book (ry)view: Doctor Sleep by Stephen King

Dan Torrance is haunted not only by the events of his childhood at the Overlook Hotel (see: The Shining), but also by living up to his father's legacy of destruction, violence, and, chiefly, alcoholism. Desperate to alleviate himself of his father's sins and after a particularly harrowing rock bottom, Dan settles in New Hampshire and joins Alcoholics Anonymous, where he meets individuals who - rather than encourage his downward spiral - seek to help him shed his past. He curses off alcohol and becomes an orderly at a nursing home where he uses his now more quiet though still prevalent "shining" to bring peace and comfort to - and ultimately help cross over - individuals who have come under hospice care.


Through the shining, Dan meets Abra Stone - a new character to the mythos started in The Shining - who sends a message as an baby to Dan through the shining. It's through Abra that Dan finds a purpose in life (he becomes her Dick Hallorann, King fans) and encounters the True Knot - an unsavory group of seemingly pseudo-immortal creatures who drive the highways of America searching for food and nourishment: in their case, food and nourishment is "the steam" produced by children who have the shining. Abra - who has a particularly powerful shine - attracts their attention, and the resulting story is one of good versus evil, parents and children, sin and redemption.

Reading the author's note, King notes that The Shining was written by a young, well-meaning alcoholic. Although he doesn't state this next statement directly, I think that he wrote Doctor Sleep as a wiser recovering alcoholic. Doctor Sleep is a study in fathers and sons, addiction, recovery, death (like many of King's later novels), and redemption. 

Let me begin my review like this: in my opinion, Stephen King didn't intend to scare your pants off with this one. Obviously, I don't know that, but the way he write this is not in his typical style of horror (although I think he'd tell you, that he writes in fantasy - with horror as a sub genre within that larger genre). I will say that while The Shining is one of those books that's never left me - and indeed scared the living daylights out of me - Doctor Sleep stays with me (especially on this second read-through) for the ways in which it does not frighten me in the traditional sense of the word, but rather makes me feel on so many levels because of the very human experiences its characters allow us to peek in to see. So, no, I was not scared by this book, but I do not think King was trying to out-do himself. He knows where The Shining stands. That was Danny's story with his father, Jack. This is Dan's story with Abra. It's different than its predecessor in many ways, but it's a fun journey without any significant rehashing of the original story.
When we first meet Dan (formerly Danny Torrance), he is in a bad way. He's an alcoholic like his father and grandfather before him. He has a violent history, like his father and grandfather before him. He is down on his luck, like his father and grandfather before him. He is the poster child for what we want to never see happen to childhood stars. Fortunately for us, Dan has an awakening and, rather than seeing his downward descent into madness and self- (and other-) destruction, we follow the journey of a man on the road toward redemption - not only for himself, but for his father.

Abra is a compelling new character. King likes his child characters and believes strongly in how children see the world. Abra is much like Danny Torrance from The Shining, had Danny been given a better hand in terms of parents (while a lot of people tend to rag on Jack Torrance for many reasons, Wendy was an enabling doormat) and a stronger dose of the shining. She is one of the strongest characters of the novel, and her story expands and strengthens the mythos of the shining (something of a plot hole in the original novel).

The True Knot (and Rose the Hat in particular) are difficult characters for me to review. Normally, I can take a leap of faith pretty well. They are essentially a group of vampires. In fact, this is a word used to describe them several times in the novel - something I found distracting given how different they were from the actual vampires depicted in King's novel 'Salem's Lot. While unsavory and worthy villains, I found many of them - especially Rose, their leader - to be rather cartoonish in their depiction. This is not a fault of King. I think if they existed in a different novel unrelated to an established canon, it wouldn't be a difficult leap. Even as a King fan, going from glorified ghosts in The Shining to pseudo-vampires in Doctor Sleep is a difficult jump to make particularly when vampires already exist in King's universe. If you can take this leap and not get hung up on it too much, it's a wonderful read.

Do you have to read The Shining before dipping into Doctor Sleep? Not necessarily. I think this would satisfy anyone new to the Stephen King canon. However, having just finished The Shining for the second time immediately before re-reading Doctor Sleep, I will say that you get more out of it by reading them sequentially. Seeing Danny Torrance grow up to be the complicated Dan Torrance is exciting and exhilarating. 

A word of caution: this book follows the events of the novel, not the Stanley Kubrick film (which is quite different and, frankly, trash). Do not tread into Doctor Sleep with only the movie as your backstory, as you'll likely be confused.

Expanding the idea of the shining and serving up a healthy dose of cameos from the original novel, Doctor Sleep is a worthy follow up to what many consider (including yours truly) a King classic. At many times, it is a much stronger novel than its predecessor (which is to be expected, given this is a novel written late into King's career), even if it doesn't live up to the fear hype of its forefather. Even with its minimal faults, it is fun to see what happened to "that kid" in The Shining.

Have you read Doctor Sleep? What were your thoughts?

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