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The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon

The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon

HorrorPsychological Thriller
Pages
270
Published
2000
Language
English

Synopsis

Nine-year-old Trisha is lost in the Maine woods after a family picnic goes terribly wrong. With only a dwindling water bottle and her Walkman for company, she must rely on her wits and the imagined presence of her baseball hero, Tom Gordon, to survive. This is a harrowing journey of a young girl facing the ultimate test against nature and her own fears.

Prose complexity
3/10

Vibe

DarkTenseEmotionalThought-Provoking
SurvivalComing of AgeReluctant Hero

Genres

Horror Psychological Thriller Suspense Literary Fiction Psychological Horror Thriller Adventure

About the author

S
Stephen King

Stephen King (born September 21, 1947) is an American author whose work has defined popular horror fiction for more than half a century. Born in Portland, Maine, he grew up in poverty after his father abandoned the family, and credits his mother's resilience and a voracious reading habit as the foundations of his imagination. He began selling short stories to men's magazines while working as a high school English teacher, and published his first novel, Carrie, in 1974—his wife Tabitha retrieved...

Characters

TrishaProtagonist
Tom GordonCameo
All characters in The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon

Frequently asked questions

  • What is The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon about?

    Nine-year-old Trisha McFarland gets separated from her family on a hiking trail in the woods of Maine and New Hampshire and must survive alone for nine days. She has no survival training. Her only company is her Walkman, through which she listens to Boston Red Sox games—and the voice of real relief pitcher Tom Gordon.

  • Who is Tom Gordon and why is he central to the story?

    Tom Gordon was a real Boston Red Sox closer, famous for his pointing-skyward gesture after saves. During Trisha's ordeal he becomes an imaginary companion—her courage is borrowed from his example of composure under extreme pressure. He appears to Trisha in hallucinations and becomes the anchor she uses to stay sane.

  • What threatens Trisha in the woods?

    Something follows Trisha through the forest—a presence she senses before she sees it clearly. King keeps it deliberately ambiguous: it may be a bear, it may be something supernatural. The novel's genre is horror-adjacent survival story, and the threat functions as both real animal danger and psychological manifestation of fear itself.

  • Is this one of King's shorter novels?

    Yes. At roughly 219 pages, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon is one of King's shortest novels—closer to a novella in scope. King has said he wanted to write a pure survival story that stayed claustrophobically close to one character, and the short form suited that intention.

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