Joyland

Published: 2013

Joyland (2013) follows Devin Jones, a college student who takes a summer job at a North Carolina amusement park in 1973 to mend his broken heart after a breakup. While working at Joyland, Devin learns about the park's dark history—particularly the unsolved murder of a young woman named Linda Gray on the Horror House ride, whose ghost is rumored to haunt the attraction. As Devin befriends fellow 'carnies' and learns the colorful slang of carnival life, he also develops a relationship with a dying boy, Mike Ross, and his protective mother. Mike, who possesses psychic abilities, eventually helps Devin uncover the identity of Linda Gray's killer, leading to a climactic confrontation. Published through Hard Case Crime, Joyland deliberately echoes pulp paperbacks of the 1950s and 60s, initially released only in paperback format with a retro painted cover to capture the feel of vintage crime novels. Despite these trappings, the novel is more coming-of-age story than traditional crime fiction, using its murder mystery as a framework for exploring themes of loss, growth, and the bittersweet nature of memory. Critics praised the book's nostalgic atmosphere, emotional resonance, and restrained supernatural elements, with many noting its kinship to King's more literary novellas like 'The Body' (the basis for Stand By Me). The novel became a bestseller despite its limited initial distribution. Film rights were acquired, though no adaptation has been produced. King has expressed particular satisfaction with the novel's evocation of 1970s carnival life and its balance of supernatural and coming-of-age elements. For readers, Joyland stands as one of King's most bittersweet and nostalgic works, using its crime novel framework to explore universal experiences of first love, heartbreak, and the transition to adulthood. The amusement park setting provides both colorful background and metaphorical resonance, representing the passage from youth to maturity.

Themes

• Coming of age
• First heartbreak
• Loss of innocence
• Carnival life
• Ghost stories

Adaptations

Collector Notes

Published by Hard Case Crime as a paperback original with a retro pulp cover design. Contains a glossary of carnival terminology that King researched extensively.