The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon
 | |
| Author | Stephen King |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Shasti O'Leary |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Horror novel |
| Publisher | Scribner |
Publication date | 1999 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 219 pp |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-684-86762-1 Parameter error in {{ISBNT}}: invalid character |
The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon (1999) is a novel by Stephen King about a young girl, Patricia "Trisha" McFarland, who gets lost in the woods for at least an entire week.
In 2004, a pop-up book adaptation was released by Simon and Schuster, designed by Kees Moerbeek and illustrated by Alan Dingman.
Plot summary
The story is set in motion by a family hiking trip, during which Trisha's brother Pete and mother Quilla constantly squabble about the mother's divorce, as well as other topics. Trisha falls back to avoid listening and is therefore unable to find her family again after she wanders off the trail to take a bathroom break.
She attempts to head them off at an upcoming turn in the road but somehow ends up hopelessly lost, heading deeper into the heart of the forest. She is left with a bottle of water, two Twinkies, a boiled egg, a sandwich, a large bottle of Surge, a poncho, a Gameboy, and her Walkman to survive. Now and then she listens to her Walkman to keep her mood up, either to learn of news of the search for her, or to listen to baseball games featuring her favorite player, and "heartthrob," Tom Gordon.
As she starts to take steps to survive by conserving what little food she has with her, and consuming edible flora such as beech nuts, checker berries, and fiddleheads; her mother and brother return to their car without her and call the police and start a search. Naturally, the rescuers search in the area around the path, but not as far away as she has gone. The girl decides to follow a creek (though it soon turns into a swamp-like river) rationalizing that all bodies of water lead to the sea and eventually civilization.
As the cops stop searching for the night, she huddles up underneath a tree to rest. Eventually, a combination of fear, hunger, and thirst causes Trisha to hallucinate. She imagines several people from her life, as well as her hero, Tom Gordon, appearing to her. Author Stephen King purposely makes it unclear whether increasingly obvious signs of a monster in the woods are also hallucinations. (Noting she is in the same area of woods as Louis Creed in Pet Sematary, some even suggest that what Trisha observes are signs of the Wendigo, the bloodthirsty monster that haunts the woods of upper Maine, and the same thing the good doctor saw when he went to bury his son in the Micmac Burial ground.)
Hours and soon days begin to pass, with Trisha wandering further into the woods. Eventually she begins to believe that she is headed for a confrontation with the God of the Lost, a wasp-faced, evil entity who is hunting her down. Her trial becomes a test of a very young girl's ability to maintain sanity in the face of seemingly certain death. Racked with pneumonia and near death, she comes upon a road, but just as she discovers signs of civilization, she is confronted by a bear — which she (possibly correctly) interprets as the God of the Lost in disguise. Facing down her fear, she realizes it's the bottom of the ninth, and she must close the game. In imitation of Tom Gordon, she takes a pitcher's stance and throws her Walkman like a baseball, hitting the bear in the face, and startling it enough to make it back away. A hunter who has come upon the confrontation between girl and beast frightens the bear away and takes Trish to safety, but Trish knows that she earned her rescue.
Baseball
The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon is structured in the form of a baseball game, with the story dividing into 'innings' instead of chapters, along with a Pregame covering the morning before Trish stepped off the path and the Postgame showing a scene after the final confrontation. The 'game' takes place in the woods, where Trish battles for survival.
Movie adaption
Although George A. Romero was attached to write and direct,[1] plans for film adaptation had stalled as of October 2005.[2]
Translations
| Country | Year | Title | Publisher | Translator |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SWE | 2000 | "Flickan som älskade Tom Gordon" | Bra Böcker | Tove Janson Borglund |
Trivia
- It is several times mentioned that Trisha likes J. R. R. Tolkien and especially his book The Hobbit. King has previously named Tolkien as a major influence on his work.
- It is mentioned that Trisha and Pepsi's Favorite Song at that moment is "Tubthumping" By Chumbawamba, although it is referred to as "Tubthumper"
