I thought about waiting 30 years to read Stephen King’s sequel to The Shining, in order to reflect the gap in time between both the release of the two books and their setting. In the end I decided I didn’t have the patience.
Yes, Danny (now Dan) Torrance is all grown up and still grappling with his special talent, the one Dick Hallorann called “shining.” Dick is out of adult Danny’s life, as is his mother Wendy, both dead, and the beginning of the novel finds Dan adrift. Unfortunately, he inherited his father’s love of the bottle, and drifts from town to town and job to job, frequently working in hospices and old-age homes where his shining has manifested in a particularly helfpful direction.
After hitting bottom Dan lucks into a job and an AA sponsor in a small New Hampshire town. Life seems to be settling down but of course, this being a Stephen King novel, the very opposite is true. Dan psychically encounters Abra Stone, a young girl from the next town over whose power and talent amaze and terrify Dan. He is not the only one to notice, though.
Through Abra, Dan becomes aware of the existence of the True Knot, a cult of sorts made up of former human beings who have “turned” and now rely on the consumption of psychically-gifted children like Abra in order to prolong their preternaturally lengthy lives. The True Know is lead by the beautiful and terrifying Rose the Hat, who commands the respect and devotion of followers with names like Snakebite Andi, the Crow, and Jimmy Numbers. The True Knot travels the country in motor homes, blending in with what King calls “the RV People.”
King’s greatest strength is his world-building, and it’s a great tribute to his power as a storyteller that the True Know never feels as utterly ridiculous as it probably sounds in the paragraph above. This long novel builds slowly, taking the time to develop multiple story lines that will all converge in a final confrontation.
Unfortunately, that final confrontation is a confusing dud which fails to live up to the suspense generated over the hundreds of pages preceding it. A lengthy and unnecessary denouement doesn’t do much to soften the blow either.
Doctor Sleep is an engaging ride but the thud at the end casts an unfortunate shadow over all that precedes it.