By Al LaFleche
Back in 1977, with The Shining, Stephen King introduced readers to the Torrance family - Jack, Wendy and Danny - and told us of their fateful winter at the Overlook Hotel near Sidewinder, Colorado. Stanley Kubrick brought the story (with a slightly different ending) to the silver screen with Jack Nicholson and Shelly Duvall as the parents and Danny Lloyd as their son, blessed or cursed with the psychic ability King called the shining.
Fast forward 36 years, and Mr. King reintroduces us to the now grown Dan Torrance in Doctor Sleep. The burden of his shining has sent him down the road of alcoholism, which doomed his father in the first book. We get a quick refresher on Dan’s youth, and jump to a few years ago. He is a nearly hopeless drunk. His rock bottom comes when he steals from a coked-up one night stand and barely stops her child from grabbing some leftover cocaine the child thinks is candy. This causes him to move on once again.
In time, he finds himself and, ultimately, sobriety, in the little town of Frazier, New Hampshire, where he will land a job as an orderly (aka janitor) at the local hospice. Here, his remaining shining (according to Mr. King, this diminishes with adulthood) comforts the dying as they make the passage from life to death. His reassuring and gentle bedside manner earns him the nickname Doctor Sleep. Some of this end-of-life thematic territory was touched on in Mr. King’s book Insomnia a few years ago.
In time, he finds himself and, ultimately, sobriety, in the little town of Frazier, New Hampshire, where he will land a job as an orderly (aka janitor) at the local hospice. Here, his remaining shining (according to Mr. King, this diminishes with adulthood) comforts the dying as they make the passage from life to death. His reassuring and gentle bedside manner earns him the nickname Doctor Sleep. Some of this end-of-life thematic territory was touched on in Mr. King’s book Insomnia a few years ago.
Meanwhile, two other threads are developing.
In one, a band of RV driving migrants, calling themselves the True Knot, under the leadership of Rose the Hat, crisscrosses the country looking for children who have the same shining young Danny had. They slowly kill them to get their rejuvenating “steam,” a spiritual essence they have learned to keep. But their supply is running low.
A few miles from Frazier, Abra Stone was born in 2001 with an exceptionally strong shining. She anticipates the events of 9/11 as a babe in her crib. Eventually she uses her shining to contact Dan Torrance and inadvertently becomes a target of the True Knot.
What ensues is a battle between good and evil, the usual territory for Mr. King’s writings.
In some ways, the story also depicts the destructive power of addiction, to alcohol, drugs or “steam,” and how the addicted are driven by this. The counterpoint is the redemptive power of overcoming addiction.
Mr. King’s prose, as always, moves easily and enjoyably. There is little of the gruesomeness he has displayed in some of his other books; but much of the second half of Doctor Sleep does get intense, as the confrontation between Rose the Hat and the team of Abra and Dan develops.
I was unsure of a sequel of any type to The Shining, since that story seemed complete unto itself. Too often, sequels feel like the author is revisiting the well just for the money. In his postscript, Mr. King suggests that many of his readers wanted to know what had become of young Danny Torrance. They are not to be disappointed in that regard with Doctor Sleep.
