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Summary: Find out the secrets, then watch the TV series
Review: The white lettering on the front cover of The Journals of Eleanor Druse: My Investigation of the Kingdom Hospital Incident cover glows ominously in the dark. The unexpected effect is eerie and a little unsettling. The tiny word "Fiction" in faint red text on the back cover stands out less clearly and is the only thing that indicates the book is a novel.Its predecessor, The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer , tied in to the Rose Red miniseries, was a bestseller partly because many believed King wrote it (it was actually written by Ridley Pearson) and partly because some people thought the book was based on a real supernatural investigation. The Journals opens with a letter to King by Eleanor (Sally to her friends) Druse, asking for help in carrying out her research into the events at Kingdom Hospital in Maine, where she has uncovered an otherworldly crisis. She wants King to have her journals, recorded between late 2002 and 2003, in case something happens to her. The septuagenarian is a volunteer and regular patient at Kingdom Hospital, well known by staff and patients alike. One of her oldest friends, Madeline Kruger, is hospitalized on a stormy winter night after attempting suicide. In 1939, Sally and Maddy were both admitted to the old Kingdom Hospital, suffering from whooping cough, shortly before the hospital burned to the ground. Maddy leaves behind a message indicating that something happened to them sixty years ago that Sally has successfully banished from her memory. Perhaps something related to the mysterious lesion that appears on a brain scan taken after Sally collapses and strikes her head when she witnesses something horrible after Maddy dies. Sally is a believer in mystical events and often conducts siances with her fellow patients at the hospital. She carries healing crystals and meditates to try to communicate with those who have passed on before her. After Maddy's deathbed revelation, Sally becomes aware that the tormented spirit of a young girl haunts Kingdom Hospital, struggling to convey another message. Sally's badgers her unambitious, beleaguered son Bobby into acquiring Maddy's old records and papers to help her uncover what she has been repressing for six decades while she simultaneously deals with persistent spirits at the hospital - among them a sinister shade she calls Dr. Rat - and the various levels of incompetence exhibited by the hospital's staff, including scalpel-happy Dr. Stegman, in exile from Boston General, who has left a trail of surgical horror stories on his record. The Journals overlaps some of the events to be played out during the fifteen-hour series, which debuts on ABC on March 3rd, but it also provides backstory only available to readers of this book. The anonymous author knows his or her medicine, especially neuroscience, and the volume makes for interesting reading on its own, though it ends with Sally's mission only partly complete. To discover more about the mysteries being played out in Kingdom Hospital, readers will have to turn on the television and see what Stephen King has in store for them this spring.
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Summary: Sounds suspiciously familiar
Review: There's a great 1994 Lars Von Trier movie (with a 1997 sequel), largely not available in the US, dealing with a ghost child haunting a hospital called The Kingdom, in Denmark. This hospital was built over old bleaching pools (rather than a textile mill) responsible for the death of this child and others (continual exposure to chlorine gas). In the film, one of the main characters is an older psychic lady who continually feigns illness to be admitted to the hospital to investigate the haunting. Responding to a ghostly child's cry, she gathers other patients and hospital workers together for seances as part of her investigation. Coincidence? This Diary of Eleanor Druse is a work of fiction, as noted in the wee letters on the cover, and is obviously based on King's reworking of the earlier movie, if not written by King himself under a pseudonym, changing the location to his usual Maine settings. Heaven knows who the Eleanor Druse that reads the book on tape is. Von Trier's movie (which may have originally been a TV series in itself, it's never been clear) is a quirky and sometimes very creepy piece of work. Highly recommended to anyone that doesn't mind a four-hour film in Danish, crossing ER with Twin Peaks. I'd be very surprised if the US television remake will be anywhere as atmospheric or original. As for the book - probably an adaptation of a screenplay which itself is the adaptation of another screenplay.
Rating: 
Summary: Well, I read it, not sure why.
Review: This book has an incredibly slow start. I wasn't until about page 92 that the story actually got a bit interesting. This book made me remember why I don't read Stephen King. It was just out of despiration, and the fact that I didn't have another book with me that I actually continued to read it. If I hadn't spent $20 on it, I would have gotten rid of it.
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Summary: Refreshing
Review: This complimentary book to the dramatic series is intriguing and well written. The series itself is the only intelligent and imaginative thing on TV, and the only thing I watch on it.
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Summary: Druse Can't Lose
Review: This is just a really fun read. Once you are hooked in bt Eleanor's loser son telling her what is going on, you turn page after page as she uncovers creepy and ultimately unspeakable things going on at the veerable Kingdom Hospital. The book does a nice job setting out that Eleanor is "special" in her ability to sniff out the paranormal and that despite everyones protestations that there is something terribly wrong at the hospital. It is troubling that through most of the book we are never quite sure whether things are really twisted or whether she is crazy and imagining things due to electrochemical malfunctions in her brain The medical professionals will cringe at the prima donna's showcased in this creepy book. I miss the Stephen King who formerly wrote books of a readable length that I could run through in a few nights of diligent reading. This book is a return to form that seems to have a little more of a rock and roll beat. I hate TV but I can't wait for the show.
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Summary: A "KINGLY" READING
Review: Those with an interest in or penchant for the paranormal will be riveted to this reading by the author. A career spiritualist, Eleanor Druse, lives in Maine (as does Stephen King whose "Kingdom Hospital" will be on TV) and spent considerable time organizing the journals she has kept regarding her experiences with Kingdom Hospital. After surviving a near death experience when she visited a friend at that hospital, Druse spends some time at Boston General Hospital suffering from an unknown illness. Upon returning home she hears rumors about strange happenings at Kingdom Hospital and determines that she must investigate. She begins after soliciting the help of her son, Bobby, who is an orderly there. Among her discoveries is the fact that the Hospital is built on the site of a textile mill that was destroyed by fire after the Civil War. This conflagration also took the lives of many workers, child laborers included. Druse becomes convinced that the spirit of one child, Mary Jensen is imprisoned within the Hospital. She also senses that there are other evil spirits lurking among the corridors. "The Journals of Eleanor Druse" is a "Kingly" reading sure to chill and intrigue. - Gail Cooke
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Summary: I have faith that King will credit the source - somewhere.
Review: To add to the essentially identical plot and transplanted location of this book to a major arc in Lars von Trier's TV mini-series The Kingdom ("Riget" - followed by The Kingdom 2,) the final nail in the coffin of originality is that the elderly spiratualist in the original Danish work is named Mrs. Druse.
While his writing doesn't really click with me (just a matter of taste, not a criticism,) I have a great deal of faith in Mr. King's integrity and am sure that the original will be credited in the miniseries. I will watch it out of interest, but the originals were so wonderful and so bizarre that it seems highly unlikely that anyone could top von Trier's work. There was originally a final mini-series planned (and The Kingdom 2 ended with cliff-hangers in many plot arcs) and I sincerely hope that Lars has not lost interest. Maybe the U.S. interpretation will revive it if he has.
The Kingdom (but not Kingdom 2) is available at Amazon UK if you have a multi-region system which will play PAL.
(I also respect, btw, King's taste in music. An interview introduced me to the greatest unknown U.S. band of the 80s - The Rainmakers. Try searching, but I doubt that there is anything still in print.)
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Summary: If you like the show, you'll probably like the book
Review: Unlike a lot of people giving reviews here, I really like the show, though it definitely took me awhile to get hooked. You definitely won't be able to figure out what is going on by watching only the first episode. When I heard from others who have read this book that you can find some additional background information on Kingdom Hospital and its characters in its pages, I decided to pick it up. I have not been disappointed. I haven't had the problem of not knowing where I left off, but I guess I just find it more interesting than other reviewers have. And yes, King is the author, just as he authored "My Life at Rose Red", the supposed diary of Ellen Rimbauer for the Rose Red mini-series. Simply put, if you like the series, you'll probably like this book. If you can't stand the series, why would you read this book in the first place?
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Summary: Between science and the supernatural
Review: When Eleanor Druse is called to the hospital deathbed of an old childhood friend who has attempted suicide, she experiences gruesome hallucinations, both visual and auditory, and then blacks out. These events leads doctors to conclude that Eleanor has a brain abnormality and epilectic seizures. Eleanor believes no such thing. Instead she is certain that her extrasensory abilities have allowed her to view ghosts that haunt Kingdom Hospital. Reminiscent of The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer and its tie-in to the TV miniseries Rose Red, this novel disguised as nonfiction is a tie-in to the Stephen King TV series Kingdom Hospital. It consists of Eleanor's journals of her investigation into the paranormal occurrences at the hospital, the identity of a child whose phantom cries only she can hear, and the secrets of her own past. The novel reveals an explanation for only part of the mysteries Eleanor is investigating. Her introduction to the journal, a cover letter to Stephen King, warns "Please read these pages as an introduction only to what I believe will one day be a complete scientific assessment of the remarkable occurrences witnessed by myself and others at Kingdom Hospital..." Although this book sets the scene for the TV series that follows, it can stand alone on its own merits. I recommend this novel as a well-crafted blend of the factual and the fictional. You will learn something about neurological diseases and their treatment as the doctors deal with Eleanor's hallucinations. You will shiver at the spookiest of supernatural events as Eleanor attempts to bridge the gap between the past and the present, and between life and the first state of the afterlife. Eileen Rieback
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Summary: Brilliant treat for King fans everywhere
Review: While it is the suspicion of many readers that Stephen King actually wrote this companion to "The Kingdom" mini-series, it was really written by Richard Dooling (per audio interview at http://www.wnyc.org/shows/lopate/episodes/11212003). It's marketed as being by one "Eleanor Druse," a character in the series. As many will recall, this is the same marketing tactic that preceded "Rose Red," another ABC mini-series about a haunted house. The book companion in that case was "Diary of Ellen Rimbauer" edited by "Dr. Joyce Reardon" who is also a character in that work of fiction. The actual writer, it was later announced, is Ridley Pearson. Dooling must be familiar with King's works, especially the Dark Tower series. The tie-ins with product placement from other worlds, as well as the mention of an artist being rushed to the hospital after being hit by a car on a leisurely walk are reminiscent of the links King likes to make between his works and with his own experiences. They are treats to us "constant readers" that won't be caught by just anyone. After reading this short book, I am more excited for the upcoming mini-series. I'm counting down the weeks and days. I highly recommend this book to any King fan and to anyone that intends to watch the mini-series. It provides good background into the story while it pulls you in, leaving you to feel like you're there, in Kingdom Hospital with Eleanor Druse. Eleanor Druse is a self-proclaimed psychic. It all begins when she gets a call that a childhood friend has been calling for her after an attempted suicide. Eleanor rushes to the hospital to find her friend dead. The same night, Eleanor has a near-death experience. While doctors try to find what caused Eleanor to fall and hit her head, a series of events begins to unlock memories from Eleanor's experiences as a child in The Kingdom hospital. Eleanor tries to unravel the mystery behind a doctor she keeps seeing that nobody else sees. This doctor seems to be present whenever a great tragedy occurs at the hospital, as does a ghostly little girl. What do these ghosts imply and how can Eleanor help the little girl? "The Kingdom" will be aired beginning March 3rd. Before that, ABC will be airing a film on the making of "The Kingdom" by the same name as this book. Some people are accusing King of stealing the concept but he's not claiming it to be his original work. In fact, everything I've read points to ABC making a deal with King to bring this impressive story to American audiences. I did try to watch the original with subtitles, while I can tell it's a good story, it loses something in the translation. It's funny how screenwriters rework other people's writings all the time, but when King does it, he is accused of plagiarism. I'd like to take this opportunity to point out that the advertisement for "Secret Window" gives credit only to the screenwriter ("from the writer of 'Panic Room') and not to King so as not to taint the viewers' opinion by letting them know that King actually wrote the original, but that's another story.
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