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A review by secre
Doctor Sleep by Stephen King
challenging
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
I really ought to get round to reading The Shining. If it's anywhere near as good as Doctor Sleep, then it really needs my attention. It's a testament to this novel though that I didn't need to read The Shining to be completely engrossed in it. The characters jumped off the page despite so much of the backstory being in the earlier novel.
Doctor Sleep takes us into Dan Torrence's - the young boy in The Shining - adulthood. We start the novel with him approaching absolute rock bottom, relying on drink and often drugs to get him through the days just as his father had done all those years before. Unlike his father though, he finds a helping hand in AA and starts to put his life back together. And then he meets Abra. I say 'meets'. It's over a decade later before he actually meets her, but her presence in his life begins far earlier than that. Alongside Dan's tale, we have the tale of Abra's parents, two people who find themselves parenting a child with uncanny abilities. And Abra herself as she gets older and finds herself on the radar for a group of people who want her to suck her dry.
There is a horror/thriller narrative at the heart of this and it's a strong one. Unlike the last King novel I read where the supernatural elements seemed smashed in, this is tightly brought together and the supernatural is the very heart of the novel. It's also - in very King fashion - the tale of the individuals and one of the things that King did best here was his portrayal of addiction and recovery. He also winds together multiple sub-stories, each of them important in their own way and bringing depth and life to the various lives on display.
All in all, this is King at his best and a reminder of why I keep coming back to his works even after reading one of his less great works.
Doctor Sleep takes us into Dan Torrence's - the young boy in The Shining - adulthood. We start the novel with him approaching absolute rock bottom, relying on drink and often drugs to get him through the days just as his father had done all those years before. Unlike his father though, he finds a helping hand in AA and starts to put his life back together. And then he meets Abra. I say 'meets'. It's over a decade later before he actually meets her, but her presence in his life begins far earlier than that. Alongside Dan's tale, we have the tale of Abra's parents, two people who find themselves parenting a child with uncanny abilities. And Abra herself as she gets older and finds herself on the radar for a group of people who want her to suck her dry.
There is a horror/thriller narrative at the heart of this and it's a strong one. Unlike the last King novel I read where the supernatural elements seemed smashed in, this is tightly brought together and the supernatural is the very heart of the novel. It's also - in very King fashion - the tale of the individuals and one of the things that King did best here was his portrayal of addiction and recovery. He also winds together multiple sub-stories, each of them important in their own way and bringing depth and life to the various lives on display.
All in all, this is King at his best and a reminder of why I keep coming back to his works even after reading one of his less great works.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Child death
Moderate: Drug use, Torture