The plan is to reread all of Stephen King’s works in the order that they were published. Richard Chizmar of Cemetery Dance had the vision. I’m doing it because I am a writer and I want to improve my fiction. And I love Stephen King’s stories. I think there is something to be learned through this process.
You can also go back to the beginning and read Before Carrie or any of my other posts up through this one and beyond by checking out this link to the Master List of all my #StephenKingRevisited posts.
Stephen King opens the 2013 release of Doctor Sleep, the sequel to the 1977 classic The Shining, with a long dedication to Warren Zevon including a story about playing “Werewolves of London” with him.
After 36 years of time between the stories, we start with a recap of the end of The Shining and the Overlook Hotel. And, of course, what happened to Wendy and her son Daniel “Danny” Torrence in the days, months, and years that followed. Angry spirits feed on the Shine. One follows Danny back from the Overlook. Hollerman has to teach him how to deal with these threats.
The themes of alcoholism and addiction continue. Danny struggles with his father’s demons in more ways than one. He grows up dysfunctional, as one might expect. The Shining follows the destructive course of alcoholism unaddressed. Doctor Sleep deals with recovery, healing, and redemption with descriptions and insights into AA culture that are too good to not be firsthand.
The two books that chronical the life of Danny Torrance are two very different stories. At various points in reading of this novel, I wondered if the book really required the first story. Could this have been told just as well with the same elements and different characters without being connected to the first book at all? Ultimately, I decided it probably existed well as the sequel and culmination of the story started so long ago. The first was a scarier novel and the second was more of an adventure battling monsters of a sort. Read in isolation, it’s possible some people might find Doctor Sleep to be the better of the two novels in terms of cohesive story.
The carny talk from Joyland is back where every ordinary human not part of the strange creatures of the True Knot are called rubes. The members of the True Knot must take steam, which is what they call the shining, and like the ghosties of the Overlook, they find it delicious and sustaining for a costly form of immortality.
“Life is a series of ironic ambushes.” That is a great line.
A doctor treats telekinetic powers in a child as if it were a rare but not unheard of condition. I wonder how a real doctor would react to such a realization in the world. Danny becomes known as Doctor Sleep because of what he is able to do for the dying.
King mentions towns near me in South Carolina in this book. Also, some tourist attractions in the area. This may be from his Joyland research. He mentions Jerusalem’s Lot from Salem’s Lot and Sidewinder from The Shining. I couldn’t find references to Oree or Dry Bend which are also mentioned as haunts of our evil characters in the story.
The missing children section of the story hit me really hard. I just let myself imagine it too vividly and I was about undone by it.
There’s a sixth grade teacher Mrs. Moran mentioned. I taught at a middle school with a sixth grade teacher Mrs. Moran.
The Overlook becomes the Bluebell Campground some time after the hotel’s destruction. The last direct mention of the Overlook that I recall in King’s universe is in the novel Misery wherein a photographer who encounters our main villain in that story was going to take pictures of the ruins.
Stephen King does not have invisibility as a power in his universe. He has dimness which makes those with the power more difficult to notice under certain conditions.
An odd family connection is thrown in during the final act. Maybe it was set up before, but not well and the revelation pours out all at once in a way that feels tacked on even if it wasn’t meant to be.
Danny must ultimately follow in his father’s footsteps up to a point in order to complete the mission set before him. The father gets a small opportunity of redemption. It is not a perfect ending, but not a bad one either.
My next post in this series will be Before Mr. Mercedes which will be linked on the Master List of all my Stephen King Revisited posts.
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