Book Review: Stephen King’s Doctor Sleep
Earlier this year I reviewed Stephen King’s coming-of-age novel JOYLAND and had an absolute blast—partly because it was King doing what King does best, but also because it was one of those perfect summer reading novels. I’m a huge fan of King and everything he touches, so when I found out he was working on a sequel to his novel THE SHINING, I was beyond excited. It’s not that I’ve ever felt that there should be a sequel, because I think he handled the ending well and left no loose ends that I ever felt like needed tying up, but if he was going to go back to the world of Danny Torrence, the Overlook Hotel, or what it was like to have the shining be apart of your everyday life, I’d have no excsuse not to pick it up and give it a read. So is DOCTOR SLEEP worth it? Let’s find out.
DOCTOR SLEEP kicks off years after the ending of THE SHINING, with Danny Torrence (now just Dan or Daniel) is an adult battling the same problem his father Jack battled all those years ago: alchoholism. The guy’s a fuckin’ raging alchoholic when we first meet him, but after he hits rock bottom, he decides to clean himself up and take control of his life… or try to. Because he’s still dealing with having the shining, where he sees random dead people, or seems to have a “sixth sense” about people, places, and things. The shining shines so damn much, Dan drinks to keep it at bay.
But that’s not the meat of the story: the meat is that there is a traveling band of soul-suckers who call themselves the True Knot. The True Knot appear to be retired “normal people” who travel America in their RVs and motorhomes, seeing the sites and living life on the road. But really, they’re extremely old soul-sucking assholes who live off the “steam” of dead people with shining abilities. These are the villains of the novel and they’re pretty bad, considering they like to kill kids so that they can live forever.
Dan befriends a little girl named Abra who also has the shining and they team up to essentially take down the True Knot. Much like King’s recent novels, like JOYLAND or DUMA KEY, DOCTOR SLEEP is a relatively easy read… one could say it’s light reading, as it’s not nearly as descriptive or as thick as King’s earlier novels (like THE SHINING) but it’s still a fun and entertaining read and one that’s hard to put down once the main storyline kicks in. That said, I will say that the beginning of the novel is handled a bit on the shaky side, where it’s confusing as to what’s going on. There’s a lot of time-jumps, there’s a lot of things going on that become relavant later, but are confusing and hard to follow as fuck in the beginning. King essentially gives you bits and pieces of Dan’s life over the last 30 years until we finally hit present day, which is where the real story begins. But in getting to that point there is a lot of jumping around.
Other than the rough start though, DOCTOR SLEEP is a solid novel that’s not really a horror story, nor is it a mystery or a thriller, but somewhere in the middle. Don’t except all the crazy spooky shit that was going down in THE SHINING as you won’t really get any of that here. And also, it’s a good idea to either have read King’s original SHINING or at least know what went down in that one and not just rely on your knowledge of Stanley Kubrick’s film version—because Kubrick’s SHINING and King’s SHINING are completely different and you may find yourself scratching your head as to why certain characters are alive or what he’s talking about when he’s talking about croquet mallets, animals hedges that move by themselves, or exploding boilers and Hotels that no longer exist.
If you like the current roll of King books, including 11/22/63 and JOYLAND, then you should have a bast with DOCTOR SLEEP. It’s not THE SHINING, but it’s a solid follow up that does it’s own thing, which is kind of awesome. It’d be a drag if DOCTOR SLEEP was just a re-hash of the shit that went down in the Overlook in some other hotel (which is probably what the movie version of the sequel would look like). While it’s less haunting and spooky than its predecessor, it’s still an entertaining read that goes to some pretty dark places along the way. It’s not a perfect book (is there such a thing?), but I had zero complaints along the way, and one thing’s for sure… DOCTOR SLEEP won’t put YOU… to sleep. Oh!
Grade: A-
