He begins to think back to his childhood and going to the beach with his family. Italicized words, indicating speech, interrupt his memories. Paul has a hazy recollection of how he came to be lying in utter pain, unable to breathe.

He feels a woman's mouth over his, performing CPR. Paul thinks the woman's breath stinks like a mix of desert and "chicken gravy" (5) and he forces himself to breathe on his own just so she'll stop breathing into his mouth. After this, he sinks back into a deep sleep.

When he regains consciousness, Paul realizes he's on a bed with a woman sitting beside him. She holds a book in her hands and Paul recognizes the author's name as his own. He asks her where he is, and she replies that they're in Sidewinder, Colorado. The woman introduces herself as Annie Wilkes, and Paul finishes her sentence: "My number-one fan" (6). Annie confirms this, smiling.

Paul remains in his painful haze, unable to move or recall anything more about his accident than stopping and getting CPR from Annie. He also remembers that every few hours, Annie has been pushing a bitter-tasting pill into his mouth. The pills make his pain subside. Paul recalls that he is a best-selling author who is stuck "in a hell of a jam" (7).

Paul describes Annie Wilkes as a "big woman" without many womanly features beyond her large bosom. She wears a gray cardigan and one of a few wool skirts each day. Every six hours, she brings Paul two painkillers, which Paul later finds out is a codeine-based pill called Novril. The codeine in the pills constipates Paul, so she doesn't have to bring him the bedpan very often.

The other side effect of Novril is "respiratory depression," and Paul wonders whether Annie gave him an "accidental overdose" when she found him at the accident site.

As he begins to regain some mental clarity, Paul realizes three things: Annie has a lot of Novril, he is addicted to Novril, and Annie is "dangerously crazy."

After telling Paul where they are, Annie tells him that she's read each of his "eight novels at least twice." She's read her favorites "four, five, maybe six times" (10). She wishes he would write them faster. Annie says she had to check his wallet to be sure he was the real Paul Sheldon.

Paul asks her where his wallet is, and Annie replies she's "kept it safe" (10). She asks if he's afraid she would steal from him. Paul takes his time choosing his replay. He lies and tells Annie that his father always told him to keep his eye on his wallet. Paul apologizes for asking.

Annie brings him a bowl of vegetable soup. While Paul eats, Annie tells him how he came to end up in Annie's house with shattered legs: Annie had gone into Sidewinder to get feed for her livestock and groceries. At the drug store, Annie looked for Paul's new novel, Misery's Child, but didn't find it. A storm had been forecast that day, but the forecasters claimed it would travel south, towards New Mexico.

Paul begins to shift his legs but feels instant pain. He wonders why he's not in the hospital but doesn't ask.

Annie continues with her story. She learned from a man at the feed store that the storm had changed course and would be touching down in Sidewinder. Annie told the man that she had to get back to her farm to feed her animals, as her nearest neighbors, the Roydmans, live miles away and aren't friendly.

Paul asks Annie if she has a lot of livestock, hoping that, if she does, this will mean she has a farmhand. She says she only has half a dozen hens, two cows, and a sow named Misery.

As Annie made her way home on the day of the storm, she came across Paul's car overturned on the side of the road.

Paul recalls that the storm had taken him by surprise, but not that he was driving while intoxicated.

Annie got out of her car and heard Paul groaning. She gives Paul a "strange maternal grin," and Paul thinks that Annie is "not right" (15).

As Annie finishes telling Paul the story of how she hauled him from his car and into hers, Paul finally remembers the day leading up to the accident. He was at the Boulderado Hotel, finishing his new novel, Fast Cars, in the same room he's finished each of his novels since 1974. In Misery's Child, Paul had finally killed off his long-running character, Misery Chastain, and he was overjoyed. After finishing Fast Cars, Paul drank a bottle of Dom Pérignon and decided that, rather than go back to New York City, he would "drive west" to "Vegas or Reno or maybe even the City of Angels" (17).

Paul got into his 1974 Camaro and hit a bar on his way out of town, buying another bottle of Dom Pérignon. He was drinking this while he drove the I-70 into the Rockies. In his drunkenness, Paul believed he could manage, but he drove off the road while reaching for his cigarettes.

Annie takes over the story here, recalling that in her truck Paul screamed. This made her sure that Paul would live because "dying men rarely scream" (18). Annie brought him into the house and gave him pain pills for his legs.

Paul asks her for more pills, but she tells him he has to wait an hour. Paul asks her if it's really been two weeks since she found him; she confirms, though she seems annoyed at the question. Annie tells Paul that she has fed him intravenously until recently.

A slow hour passes until Annie reappears with the pills and a glass of water. She tells Paul that she finally got a copy of Misery's Child and has started reading it. She says it's the best in the series so far. As she talks, Paul writhes in pain and asks for the pills. Annie ignores him, continuing to talk. She tells Paul that she went through his bag and started to read the manuscript for Fast Cars. Annie hopes Paul doesn't mind; he says that he doesn't, eager to get the pills.

Annie finally gives Paul the pills without water. She tells him that he's "just like a baby…but good." As she leaves the room, Annie tells Paul that they're going to "be happy here" (22).

Paul lies on his back in bed, reflecting on his situation. He examines the bruises in his arm from where Annie inserted the IV to feed him earlier. The pain in his legs returns and Paul begins to sweat as he waits for the next dose.

In the morning, Annie brings Paul more soup and tells him she read 40 pages of his manuscript for Fast Cars. Annie complains that the book is hard to follow because it "keeps jumping back and forth in time" (23). Paul tries to explain that "the subject dictates the form," but Annie doesn't understand. She starts to complain about all the profanity in the book. Annie feeds Paul his soup as she continues to complain, getting more worked up about it.

Annie spills soup on Paul in her tirade against profanity. She tells Paul, "Look what you made me do!" Paul says he's sorry and she screams, "Sure! You Are!", and then throws his soup bowl against the wall. Annie calms down a bit then laughs a little and says she has "such a temper" (24). Paul says he's sorry again, and Annie tells him that he should be.

As she leaves the room, Annie tells Paul that he doesn't need to use profane words in the Misery books because "they didn't use such words at all back then." Annie tells Paul that he should stick to writing Misery books. She's going to put Fast Cars back in Paul's bag and finish Misery's Child instead, though she may go back to Fast Cars later. Paul says that maybe she shouldn't if it's going to make her mad. He tells Annie that he'd rather she remain calm because he's come to depend on her. This makes Annie smile.

Hours later, at the scheduled time for Paul's Novril, Annie comes into his room with a "floor-bucket" (25). She tells Paul that before she gives him the pills, she has to clean up the mess he made in the corner. Paul watches her scrub and rescrub the wall, "shivering" in pain. Annie regards him with "such a sly knowing smile that he could easily have killed her" (26) and continues to scrub. When she's done scrubbing, she begins to rinse the soapy water from the wall.

Paul begins to moan that he's in pain and dying. He threatens to scream, and Annie tells him to go ahead, he's the one who made the mess. When Annie finishes rinsing the wall, she comes to Paul's bedside. She hands him the pills, then tells him to rinse them down with the bucket of soapy water she has. Paul does and struggles to keep from throwing up the pills. He keeps them down and falls asleep.

Paul dreams a big bird is eating him. He awakens to Annie leaving the house to do her farm chores. Paul struggles to think about his predicament while "still capable of something like rational thought" (29). He begins to think that Annie is either too stupid or too "antagonistic to the very idea of change" (30) to appreciate his new manuscript. Paul becomes angry with Annie for the first time. He curses her, realizing that he's never shown a manuscript to anyone, not even his agent, before he's proofread it. Paul also wonders why Annie is no longer a nurse, but thinks the answer is obvious.

Paul remembers going to the zoo with his mother as a young boy and seeing a beautiful bird. He asked his mother where the bird came from and she said, Africa. It upset Paul to think that the bird was "doomed to die in the cage where it lived, far away from wherever God had meant it to be." He began to cry, and his mother teased him, calling him "a bawl-baby and a sissy" (33). He imagines Annie standing on trial before a judge with a white moustache. As Paul drifts off to sleep again, he wonders why Annie would have been "put on the stand in Denver" (34).

In a dream, Paul awakens in a huge hospital ward. Surrounding him are dozens of men "with identical bottles of nutrient" hanging from their IV trays. He realizes that all of the men are him. Annie comes in, dressed as Misery and carrying a basket. She reaches into the basket and begins to fling its contents at each of the men. The face of the first Paul Sheldon turns "ghastly white as soon as the sand" strikes him (35). Paul awakens.

Annie stands over him, holding a copy of Misery's Child. She tells Paul he was moaning. He says he was having a bad dream about Africa.

The next morning, Annie comes into Paul's room, looking as though she's "had a heart attack." Paul hopes this is true, but then realizes she looks this way because she's just finished Misery's Child. Annie calls Paul a "dirty bird" and begins to shriek at him (36). She picks up the glass water pitcher beside his bed and hurls it at the bedroom door. Paul tries to explain that women "frequently died in childbirth" in 1871, as Misery did. He says that Annie will always have "the spirit of Misery" (38). Annie yells that she doesn't want her spirit. She tells Paul that he murdered Misery. Paul disagrees.

Paul recalls how he wanted to kill Misery after the third novel in the series, how he "might have murdered her" but didn't (38). Annie says Paul lies. She thought he was good, but he's a "lying old dirty birdie." Paul argues that Misery just "slipped away." Annie counters that in her nursing job she saw "hundreds" of people slip away and Misery did not "slip away"—this woman was murdered by her creator, Paul (39).

After her tirade, Annie calms down and tells Paul that she needs to go now. She doesn't say where. As she leaves, Annie shuts and, for the first time, locks Paul's door.

Annie leaves Paul alone at her house for fifty-one hours. Paul marks the time by making a tick mark on his arm with a pen every time the clock chimes. He experiences intensifying hunger, thirst, and pain as he lies in bed, immobilized. Paul thinks about trying to crawl out of bed. For the first time since his accident, he pulls back the blankets and examines his legs. Annie splinted them with "hacksawed remains of aluminum crutches." Paul's left knee looks non-existent, and his pelvis is "mottled with fading bruises" (42).

On the second day, Paul is so thirsty that he pees into his hands and drinks his own urine. He imagines telling people about this, if he lives "long enough to tell them anything" (43). Paul also imagines Annie shooting herself in her car because she's so upset about Misery's death.

Annie returns to the house looking "as close to pretty" as she could (44). Paul begins moaning and begging her for water, food, and medication. Annie brings him a glass of water and helps him drink it. She tells him to do it slowly or he'll vomit. Annie tells Paul that God answered her prayer to spare his life so that she may "shew him the way he must go." She tells Paul that she'll help him with his pain but first he has "a job to do" (45).

Annie returns pushing "a charcoal grill in front of her" (45). She leaves it in the room and returns carrying the Fast Cars manuscript and a box of "Diamond Blue Tip wooden matches" (46).

Paul thinks how easy it would have been to have had a photocopy of the manuscript made back in Denver. He tells Annie no, but she won't have it. Annie says it's "filthy" and "no good." Paul says she wouldn't know good if "it bit your nose off" (46). Instead of rage, this time Annie laughs and insists that Paul must burn the manuscript. She holds out four Novril pills to Paul and says she'll give them to him if he burns it.

Paul calls Annie "the devil" and she laughs at him. Annie tells Paul that's just what a child would think of its mother when she "does her duty" (48). Paul tells her that she should burn it, but she insists he has to do it of his "own free will" (49).

Annie comes back into the room after an hour, and Paul takes the matches. She helps him light one and holds it to the title page. Annie makes him burn the title page as Paul reminisces about the writing process for the book.

Paul burns the title page, first and last pages, and "nine pairs of pages" because, Annie says, nine is "a number of power." After this, she tells Paul he's been a "good boy," so she puts the rest of the manuscript into the charcoal grill pot and burns it. The manuscript fire grows and "charred bits of paper" begin to waft around the room (51). Annie gets a bucket of water as hot ash flies around the room, leaving "a tiny hole like a cigarette burn" on the bedspread (52).

Annie flits around the room in a panic, trying to put out the fire. She pours the bucket into the barbecue pot, extinguishing the fire, then leaves the room. When she comes back, she's humming. Annie gives Paul the Novril. As he swallows them, Paul thinks he's going to kill Annie.

Paul becomes aware of Annie's presence in his room, telling him to eat. He realizes that for the first time, he is sitting "level with her" rather than lying down, looking up at her (53). She pinches his earlobe to get his attention. Coming out of his Novril-haze, Paul realizes that Annie had wheeled in, not a shopping cart, as he'd thought, but a "folded-up wheelchair" in which he now sat. Annie had hefted Paul's "dead weight" into it while he'd been zonked on pain meds (54).

Annie tells Paul that she's going to change his "nasty old bed" then his "nasty old" self (54). She says she'll let him eat some more if he's not in too much pain later. Paul thanks her, then thinks to himself he's going to hurt Annie somehow.

Four hours later, back in his bed, Paul is in excruciating pain from sitting up in the wheelchair. He thinks he would burn "all his books for even a single Novril" (54). He screams until Annie comes into his room and gives him his medication. She then tells Paul that she got him two presents: the wheelchair and another, which she'll show Paul tomorrow.

Paul lies awake, letting his imagination run wild. He imagines a police officer finding his car and beginning an investigation into Paul's disappearance. Paul imagines Annie letting the officer into her home for a cup of coffee, mindful that all the doors between there and the guest bedroom were closed.

Paul wonders what happened to his Camaro and why no one ever found it. He studies the cracks in the ceiling that form "a trio of interlocked W's" and realizes he never thought to tell Annie that he had a duplicate of Fast Cars (58). Paul thinks about Annie's mental health then dismisses the thought because it doesn't help him with his predicament. He stays awake, worrying, until Annie comes in with the Novril.

The next evening, Annie brings Paul his second present: an old Royal typewriter, as "black and as proper as a pair of high-button shoes" (63). Annie tells Paul she got it second hand, for five dollars less than the asking price because it's missing the N-key.

Annie brings in a wide board that she plans to set over the wheelchair's armrests, creating a makeshift desk for Paul. Paul asks Annie what she thinks he'll write. Annie replies that she doesn't think, she knows. Paul will write Misery's Return, his next novel.

With cheer, Annie says he'll write the book as payment for nursing Paul "back to health" (67). Paul reminds Annie that Misery is dead, but Annie says Misery isn't really dead. Paul tells Annie that he's not sure he can sit in the wheelchair because it pains him. Annie says she's sure that it does, and that it will hurt the next few times, but eventually, it will hurt "a little less" (68).

Paul asks Annie if she'll let him go when he finishes the Misery story. She says that he should be "up to the strain of meeting people again" by the time he finishes. She then accuses Paul of having a big ego and being ungrateful but doesn't lose her temper. Paul says he's going to need a copy of each of the Misery novels since he doesn't have his "concordance," or file with notes for the series (68). Annie tells Paul she'll give him her well-loved copies. She plans to study book-binding, so she can bind the novel herself. When she leaves, Annie tells Paul she'll bring him dinner soon and give him extra medication if he needs it since he has to "go back to work tomorrow" (69). She blows Paul a kiss when she leaves.

Paul regards the typewriter, which he feels is grinning at him, and considers his prospects. He thinks Annie was lying when she said he'd be able to see people after finishing the novel. Paul wonders if, instead, Annie will feed his remains to Misery, her pig, which would have "a certain justice," Paul continues to stare at the typewriter but his gaze turns to "avid repulsed fascination" (70).

That night, Annie helps Paul into his wheelchair with the "ease of a woman sliding a book into an empty slot on her bookcase" (71). Paul asks her if she can turn the typewriter towards the wall. He lies, saying it's a superstition he has while he's writing his novels, when it's because he doesn't want it grinning at him.

That night, Paul dreams Annie is in the court of an "Arabian caliph," conjuring genies, then flying around on a carpet. When the carpet flies past him, Paul sees that it's woven into a green and white "Colorado license plate." As she rides around, Annie says multiple story beginnings, such as "Once upon a time" (72).

The next morning, Annie brings Paul his breakfast. Paul reflects on his dream from the night before and realizes that Annie has turned the typewriter to face him on her way into the bedroom.

Annie gets Paul into his wheelchair and rolls him to the window. He feels the sun on his "pasty-white skin" for the first time in weeks. From this spot, Paul also has a new vista: Annie's small farm. He sees the Rockies rising up and a blue sky. He also sees "a neat red barn" (73), which, before seeing it, he had imagined as "an illustration from a child's book of ghost stories" (74). Paul also sees Annie's newish Jeep Cherokee, in good shape, too. She also has a Fisher plow which she attaches to the Cherokee to plow her driveway during winter.

Annie sees Paul admiring her barn and comments that, as her mother said, "keeping up appearances is very, very important" (74). She's had heat tiles rigged up to the barn roof to keep the snow from piling up. As the sun shines down on the barn, Paul imagines the snow melting around his Camaro and Annie's neighbors seeing it when they drive past.

Paul asks Annie for different typing paper. Typing on the kind she's purchased, "Corrasable Bond," smudges easily. Annie protests that this is the most expensive kind of paper, and Paul asks her whether her mother ever told her that "the most expensive is not always the best" (76). She tells him that she did not and begins to get upset. Paul tells her that she "might as well stop that" because being mad won't change anything (77). He tells her it's not a big deal.

Annie accuses Paul of playing a trick instead of starting to write. Paul asks her to bring a Webster Pot filled with pens and pencils to him. Annie doesn't know what that is, so he explains. She brings it to him and he demonstrates the smudging on the paper. Paul tells Annie that editors hate getting manuscripts on this paper "almost as much as they hate hand-written manuscripts" (78). Annie sullenly agrees to get him better paper; Paul says it will be even better for binding, as she wants to do. As Annie leaves, she warns Paul that though she may look "slow and stupid," she can't be tricked (82).

Suddenly, she charges at Paul in his wheelchair and punches him in the "bunched salt-dome" that had been his left knee. He screams in pain, and Annie tells him to go ahead because "no one can hear" him. Annie says that no one stops at her house because they think she's mentally unstable, "even if they did find [her] innocent" (82). Finally, she says that the people in town think she "got away with it" and they, she says, are right (83).

As she leaves, Paul begins to cry and asks for God to kill him or let him out of this.

Paul decides to try to wheel himself out of his room in search of the Novril while Annie's gone. He suspects it's in the bathroom just outside the guest bedroom door. He maneuvers himself to the door and, with difficulty, fishes one of Annie's bobby pins off of the floor. He uses that to pick the lock, all while imagining a sportscaster narrating his action.

Paul barely squeezes himself through the doorway only to black out from the pain.

Paul hears Annie's voice call out to him. He opens his eyes to see her "pointing a shotgun at him." She tells him that if he wants his "freedom so badly," she'll be happy to grant it to him (89). 

Paul jerks awake, expecting a shotgun blast that never comes. He was dreaming. He wheels himself into the white-tiled bathroom. There's a bathtub, a linen closet, and a sink with a medicine cabinet above it. Paul can't reach the cabinet "no matter how much he strained" (91). He considers using a mop to reach the handle but realizes that won't work and begins to cry again.

Then he notices the linen closet. Inside, on the bottom shelf, are all kinds of medications. Among them, he finds "dozens and dozens and dozens of sample boxes" of Novril and other painkillers (92). He takes five boxes, totaling thirty capsules, and eats four pills immediately. Paul hears a car coming and begins to wheel himself out of the bathroom. The car keeps driving past the house and Paul relaxes a bit.

Rolling past the living room, he wonders if he could find a phone and call the police. He does find one but to his dismay, it's not working. He imagines Annie "removing the jack and squeezing Elmer's Glue" into the hole to render the phone useless (97). Just then, he hears Annie's car pulling up to the house.

Nearly fainting from terror, Paul remembers getting caught smoking his mother's cigarettes as a young boy and the spanking that followed. He knows if Annie catches him, he'll get more than a spanking. Paul wheels himself toward the bedroom and leaves "a small dent but no chip" in the doorway (99).

Once inside the room, Paul finagles the door itself to get it to close. A piece of the bobby pin he'd used to pick the lock has broken off inside the lock. He begins to "chivvy the tongue gently back and forth" as Annie enters the house (101). Paul gets the door to close just as Annie calls out that she's home. He moves his wheelchair back to the window as Annie comes into the room. As she walks in, Paul realizes the boxes of Novril are in his lap.

Annie holds up the paper she bought him then tells him he's dripping in sweat and his color is "very hectic" (102). She asks what he's been doing, and Paul says he's been suffering. Annie asks if it's been very bad and Paul says that is has. She tells Paul not to make her mad anymore, and he asks for his pills. Annie asks if there's anything else "Mister Smart Guy" will need before he starts writing; Paul says that there isn't (103). Annie asks Paul if he won't make her mad anymore and he says that he won't.

Annie looks down at Paul's lap and asks him why he's holding his hands like that. Paul begins to cry and tells her that it's because he's in pain, and he has to pee but didn't want to "wet myself again." Annie smiles and pushes Paul's hair out of his face. She calls him a "poor dear" and, calling herself "Mean old Annie," goes to get his urinal and pills (104).

Paul stuffs the Norvil boxes down the back of his underwear. Annie comes back in with the pills, and Paul considers not taking them because they might put him in a coma. He resolves that that would be fine. Annie gives Paul the urinal then helps him into bed. Paul asks if she can give him five minutes for the medication to work, and she says that she can.

When she leaves the room, Paul shoves the Novril boxes under his mattress as far as he can, so Annie won't "pull them out with the ground sheet" when she changes the bed sheets (105). As he passes out, Paul thinks "Africa" and wonders if he left tracks (106). Fourteen hours later, Paul awakens to snow.