Book Review: Doctor Sleep (Stephen King)

It's been 36 years since one of Stephen King's biggest and most famous titles, The Shining, hit bookstores and made a huge splash in the world of horror fiction.  It had a simple premise of showing a family haunted, tormented, and pulled apart by ghosts haunting a hotel; they found salvation only in their gifted son, who used his shining - telepathy - to call for help.  As simple as it is, the book remains a horror classic thanks to its imagination, its nuanced attention to stark themes of domestic violence and alcoholism, and King's signature laid-back ethos.

Personally, I would have been happy if The Shining remained a one-off.  It told the story it needed to well, and ended in a satisfying manner.  However, when the question came up about what could have happened to the little boy who survived the ordeal of the Overlook Hotel, King decided to answer that question for himself, by writing this novel, Doctor Sleep.

The book picks up on Danny Torrance's life since the events of The Shining, and it's not always an endearing tale.  Danny becomes something of a lost soul, who decides to drown out his shining abilities and his painful memories in drinking.  Once he feels he hits rock bottom, he picks himself back up, tries to live a cleaner life, but inevitably his path clashes with a new main character.  The story of Danny becomes entwined with the story of Abra Stone, a girl with super-duper shining abilities.  The two connect psychically, but as Abra grows and matures, she draws the attention of a new kind of evil.  Things get really interesting and gripping when The True Knot - a group of vampire-like people who roam around America feeding off of kids with the shining - target and hunt Abra.  It all builds up methodically to a psychically-charged climax at the site of the Overlook Hotel.

It is a breezy and thrilling book, easily among King's most accessible works.  It is a meaty book, but it's not too wordy that it becomes bloated.  The book strikes a good pace and a good balance between dialogue, description, and action.  King's laid-back style makes the words flow by well, and the plot by nature makes you want to read more to see what will happen next.  Conflict runs strong - even during the less exciting scenes, the focus on the supernatural and characterization keeps it engaging.

The story is pretty cool and new.  It's thankfully not a rehash of any kind, and it presents a plethora of great new characters.  If anything, character-building is the book's greatest strength;  Danny's life story is so full of ups and downs that you can't help but to sympathize with him.  Strong themes of alcoholism and history repeating itself emerge strongly through his story.  On the flipside, Abra is a great, perfectly-lovable character, who also exudes a great amount of attitude and spirit.  Side characters are pretty decent, and the villains (especially Rose) are classic King villains so despicable that we love to hate them.  There's a lot of strands in the plot that get juggled around.  I can't say that the revelations concerning Dick Hallorann are all that endearing or even necessary (it's actually kind of sick, but I guess it ties into the ongoing theme of child abuse), but other than that, the story ties everything together into an elegant braid of complex characters and thrilling situations.  It's especially inspiring to see how King evolved this world from the small-scale settings of the Overlook Hotel and expanded it to encompass the entire nation.  And yet, everything is connected quite sublimely.

This book is written in King's classic style; a slick combination of elegant description and down-to-Earth wording.  Dialogue is really sharp and good, descriptions aren't too overbearing, details seem well-researched and refined, and the book matches up with the original Shining well.

Doctor Sleep is a grand supernatural adventure with heart, thrills, and a group of superb characters.  It's easily one of the best books in King's repertoire, and even though you can read The Shining on its own merits, this is an excellent follow-up.

4.5/5 (Entertainment:  Very Good | Story:  Very Good | Book:  Very Good)