Joyland / Stephen King / 285 pages / Irish/Scottish Challenge

Devon is an Irish name and Madame Fortuna, the Romany fortune teller at Joyland, says "The Irish are full of sorrow, and many have the sight." She doesn't know if Devon Jones has it, but if not, he will meet someone who does. His girlfriend of two years, Wendy Keegan, has moved to Boston for the summer. Missing her and fearing the end of their relationship, he takes a job at Joyland, an amusement park in North Carolina. In the spring of 1972, the 21 year old college student thought he "already knew what his future was going to be: writing novels and the kind of short stories they publish in the New Yorker...; marriage to Wendy K...; wait until they were in their 30's and have a couple of kids..." He doesn't envision it including a ghost, serial murder, and a kid dying of Duschene muscular dystrophy. As always this novel by Stephen King rivets you and perhaps scares a bit. It is a deaprture for the Master of Horror, as he is writing as part of the Hard Case Crime series. "When it comes to the past, everyone writes fiction. Passing time adds false memories and modifies real ones."