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


Amazon.com Audiobook Review
With a convincing mix of youthful optimism and world-weary resignation, reader Anne Heche adds resonance to this unabridged recording. Heche is especially effective as the 9-year-old heroine, Trisha McFarland, who makes a fateful decision during an afternoon hike with her dysfunctional family. "The paths had forked in a 'Y.' She would simply walk across the gap and rejoin the main trail. Piece of cake. There was no chance of getting lost." As one might suspect, there is every chance she'll get lost--or worse--and taking the shortcut turns out to be a very bad choice indeed. At times Heche's reading may be too measured, but her narration is generally quite good and her steady portrayal of a young girl lost renders this tale all the more frightening. (Running time: 6.5 hours, 6 cassettes) --George Laney


From Publishers Weekly
"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.


From School Library Journal
Grade 4-6–King boils down his 1999 novel of the same name to short-story length for this elaborately engineered pop-up version. The plot and nightmarish atmosphere remain broadly the same; nine-year-old Trisha takes a wrong turn in the Maine woods, and only gets through an increasingly grueling week of being scared, hungry, attacked by insects, and afflicted with hallucinations by listening to the exploits of (now ex-) Red Sox closer Tom Gordon on her Walkman. The text is printed on accordion-folded side flaps, flanking large-scale outdoor scenes enhanced by the occasional pull tab or acetate window; moving parts are few but deliciously scary–particularly one flap that flips open to reveal a face made of swarming wasps, and another that reveals a preternaturally toothy bear. Despite a happy ending, and a design sturdy enough to endure repeated readings, this is definitely not for younger "scary story" seekers.–John Peters, New York Public Library Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.


From Library Journal
While hiking a six-mile stretch of the Appalachian Trail with her mother and brother, nine-year-old Trisha McFarland steps off the path to relieve herself and then attempts a shortcut to catch up. With this unfortunate decision, she becomes lost and alone in the Maine woods for over a week, with limited food and water and what becomes her prize possession, a personal stereo. Trisha uses the radio to follow the play of her beloved Tom Gordon, relief pitcher for the Boston Red Sox--a calming link to the civilized world and one she uses to gather courage and strength for her ordeal. In a near-perfect characterization on King's part, we experience Trisha's fears, hopes, pains, hallucinations, and triumphs through her internal monolog, which is animated in this program by the voice of actress Anne Heche. She flawlessly conveys Trisha's youth and the spectrum of her emotional states. Recommended without reservation.-Kristen L. Smith, Loras Coll. Lib., Dubuque, IA Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.


The Wall Street Journal, Kate Flatley
Mr. King tells a wonderful story of courage, faith and hope in The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon. It is eminently engaging and difficult to put down. But it may blunt any desire you might have to go hiking ever again.


The New York Times, Christopher Lehmann-Haupt
...reading the novel produces several satisfying moments of feverish terror where you can picture Trisha's bones bleaching in a sunlit landscape utterly indifferent to her being.


From AudioFile
You can't survive nine days lost in the woods without something to hang on to, especially if you're only 9. For Trisha McFarland, "something" is faith in her hero, Red Sox pitcher Tom Gordon, and listening to him play on her Walkman, at least, until the batteries run out. Reader Anne Heche clearly remembers what it's like to be 9-years-old. Her fresh, young-sounding voice presents Trisha's point of view beautifully. While her narrative passages occasionally sound read, rather than told, her presentation of Trisha's words and thoughts is flawless. Other characters are skillfully performed, save for a New Hampshire backwoods bubba who sounds like he's from Arkansas. Musical and other audio effects polish the production to a shining finish. R.P.L. (c) AudioFile, Portland, Maine


From Booklist
Riddle me this: What do Joyce Carol Oates and Stephen King have in common? Bonnie Smothers


Review
People An absorbing tale...Tom Gordon scores big.

FROM OUR EDITORS

The Barnes & Noble Review
Stephen King has, in many ways, created the horror genre and claimed the largest stake in it for himself. Lest you believe this is selfishness, I'll assure you: It's through no fault of his own. The guy is just too talented, and in many ways, his fiction has defined popular literature — and culture — for the past 20 years. His novels have been markers along the climb to the 21st century, from Carrie and its "High School Confidential" horrors through The Shining with its nuclear-family nightmare, into his instant classics like Misery and the recent Bag of Bones. His serial novel, The Green Mile, was one of the most absorbing books of the past few years.

Returning to the short form — almost as an intermediate step between Bag of Bones and his next huge novel — King has offered up The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon.

First, this is not your typical horror novel — I'd hazard a guess that King himself doesn't see it as a horror story. It has more in common with the fiction of Jack London and Stephen Crane than it does with the fiction of Poe or Stoker. But, of course, London and Crane both wrote about a kind of horror that didn't involve creatures from another planet or from graves. They wrote about the horror of humans, nature, and the ability of human beings to survive against the shadows of "what's out there."

No recounting of the plot will convey what King manages to create in this short novel. A girl of nine accompanies her mother and brother on a brief trip, hiking a small portion of the Appalachian Trail. The girl, Trisha, wanders off the path and manages to get lost. She has some family issues: Mom and Dad have divorced, and her brother is constantly squabbling. But by removing Trisha from the family, by isolating her into the woods, the novel becomes one of human survival.

What begins as a bit of a simple tale — little girl lost — soon turns to the larger questions of what is at the center of creation, what motivates any of us, and the place where darkness and human imagination cross. I resisted this story to some extent, for King is wily. He begins with a soft lull, a bit of a dramatic moment that gets lost quickly in the sweet worry of a young girl who is resourceful enough to pick berries for survival and to do all the right — but ultimately wrong — things in order to find her way back to civilization. But soon, nature itself becomes a force, more often for ill than for good. And as Trisha's imagination begins to re-create the dark forest around her, a slow, sure terror mounts.

This is not a shocker, and no one will stay up till dawn having nightmares over Trisha and the darkness she must face. But The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon is a major step forward for King into the realm of fiction that matters, fiction that is about what humans face as one century turns to another: the meaning at the center of existence.

And it's a fun book, too. Let's not forget that beyond being a terrific writer, King is one of the most entertaining storytellers on the planet. His passion for baseball comes through, as does his love for children and the terrors they must face. Get this book. Stay with it. The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon is the nightmare at the heart of existence; it is the story of those of us who get lost and must face our worst fears.

—Douglas Clegg
Douglas Clegg is the author of numerous horror novels, including Halloween Man and Bad Karma, written under his pseudonym, Andrew Harper. His recent Bram Stoker-nominated short story, "I Am Infinite, I Contain Multitudes," can be found in the anthology The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Volume 11. The world's first e-serial novel, Naomi, will be coming out in May; his next book, The Nightmare Chronicles, will be out in the fall.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Following the enormous critical — Best Books of '98 in Publishers Weekly, San Francisco Chronicle, Denver Post, and others — and commercial success of Bag of Bones, Stephen King's bestselling hardcover novel to date (over 1.6 million shipped), comes a short novel with as much punch as a pinch-hit homerun.

On a six-mile hike on the Maine-New Hampshire branch of the Appalachian Trail, nine-year-old Trisha McFarland quickly tires of the constant bickering between her older brother, Pete, and her recently divorced mother. But when she wanders off by herself, and then tries to catch up by attempting a shortcut, she becomes lost in a wilderness maze full of peril and terror.

As night falls, Trisha has only her ingenuity as a defense against the elements, and only her courage and faith to withstand her mounting fears. For solace she tunes her Walkman to broadcast of Boston Red Sox baseball games and follows the gritty performances of her hero, relief pitcher Tom Gordon. And when her radio's reception begins to fade, Trisha imagines that Tom Gordon is with her--protecting her from an all-to-real enemy who has left a trail of slaughtered animals and mangled trees in the dense, dark woods...

SYNOPSIS

"The world had teeth and it could bite you with them anytime it wanted" is the first sentence of this extraordinary new novel.

Eager to escape the bickering of her recently-divorced mother and her older brother, Pete, nine-year-old Trisha McFarland wanders off the main path of the Appalachian Trail between Maine and New Hampshire, where they have embarked on a weekend outing. As she tries to take a short-cut to catch up to her family, she strays further from the trail and deeper into the second-growth, untrodden woods, where she has no means of navigation and little defense against the elements.

Bruised, battered, and riddled with wasp and mosquito bites, Trisha elevates her spirits and preserves her connection with civilization by tuning into the radio station that broadcasts the Boston Red Sox games. She spends her first night alone, listening as her hero — #36, the closing pitcher Tom Gordon, whose jersey and baseball cap she wears on her hiking trip — strikes out the Yankees. She imagines him as her companion, and tunes into his games sporadically, as she braves treacherous slopes and fetid swamps, bacteria-ridden (and vomit-inducing) water, insatiable insects, extremes of New England weather, and many, many, lonely, uncomfortable, terrifying nights. Stalked by an unidentified creature that leaves slaughtered animals and mangled trees in its wake, Trisha bravely follows the river — and her instincts — in the hope of surviving. A classic tale that combines elements of adventure and spiritual awe, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon engages our hearts and minds at the most primal level.

FROM THE CRITICS

People Magazine

You may not care about Gordonbut you will about Trisha.

Christopher Lehmann-Haupt - The New York Times

...[R]eading the novel produces...satisfying moments of feverish terror....As the narrator puts it: "The world had teeth and it could bite you with them anytime it wanted. She knew that now. She was only 9, but she knew it, and she thought she could accept it"....Thanks to Mr. King's gruesome imagination, you as a reader feel the sharpness of those teeth.

Wall Street Journal

Stephen King at his best...a wonderful story of courage, faith and hope...eminently engaging and difficult to put down.

USA Today

A delightful read, a literary walk in the woods...[T]he novel is less about baseball than about faith, perseverance and survival.

New York Daily News