Joyland

Joyland (2013) is a crime novel published by Hard Case Crime, the pulp crime imprint. It follows a college student named Devin Jones who works at a North Carolina amusement park called Joyland in 1973 and investigates the unsolved murder of a girl whose ghost reportedly haunts the Horror House ride.

Yes. The murder mystery is present throughout but the novel's primary register is nostalgia and loss—a young man's summer of failed love, first encounters with death, and the transformation that happens in the gap between college years. King has said he was as interested in the carnival world's culture and language as in the mystery plot.

Joyland has an elaborate carnival vernacular—King researched and deployed the internal language of carnival workers throughout the novel. Customers are 'rubes,' a ride is a 'joint,' working the park is 'wearing the fur.' This language creates a world with its own interior life and gives the novel its distinctive texture.

Initially not. King and Hard Case Crime published Joyland as print-only on release in June 2013, specifically to encourage readers to seek out physical books. This generated significant media attention about digital versus print publishing. An ebook edition was eventually released in October 2013.