The following version of the novel was used to create this study guide: King, Stephen. Duma Key. Scribner, January 22, 2008. Kindle.

In the suspense/horror novel Duma Key by Stephen King, Edgar Freemantle believed the worst thing that could happen to him was the traumatic brain injury he suffered when he was crushed by a crane. He lost his right arm and had to learn to walk again on a rebuilt hip and pelvis. Edgar’s wife left him during his recovery, claiming she was afraid of him and his frequent bouts of rage. Edgar learned he had not suffered the worst thing that could happen to him when the paintings he was creating, believing they were helping him to heal, turned out to be embodied by an evil and vengeful spirit. When Edgar tried to stop the distribution of the evil paintings, the spirit, known as Perse, retaliated by killing Edgar’s favorite daughter.

Struggling to recuperate from his near-fatal accident, Edgar made his mind up to die by suicide, but he did not want his daughters to know. Edgar’s psychiatrist, Xander Kamen, recognized Edgar’s depression and suggested Edgar try a change in scenery. He warned Edgar at this point so soon after his accident, that his family would know his death was intentional. As a result, Edgar rented a house on Duma Key, an island off the coast of Florida.

Edgar had an urge to draw as soon as he arrived at the house on Duma Key. He drew a silhouette of a ship he saw on the Gulf. Edgar continued to draw and paint. His desire to draw was often preceded by phantom itching in his right arm. Edgar began walking and soon made friends with Jerome Wireman and Elizabeth Eastlake, his only full-time neighbors on the island.

Edgar realized his creations had unusual power when he went into a trance one night and painted a picture. He did not remember what he painted until the next morning when he looked at it. It was a picture of George “Candy” Brown holding a young girl by the wrist. He admitted to raping and killing her. In Edgar’s painting, Candy had no mouth or nose. That morning the news was announcing that Candy had been found dead in his cell. Edgar believed his painting had killed Candy.

Edgar tested his skills by attempting to heal Wireman, who had shot himself in the head in an attempt to die by suicide. Wireman suffered constant headaches, and his eyesight was diminishing because the bullet was still in his head. Wireman’s vision was restored and his headaches were relieved when Edgar painted Wireman as a young man, before he attempted to die by suicide.

Meanwhile, Edgar began realizing there were parallels between what he experienced and what Elizabeth had experienced as a child. Elizabeth suffered a brain injury when she fell from a pony cart as a baby. She began drawing to remember who she was and to communicate. Soon she was considered a prodigy. A sinister spirit called Perse began communicating with Elizabeth, using her power to do Perse’s will. When Elizabeth tried to end Perse's power, Perse punished Elizabeth by luring her beloved twin sisters to their deaths.

Decades later, when the elderly Elizabeth saw Edgar’s paintings, she recognized that Perse was influencing his art. She told Edgar and Wireman that Perse was awake again and needed to be drowned back to sleep. Elizabeth also told them they needed to look for a red picnic basket in the attic. She was unable to tell them anything else because she suffered a seizure and died. Edgar and Wireman both believed that Elizabeth had been killed.

Edgar and Wireman’s friend Jack found the picnic basket. Inside were the pictures that Elizabeth had drawn when she was a child. Edgar used them to determine what had happened to Elizabeth and her family when they were persecuted by Perse. Perse killed Edgar’s favorite daughter in revenge because Edgar was a threat to her. Edgar was determined to put Perse back to sleep because of what she had done to his daughter.

Edgar, Wireman, and Jack drove to the south end of Duma Key, a place where no one had been since Elizabeth’s father took his daughters who were still alive, and abandoned the house. Inside Elizabeth’s old house, they found Elizabeth’s doll. Using Jack as a mouthpiece, the doll told Edgar, Wireman, and Jack what Elizabeth had done to Perse to put her to sleep years before.

The men found the cistern in which Elizabeth had submerged a whiskey keg, also filled with fresh water, that held a china doll. Perse used the doll as her host. The water had leaked from both the whiskey keg and the cistern, allowing Perse to wake up. Just before Perse’s minions from her derelict ship came to take control of Edgar and the other men, Edgar submerged the doll in a flashlight canister filled with water, putting her and her underlings to sleep for a second time.