| Misery is a novel by Stephen King, written in 1987.
The story begins with Paul Sheldon slowly waking out of a coma. Gradually, his memory returns to him: he is a wildly popular
romance novelist (the main character of which is named Misery Chastain) who has crashed his car in a winter storm and has
been badly injured. His rescuer, Annie Wilkes, is a trained nurse and has taken him to her secluded country home to be cared for
by her personally. As luck would have it, Annie is Paul's "number one fan" and eagerly awaits all his publications. As time
passes, however, Paul realizes that there is a flip side of the coin as well: Annie is psychotic and has no intention of letting
him go.
King has stated that he intended for Misery to be the next Richard Bachman novel, following Thinner.
The novel was adapted into the screenplay for a 1990 American film of the same name, directed by Rob Reiner. James Caan and Kathy Bates star as Paul and Annie, respectively. Richard Farnsworth also appears. The film was a critical and commercial success, making
$61,276,872 (USA) domestically on a $20,000,000 budget. Kathy Bates won the Academy Award for Best Actress: she thereafter vaulted into the first rank of Hollywood actresses.
Annie Wilkes was voted the 17th greatest villain of all-time by the American Film Institute in their special feature AFI's 100 Years... 100
Heroes and Villains.
The book tied with the Robert R. McCammon novel Swan Song
for the first Bram Stoker Award for best novel.
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