Doctor Sleep

Stephen King can do pretty much what he wants and get a bestseller, but he really did something risky--he wrote a sequel to one of his best books, The Shining, some 36 years after it appeared. What happened to Danny Torrance nagged at him for years, and he finally put it down on paper. The results, in the novel Doctor Sleep, are mixed.

The first few chapters tie up loose ends from the book. Danny, helped by his old friend Dick (who luckily didn't die in the book like he did in the movie) deals with some Overlook Hotel ghosts who are following him around, including the old lady in Room 217. Danny's mother dies of cancer, and he ends up a drifter and an alcoholic. He bottoms out when he steals money from a one-night stand, and ends up in a small town in New Hampshire, where he joins AA and works in a hospice. His "shining" talent is useful for helping patients who are about to die, and he earns the nickname, "Doctor Sleep."

Meanwhile, King has two other balls in the air that will eventually all meet. Roving the countryside are a group calling themselves The True Knot. They are a bit like vampires, but feed off "steam" that is given off by people who have the shining. They look normal, and ride RVs around the country, but are thousands of years old, and led by a beautiful Irish woman who wears a top hat (she is called, natch, Rose the Hat). In New Hampshire, a child is born, Abra, who possesses great shining ability. She and Dan eventually find each other, but the True Knot becomes aware of her, and they want to feed on her.

Some of this is pretty good and some pretty silly. Thematically, it doesn't match The Shining, which was a very claustrophobic book, as the Torrances were snowbound, and the hotel was almost like a prison. This book is set in the wide open spaces, and the final showdown is on the former site of the hotel, which is now a tourist trap called "Roof o' the World." At its heart, though, the book is about alcoholism, as was The Shining, only this time Dan relies on the principles of AA. King, who is open about his alcoholism, clearly feels a debt of gratitude to the 12 steps.

I was a little disappointed in the book, though. The True Knot are not very capable villains--they end up catching the measles, which they can't tolerate, and it's hard to understand how they existed for so long. What did they do before RVs, back in the middle ages? And they are repeatedly out-maneuvered by Abra. They are like the villains in a Warner Brothers cartoon--Elmer Fudd or Yosemite Sam--who never stand a chance, and are always blowing their tops after being outwitted. The final showdown, between Dan and Abra and Rose, was curiously anticlimactic.

I also found the power of the shining a bit vague. Abra could do just about anything, including climbing into other people's heads. I thought King used it like Batman uses his utility belt--anything he needed just happened to be there.

But it was a pleasurable read, with King's frequent asides on popular culture. To wit: "Crow was in the parlor area, paging through The New Yorker. The only things he really liked were the cartoons and the tiny ads for weird items like yak-fur sweaters, Vietnamese coolie hats, and faux Cuban cigars." I also felt a sense of dread as Abra needed to finish off Rose and her gang once and for all. Even in his mediocre novels, King still can give you a shiver up the spine.