The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon: A Pop-up Book [Pop-Up]

   9歳の活発な女の子トリシア・マクファーランドは、ママと兄と一緒にハイキングにやってきた。週末は家族一緒に過ごすもの、と勝手に決めてかかっているママは、つい最近離婚したばかり。ボストンからメイン州の小さな町に引っ越したことで、兄は最近ママとけんかばかりしている。彼は新しい学校になじめずにいたのだ。トイレに行きたくなったトリシャは、2人が言い合っている場所からちょっと離れ…そして道に迷ってしまった。

   はじめのうちこそ1人ぼっちの冒険もうまく運ぶように思えたものの、彼女は迫りくる危険を察知しはじめる。その意識の変化をキングは見事に表現する。最初は張り切っていたトリシアだが「はじめてかすかな不安の陰がよぎり」、やがて激しい混乱状態に陥り、ついには幻影を見るようになる。その中でも一番うれしい幻影は、トリシアの憧れの人、大リーグ球団レッド・ソックスのピッチャー、トム・ゴードンだった。彼の試合の様子をウォークマンで聞いているうちに、その幻影が見えるようになるのだ。

   キングは総じて的確で緊迫した、そしてどこか叙情的な文章で、ブンブンという気味の悪い音を立てる蚊の大群から、「超自然的なもの（神様は自然を通して何かを暗示しているんだ、とトリシアのパパがよく使っていた言葉）」が奏でる深遠な助奏までを描き切る。また、トリシアの大切な人たちのことがだんだん明らかになると、読者はますます彼女と同じ気持ちになっていく。とてもいい人なのにお酒で身を持ち崩したパパ、大好きだけどちょっと頑固なママ、それにその生き生きとした言葉遣いが非常に印象的な、トリシアの親友ペプシ・ロビチャウド（「そんなに“女の子”するんじゃないわよ、マクファーランド！」）。ふと見上げた満月が引き金となってさまざまな連想がわき上がり、「気を確かに持って、持ち続けなければ」と彼女の独白が繰り返される。そしてトリシアと共に森の中で道に迷ってしまった我々読者も彼女と同じできごとを同時体験することになる…。

   アマゾン・コムのインタビューによると、キングがめざしている作品は、ウィリアム・ゴールディングの『Lord of the Flies』（邦題『蝿の王』）だそうだ。森をさまようトリシアが、ブンブンと低くうなりを上げる何者かの幻影に震え上がる場面は、これまでの作品の中で、ゴールディングの影響が最も色濃くうかがえるシーンである。（Tim Appelo, Amazon.com） --このテキストは、 ハードカバー 版に関連付けられています。

From the master of horror and suspence, Stephen King, comes a pop-up adaptation of one of his bestselling novels.; Trisha MacFarland had no idea what was in store for her when she wandered away from her mother and brother on a family hike! Readers will travel with Trisha on her journey of horror, where she has only her witts for navigation, her ingenuity as a defence against the elements, and her courage and faith to withstand her mounting fear. For solace, during this terrifying journey, Trisha tuned in her walkman to listen to the broadcasts about her hero, the Red Sox relief pitcher, Tom Gordon. As with all King's novels, this adaptation engages our deepest emotions and explores our deepseated dread of the unknown.

Trisha McFarland is a plucky 9-year-old hiking with her brother and mom, who is grimly determined to give the kids a good time on their weekends together. Trisha's mom is recently divorced, and her brother is feuding with her for moving from Boston to small-town Maine, where classmates razz him. Trisha steps off the trail for a pee and a respite from the bickering. And gets lost.

Trisha's odyssey succeeds on several levels. King renders her consciousness of increasing peril beautifully, from the "first minnowy flutter of disquiet" in her guts to her into-the-wild tumbles to her descent into hallucinations, the nicest being her beloved Red Sox baseball pitcher Tom Gordon, whose exploits she listens to on her Walkman. The nature writing is accurate, tense, and sometimes lyrical, from the maddening whine of the no-see-um mosquito to the profound obbligato of the "Subaudible" (Trisha's dad's term for nature's intimations of God). Our identification with Trisha deepens as we learn about her loved ones: Dad, a dreamboat whose beer habit could sink him; loving but stubborn Mom; Trisha's best pal, Pepsi Robichaud, vividly evoked by her colorful sayings ("Don't go all GIRLY on me, McFarland!"). The personal associations triggered by a full moon, the running monologue with which she stays sane--we who have been lost in woods will recognize these things.

In King's revealing Amazon.com interview, he said the one book he wishes he'd written was Lord of the Flies. When Trisha confronts a vision of buzzing horror in the middle of the woods, King creates his strongest echo yet of the central passage of Golding's novel. --Tim Appelo
--このテキストは、絶版本またはこのタイトルには設定されていない版型に関連付けられています。

"The world had teeth and it could bite you with them anytime it wanted." King's new novelAwhich begins with that sentenceAhas teeth, too, and it bites hard. Readers will bite right back. Always one to go for the throat, King crafts a story that concerns not just anyone lost in the Maine-New Hampshire woods, but a plucky nine-year-old girl, and from a broken home, no less. This stacked deck is flush with aces, however. King has always excelled at writing about children, and Trisha McFarland, dressed in jeans and a Red Sox jersey and cap when she wanders off the forest path, away from her mother and brother and toward tremendous danger, is his strongest kid character yet, wholly believable and achingly empathetic in her vulnerability and resourcefulness. Trisha spends nine days (eight nights) in the forest, ravaged by wasps, thirst, hunger, illness, loneliness and terror. Her knapsack with a little food and water helps, but not as much as the Walkman that allows her to listen to Sox games, a crucial link to the outside world. Love of baseball suffuses the novel, from the chapter headings (e.g., "Bottom of the Ninth") to Trisha's reliance, through fevered imagined conversations with him, on (real life) Boston pitcher Tom Gordon and his grace under pressure. King renders the woods as an eerie wonderland, one harboring a something stalking Trisha but also, just perhaps, God: he explicitly explores questions of faith here (as he has before, as in Desperation) but without impeding the rush of the narrative. Despite its brevity, the novel ripples with ideas, striking images, pop culture allusions and recurring themes, plus an unnecessary smattering of scatology. It's classic King, brutal, intensely suspenseful, an exhilarating affirmation of the human spirit. 1,250,000 first printing; major ad/promo; BOMC and QPB featured alternates; simultaneous audiocassette and CD, read by Anne Heche.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --このテキストは、 ハードカバー 版に関連付けられています。

What if the woods were full of them? And of course they were, the woods were full of everything you didn't like, everything you were afraid of and instinctively loathed, everything that tried to overwhelm you with nasty, no-brain panic.

The brochure promised a "moderate-to-difficult" six-mile hike on the Maine-New Hampshire branch of the Appalachian Trail, where nine-year-old Trisha McFarland was to spend Saturday with her older brother, Pete, and her recently divorced mother. When she wanders off to escape their constant bickering, then tries to catch up by attempting a shortcut through the woods, Trisha strays deeper into a wilderness full of peril and terror. Especially when night falls.

Trisha has only her wits for navigation, only her ingenuity as a defense against the elements, only her courage and faith to withstand her mounting fear. For solace she tunes her Walkman to broadcasts of Boston Red Sox games and the gritty performances of her hero, number 36, relief pitcher Tom Gordon. And when her radio's reception begins to fade, Trisha imagines that Tom Gordon is with her -- her key to surviving an enemy known only by the slaughtered animals and mangled trees in its wake.

A classic story that engages our emotions at the most primal level, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon explores our deep dread of the unknown and the extent to which faith can conquer it. It is a fairy tale grimmer than Grimm, but aglow with a girl's indomitable spirit.
--このテキストは、絶版本またはこのタイトルには設定されていない版型に関連付けられています。

'Vintage King' -- Independent on Sunday 'Moving, gripping. One of his best...A literary home run' -- Mirror 'Utterly compulsive, bears ample witness to King's mastery of his craft' -- Mail on Sunday 'King writing at his compelling best' -- Express on Sunday --このテキストは、 ペーパーバック 版に関連付けられています。

Stephen King has written more than forty books, all of them worldwide bestsellers. He lives in Bangor, Maine, with his wife, novelist Tabitha King.