The Shining

With the closing of October (Halloween being tomorrow), I switched my classic King reading list around so this one would be the last one. I should be surprised at how different it is from the movie but I did some rudimentary wiki-search and apparently Stephen King disliked the film adaptation of this book so much he made a new movie (a more faithful adaptation to his book), aired it on TV and was greeted with mild applause for a job, well, done. Suddenly his ability to communicate the angst of a teenage girl doesn't seem so incredible.

I need to stop comparing the movie to the book and just dive right in. This book is about a teacher-turned-writer who gets a job as caretaker of a large hotel so naturally he brings his wife and son along. This puts a whole new spin on "bring your child to work" day.

Part One: Prefatory Matters

This book is divided into not three, not four, but five parts. Which is strange because it's half the size of 'The Stand' with almost twice the needless divisions. We begin with an interview for the position of caretaker of the Overlook Hotel, a resort in Colorado that closes during the winter months and deservedly makes little money because of it. I know that the snow storms may be heavy in the mountainous area but since they renovated the place, couldn't they rent out the rooms to wilderness loving types? They could even slash the usual hotel price to draw in customers. As long as they pack the pantry with food and keep the snow from barricading the doors, they would make a profit and have no need for a caretaker who goes crazy and murders his family. I guess this plan would work better if the hotel wasn't possibly haunted. I know I'm not supposed to know that but it's pretty obvious.

The newest shareholder of the hotel insists that Mr. Jack Torrance get the position of caretaker so it looks like the interview is a formality. The hotel manager, however, doesn't like Jack very much on account of his alcoholic past and the student he smacked around when he was a teacher. I bet he'd really flip if he found out Jack smacked his own kid around once. Jack's wife and son live in crummy apartment in the bad part of Colorado. Which, let's face it, can't be that bad because, despite it's name, the only thing whiter than the snow, is the townspeople of Colorado. I guess meth and moose might be the major worries around those parts. All this misery has Jack's wife about ready to burst into tears. You'd think Jack broke her arm instead of her son's. But so far, Jack is written rather sympathetically. I'd usually be shaking fists and giving horrible nicknames to guys that abuse their kids but according to the words and flashbacks, it was a one time deal, very much on the accidental side, and Jack was really ashamed and regretful after realizing what he did to a three year old kid. Let's see how long this lasts. Start the timer!

A tour of the hotel concentrates greatly on the boiler room that needs to be monitored three times a day or it might build too much pressure and explode. Gee, I wonder if this will be important to remember later on. There's also talks about ghosts and all major hotels having their own ghosts and scandals. Wow, Trump's PR people... er, Hilton's PR people... let me get back to you on that. Little Danny Torrance, or "Doc", is most definitely a psychic of some kind. He goes into trances, talks to his little friend Tony and sees into people's minds. Today on the psychic agenda, horribly horrifying visions of horror. He sees a wrecked room, snowy windows, mallet wielding maniacs and tasty scarlet alcohol. Back in the real world, it looks like the wealthy owner of the Overlook Hotel was drinking buddies with ole' Jack. After they ran over a bicycle that may or may not have had a kid on it, the two men decide to quit drinking. This explains how Jack got the caretaker job. Well if that's what it takes to get work, I'll have to consider adding alcoholism to my resume.

Jack's wife, Wendy, doesn't have a good relationship with her mother. Maybe she can get Peter Pan to whisk her away to Neverland.  Her mother is a divorcee who blames her daughter for it, she criticizes the young woman's mothering skills, and she named her Winifred. Oof. I apologize for the Peter Pan jab. She married Jack fairly young and Jack's drinking didn't get serious until after he got his first short story published in a magazine. I guess writers and alcohol go together like writer protagonists and Stephen King novels. That's also the first time he hurts Danny, accidentally, by testing the whole "bouncing baby boy" expression. Looks like they don't bounce. Myth busted! Also, stop the timer. The sympathy train lasted two paragraphs. Good effort, King.

There could've been a divorce except Wendy didn't want to end up like her mother and she thought her husband might change and deep down she did still love the guy. It took a month but he did stop with the drinking. With that worry out of the way, she can concentrate some new worry on her quiet, polite son. She's known for a while that there's something different about Danny. She felt his distress whenever she thought about divorcing Jack. Even after a Jon Benet handshake, the kid still has admiration and love for his father and it seems the feeling is mutual, even if Jack looks less joyful father and more constipated and grim when he gets the warm fuzzies about his Danny boy (... wait. I used this nickname before. Damn it King, get yourself a baby book or at least wait a few years in between recycling names).

Anyway, Danny gets the heebie jeebies at night in his room at the same time his mother is thinking about things after having some non-drunk sex with her husband. (Must. Not. Picture. Shelley Duvall. And Jack Nicholson. In Bed.) This part ends with Danny reminiscing on his dream about the unknown voice with the mallet calling out for Danny to "come out here and take your medicine". Five year olds don't like medicine in the first place so I doubt shouting threats and swinging around a mallet would get a kid to come out with their mouth open. Danny thinks again about the one word which reads like two words without the space. Redrum. I bet this word won't be appearing all sinister at the hotel where the former caretaker murdered his family. Nope.

Part Two: Closing Day

That was a very short first part but you don't see me complaining. And here come the Torrances in their little Volkwagon bug trying to make it up the winding mountainside. Who wants to start us off with a round of 'They'll be comin' round the mountain when they come'? As soon as they reach the hotel, Danny gets the horrible feeling of familiarity and fear. His mom is groping his dad in the car. No wait, that's just my fear. Danny's fear is when he spots the hotel and realizes those visions from earlier took place there. I feel like he should be better prepared emotionally if he has visions of an impending doom in a hotel. Inside, they all meet the prissy hotel manager and while they're surprised at how crowded it is on the last day of hotel checkout, I'm surprised Wendy is a blonde. It's like everything in Kubrick's film is a lie. For example, the mom and dad are way more flirty in the book (cringe!) and the kid's imaginary friend was definitely not his finger with the voice of a sick Marge Simpson.

However, one of the more important differences so far seems to be that there's no maze garden in the book, which is very important in the movie. There's a nice animal topiary, a little playground, and a roque court, which is like a more old fashioned version of croquet. And croquet is an oversized version of golf with hoops instead of holes and mallets instead of clubs. You can guess why Danny is fixated on the mallet part of the game. The only thing so far that matches the movie, visually, is the cook being black. His name is Dick (Heh) Hallorann and after Jack introduces his wife 'Winnifred' (Blech) the southern cook asks if she goes by "Winnie" (the pooh?) or "Freddie" (with an ascot?). He approves of her eschewing both for "Wendy". I like name semantics and I like this cook. I dread getting to the page when King will kill him off.

They take a tour of the large kitchen and all that food in there is seriously making me hungry. After a long time of the Torrance family eating fake butter and government cheese in the Colorado ghettos, I'm sure they feel the same way. The cook makes some pretense about wanting Danny's help to carry his bags down to the car. Wendy sees her son get in and worries Cook Hallorann might totally steal her son away to Florida. I'd crack a "she so racist" joke but he did keep offering joking invites back in the kitchen tour and let's be honest, the kid would be better off with a skilled chef in the sunny Florida coast than inside a giant snow tomb with a nervous, jealous mother and a hot-tempered, secretive father. Danny and Hallorann talk about his ability. Precognition, visions, shining. It all means the same save for the levels of whimsy in the name. Danny is relieved to hear he's not alone with his powers but he is the shiniest person Cook Hallorann has ever seen. The cook reassures him not to worry about the horrible visions he got from the hotel because 1) visions don't always come true, and 2) they're just visions and can't hurt him. Like pictures in a book. Though paper cuts are very unpleasant. If there is any trouble, the cook wants Danny to send a telepathic message and he'll come running all the way from Florida. I guess you could say he's taken quite a shine to the kid.

Another tour of the actual hotel is conducted by the snotty hotel manager that every employee seems to hate. Despite the fancy decorations of the presidential suites, he doesn't want to spring for some damn elevator maintenance. Just reading about the Torrances and the manager getting into the elevator made me feel a bit claustrophobic. I can't imagine an old rattling trap like that could securely hold so much blood. And there I go thinking about the movie again. They don't venture into room 217 because Hallorann saw something bad in that room and told Danny never to go in there. The manager probably just doesn't let them check out that room because he likes rubbing their faces in the fancy digs they can't use. Jokes on the manager because even the plainest, shabbiest room in the hotel is still the Taj Mahal when compared to Jack and Wendy's crummy apartment. The manager leaves and the Torrances are finally left alone in a giant, fancy hotel. Bed sheet toga paaartaaay!

Part Three: The Wasps' Nest

Wow, the second part was even shorter than the first. I'm just breezing through this book. And reading it during a hurricane/storm (which I currently am) makes me really feel the ambiance and chilliness. The first trouble Jack encounters at the hotel is, interestingly enough, a wasps' nest which launches him into a lengthy metaphor about him sticking his hand in the Wasps' Nest of Life. SUBTLE. He takes the moment, on a rooftop near some wasps, to reminisce and go into detail about the hasty "accident" that got him fired from the fancy prep school. If I didn't already know lengthy flashbacks are a Stephen King trademark, I'd be worried Jack was going into some kind of wasp venom shock. Suffice to say, Jack cut some teenage boy from the debate team because the kid had a stutter and possibly because Jack was jealous of the kid's athletic handsomeness. The kid slashed his tires and Jack saw red (metaphorically before, and literally after. Because of all the blood, you see.) Yeah. So he'll be taking out any anger and self loathing on the wasps via poison. He'll make sure the wasps get a taste of their own medicine, just like that teenage boy. Hey, isn't that similar to what the menacing figure in Danny's dreams said? What a coincidence!

When Danny and his mom return from a shopping trip, Jack gives his son the empty wasps' nest as a present. I can't tell if this is a 70s thing or if the Torrance boys are just weird but Danny seems to like the nest very much. Later at night, Danny goes into a trance in the bathroom where he seems to get snips of the injured teenage boy and whoever it was that knew how to play roque at the Overlook Hotel. His father gets all handsy and his mother quickly takes the kid away to offer comfort. When Danny is safe in bed, he asks if his father would ever hurt him or his mother. The answer is an assured no. Danny asks his father if he knows the meaning of redrum but Jack mishears it as "red drum" and makes some crack about angry Indians. Well, I for one think this word has no double meaning at all. I mean, besides the fact that it's "red rum", and the father is an alcoholic, what other meaning can there be? None that I can see. No siree. I'll be keeping an eye out for any cranberry juice and Captain Morgan combinations.

The wasps make another reappearance when they sting Danny. I assume this is probably why collecting wasps nests fell out of style after the 70s. Jack was sure he killed those wasps, having disposed of their bug poisoned bodies himself. Maybe he only got half the colony and the other half flew off to hide. I'm not a bug expert so my knowledge of wasp behavior is based on my superstitions and hatred of them. All Jack is sure of is that he could really use a drink. A bottle of Jack for Jack and a Doc for Doc. At the doctor's office, Danny goes into a trance and even with all that information, the doctor concludes the kid just has an overactive imagination. He also thinks the kid is very bright and created his invisible friend "Tony" when his homelife was not so great, what with the drinking and abuse and the imitation butter. He thinks Danny will grow out of it and being forced to bond as a family at the isolated hotel will be good for him. This is one of those times you need to get a second opinion.

While exploring the hotel basement, Jack discovers a scrapbook with newspaper clippings of the hotel's history including being a clubhouse for the mafia and being host to a murder in the presidential suite. He's got an idea for a possible novel despite already being knee-deep working on a play. I'm sure the prissy manager would love for Jack to air out the hotel's dirty laundry and sully the reputation he worked so hard to build up again. Later on, Danny goes exploring around the hotel because that's what kid's his age do. He ends up in front of room 217 and he has the master key with him. I'm practically screaming 'Don't go in there!' and he doesn't. Because it's still too early in the book for that dark reveal. Danny thinks of a Bluebeard fairytale and runs away from an old fashioned extinguisher hose that may secretly be a snake filled with wasps. I'm not saying the hose is evil but I am saying "filled with wasps" is a possibility even in a non-paranormal hotel. Bugs are sneaky and known to hide in tight spaces, ready to strike when you're most vulnerable (Once again, this bug fact is brought to you by extremely biased, suspicious fear.) Doc knows what's up and makes like a wascally wabbit and hops on out of there.

The history of the Overlook continues to nag at Jack just like his wife did when he was drinking. Those are Jack's words, not mine. Jack's bitter, obscenity-filled words. Not even a few days in and he's losing it. No TV and no beer make Jack something something. As if his headache and angry behavior isn't enough proof of his slipping sanity, he calls the prissy manager, all the way in Florida, to tell him about the history scrapbook he found. So he wasted three dollars on a long distance call to rile up the Napoleon of hotel management. And he got no answers as to whether the hotel is still under mafia rule or anything shady like that. Later on, he gets a call from his rich buddy who guilt-threatens Jack into not writing a book about the shady history of the hotel he partly owns. Wendy senses there's something going on with Jack and his ever growing temper but isn't sure what to do about it. Even Danny is having trouble sleeping with all the bad vibrations he's getting from the hotel. My suggestions involve fire and lots of it.

The following morning, Wendy and Danny take a drive and she's all understanding and ready to believe whatever her son has to say. She asks if they're safe at the hotel and he's reluctant to confirm. She asks if he'd prefer to stay at her mother's but Danny likes her about as much as Wendy does so that idea is out. She brings up Tony, saying she believes but it seems Danny's little visitor isn't coming around anymore. That's not grrrreat. Back at the hotel, Jack relives his childhood by squeezing his fat ass down the playground slide. He thinks about his own father, an abusive drunk he still loved. Someone find a geometrist who can make deliveries because we have ourselves a parallelogram. Jack is about to head back inside when he suffers a bit of a freak out with the topiary animals seemingly moving. They follow Mario Boo rules, moving only when you're not looking at them. He gets back without getting mauled by floral fauna.

It starts snowing and everyone finds things to do indoors. Jack is pretty much obsessed with the boxes of old papers in the basement of the hotel, reading and wiping his mouth like a salivating dog. He's been doing the mouth wiping thing for a while now, and I don't know if it's supposed to be important to mention or if it's just another quirk that reinforces his craving for some hootch. Danny is doing his own investigating outside that damn room 217 again. I bet Doc wouldn't be doing stupid things like this if he had the other six dwarves to order around. Hey, if Stephen King can stick fairy tale references into this bizarre passage, so can I. Danny Doc goes inside room 217, everything looking nice and normal until he gets to the bathroom. Inside the tub is the foulest described dead body that a five year old boy will ever see. He tries to get away, repeating the mantra that it's "just like pictures in a book" but then the hands wrap around his throat. Woah. I think I may need to put down my book for a moment

Part Four: Snowbound

Knitting is Wendy's thing to do while it's storming outside. Knitting and sleeping. Okay. Let's see what Jack's up to. Looks like another flashback with Jack's abusive father and the times he beat his wife and kids. He and his family used to be paralyzed with fear when he got home drunk and I may be paralogizing here but when he imagines his son's face, with his broken arm, after remembering his mother's beaten face, even a paralexic would agree: there are some similarities. Some connections. Some equidistant linear elements, if you will. And while Wendy and Jack are sleeping or reminiscing, their son is getting choked by a naked zombie chick. Oh, and Jack destroys their only means of communication because he hears his dead father's voice in it urging him to kill. Way to go, you paralidiot.

Wendy and Jack finally spot their son, fresh bruises on his neck and a thumb in his mouth. No dirty joke, please. Wendy immediately accuses Jack, goes all Mama Bear and carries her son to their room, locking the door. Finally showing some common sense and selflessness, Wendy. Very good. Jack is so shocked, he goes to the empty bar and starts hallucinating again. He talks to imaginary bartender extraordinaire, Lloyd about the wonders of sobriety. They don't sound all that wonderful. And then he hears Wendy's voice. She tries to get him to help her take Danny to the hospital, planning on defending herself if he says no or does something crazy. But she doesn't need to because Danny finally snaps out of his catatonic state and screams like a howler monkey.

I didn't expect Danny to want his daddy, even after everything. But then, the man may have broken his arm but he did not strangle him. That was the work of the naked zombie and Danny tells them as much. In fact, he explains everything to them; visions, feelings, Tony, everything. And I'm a bit surprised. He sounds pretty calm and adult about everything except the fact that he was so scared he peed. Ah yes. Pee. The fear equalizer. His mom totally believes him though his dad is a bit less accepting. He decides to investigate room 217 and this time I'm yelling at him to shake a leg and venture into the room of bathtub corpse boobies. He's very slow and methodical about this. At first, there's nothing in the bathtub. Then he sees a mat, smells some soap and when he double checks the bathroom, he sees a shadow behind the curtain. He runs out of there like they're yelling last call at Lloyd's Liquor and such. When he gets back down, he tells his wife and son that he didn't find anything in room 217. You lying playwright hack! I hope you freeze in a maze that doesn't actually exist in this book!

At night, while some heavy boob fondling goes on (aaaaarghh! why?!), Wendy thinks of ways they can get their son to a doctor and she remembers they have a snowmobile in the hotel shed. She's not very bright sometimes. This news doesn't seem to please Jack as he considers the little money they have and his job prospects if he were to abandon the hotel position. He gets the urge to smack his wife until she's as dead as the bathtub beast but he stifles it for the sake of their son. He has a nightmare involving every bad thing he's been through, all muddied and metaphorical, just like Stephen King likes it. There's room 217, the student he hit in the tub, the wasps, the characters from his play, the basement, the cane his father used to beat his mother, the "take your medicine" line, and then a mallet. All that's missing is some bloody redrum.

Snowmobiles are not one of Jack's favorite methods of transportation. Why else would he sabotage his only means of escape? Sure, he gets into a mental debate culminating in his final belief that Danny has been telling the truth and the hotel is haunted or something. But surely this man is doing everyone a great service by taking out a polluting vehicle and reasoning he'll start drinking if he goes back to town. He also blames his son for everything because the house seems to be using Jack to get to Danny. Of course. Who can doubt such flawless logic? Hack. Danny decides to go play early in the morning while his parents sleep. That is not a good idea because the playground is near the topiary and those animal shaped bushes wanna play too. What follows is the slowest and most exciting chase on snow shoes you'll ever read. Every time Danny looks back, the lion shaped bushes get closer. He falls onto the porch just as he hears one pounce and he gets his leg scratched. How much damage can an oversized shrub really do?

When he tells his parents what happens, his father plays dumb and tries to convince him it was all a hallucination. Danny's powers of the shine allow him to find out his father saw the animals move too and is just in denial. His father's rebuttal is a slap to the face. Ladies and gentlemen, this is how a prep school debate coach wins an argument. Wendy takes that display of aggression fairly well considering she doesn't knock him on his ass. Later on at night, after everyone has calmed down, another little hotel quirk makes itself known. They hear the old fashioned elevator operating by itself and go to investigate. While Wendy and her son hear music and party revelry, Jack insists he doesn't hear anything and it's just some mechanical failure. I call B.S and so does Wendy. When the elevator stops, she shows him all the confetti and streamers in there from a costume party of yesteryear. I must say, it's certainly more festive than the movie's elevators filled with gallons of blood (unless you're at a high school prom).

Danny is once again left to wander without supervision as he ends up in the empty ballroom. He winds up in front of a decorative and ominous glass clock. The little clock ballet figurines come out and mechanically mime oral sex in front of the disgusted kid. Nice. Then Danny gets ready for the mind trip of a lifetime. He sees the red-eyed monster running after him with the mallet, his room trashed, and his cook friend, ole Tricky Dick Hallorann. Even though Tony can't help, Hallorann still can. Danny remembers what he said about mentally calling for him if he needs help. Danny gets one last vision of the bathroom in room 217 and he finally sees redrum in the mirror's reflection. Redrum spelled backwards is murder! Oh. My. God. This. Changes. Everything. Except. For. Not. Danny sends out a shining SOS. Hope the cook wasn't in the middle of some hot "clock business" himself.

Part Five: Matters of Life and Death

Okay, so instead of Dick having fun doing "clock business", he's actually working at another resort. I should be surprised about most of these people having two jobs but in these times, who am I to judge? I guess the late 70s weren't all flared pants and discotheques. Hallorann's orange senses start tingling (did I mention he smells oranges before he gets his own shine premonitions? If not, it's probably because it's a useless and kinda dumb detail.) He actually made himself a will before getting the mental message. Stephen King, your foreshadowing is unappreciated here. He makes an excuse about a dying son to get three days off winter work. He reminisces a bit about his own encounter with the dead body in room 217 and he rushes to try and make a flight to Colorado. He gets pulled over by a cop and misses it. You've got to be kidding me.

At Wendy's questioning, Danny tells her that the hotel is controlling his father and making him act all crazy, including sabotaging the snowmobile. He tells her about his attempts to communicate with Hallorann though he's not sure if it got through. She tries to be calm but is understandably freaked out. Smartest thing she does is take a knife from the kitchen and take Danny into their room to try and sleep while Jack is doing who knows what in the basement. Actually I do knows what. He's looking through the hotel's boxes of papers and reminiscing about his abusive dad for the four hundredth time. He notices the boiler and how close it is to critical explody capacity. Ah yes. You thought that wouldn't be important to know, didn't you. But it is. He starts to think about what would happen if he just let the boiler explode. His troubles would be blown away and, heck, he's got life insurance money. A part of me is rethinking my 'kill it with fire' suggestion. But a bigger part of me likey big booms. After coming to his senses, Jack vents the boiler thinking that since he saved the hotel from a fiery explosion, the hotel ghosts would reward him with alcohol. Okay, maybe his senses are about as good as a deaf mute (Prior King Novel Reference Alert: I miss you Nick. Thumbs up, fist pumps, self high five! Hope the good guys stay alive!)

Danny Doc has sensed all of this, of course, so he gets up to go look for his daddy. But there's someone blocking his way. A greasy, drunken, pedophile in a dog costume. Danny needs an adult; somebody call Chris Hansen! Danny runs back to his room, more sure that the supposed pictures in his head are real and dangerous. He sends another message to Hallorann who has finally gotten a morning flight. He's better than Chris Hansen. And lest you think Hallorann is lacking in his horror book/movie logic, he did try to call the Colorado authorities to check on the family up in the hotel but apparently every single park ranger and helicopter is helping some idiots caught in an avalanche and there's another snow storm brewing on the horizon. Of course there is. Let's add a lightning tornado and a plague of jackalopes while we're at it.

There's a different sort of storm brewing in the hotel ballroom. Every hotel guest and employee of the past few decades are in ghostly attendance, like that 'Once Upon A December' scene in Anastasia except not as whimsical and with only slightly more booze and perversion. The ghostly guests urge Jack to drink some alcohol and after much inner struggling, he downs the drink and it's all downhill from there. He dances with a woman and we find out, among other things, the dog costumed pervert is just some gay man with a crush on the former rich owner of the hotel, doing tricks and amusing the other ghostly rich socialites just so he can get a shot at the hotel magnate. Ugh. I think I preferred it when he was a weird possible pedo instead of this pathetic, love-sick fool. I'm only conferring this information, which is about as useful to the plot as orange smells, because it kind of explains the creepy dog-masked guy in the movie. I know, I know but the movie will always be in the back of my mind. Just like Danny will always be in the back of Jack's mind. It's Jack's turn to look at the glass clock but instead of saucy ballerina figures, there's a guy with a mallet bashing the figure of a small boy. The former caretaker, who killed his family, advises Jack to take care of his son and wife and after much agitation, Jack agrees to do so. I hope they have a nice family meeting about all this.

After nearly going down with his fellow plane passengers due to snowstorm turbulence, Hallorann rents a car and heads for the hotel only to find a road block. It's like mother nature is conspiring against him. Or she loves tension of the "just in the nick of time" variety. Speaking of, Wendy is ready to leave her room to get some food for her and her son and the tension is as thick as the canned soup she's heating. She calls out her husband's name every once in a while but gets no response. It's not until she makes it to the ballroom that she sees him passed out on the floor like a drunkie at the end of Octoberfest. She smells the liquor but she knows for a fact there was none when they first got to the hotel. Jack wakes up and boy does he have a killer hangover. Jack starts screaming and choking Wendy who just manages to knock him out with a wine bottle to the head after Danny comes running in to tackle his father. They both drag Jack to the pantry, where they'll lock him in with food (but no toilet) and hope that they'll last until someone comes to check up on them.

There's much cursing and banging and generally cuckoo thoughts as Jack tries to get out of the pantry. It's bolted from the outside and he has no hope of getting out unless the ghost of the former caretaker lets him out. Oh crap. And here we go. Jack is out. He's ready to kill his wife and hand over his special, powerful kid to the hotel. And look, there's a roque mallet on the kitchen table. If you haven't figured out that Jack is the insane killer with the mallet from Danny's vision, please leave. You're either too young (lacking critical thinking skills) to be on the internet or you've stumbled onto this blog while looking for cat pictures from your nursing home. Or you may be a cat yourself. In any case, Jack's gone full monster killer but Hallorann keeps on coming, even after nearly getting run off the mountain road and even after getting a very racist mental message from the ghosts of the hotel. Not since the vampire house at Jerusalem have I encountered a more evil, jerk of a building.

With all the common sense of a scared witless mother, Wendy goes downstairs to make sure Jack is still locked in the pantry. Sure she's armed with a knife but come on. This lady would cry at the trick-or-treaters with sheets over their heads. The previously-mentioned Jerusalem vampire book had a braver heroine than Wendy die because of her rookie horror movie mistakes. Suspense abounds and then heeeere's Johnny! Wiiiith a mallet! She tries to dodge his blows but gets some broken ribs and a busted knee. For God's sake Wendy, you have a knife! And now the knife is embedded in her husband's back. But like possessed wasps, apocalypse roaches, or unsympathetic female characters in a King novel, he refuses to die. Looks like Wendy's gonna meet Casper. But wait! Here comes Hallorann to save the day! On a snowmobile to join the fray. Only he can pull them from the edge. As long as he avoids that lion hedge. Aaaand he's topiary chow.

You know that saying 'step on a crack, break your mother's back?' Well a mallet can do that just as easily. Jack keeps yelling for her to "take her medicine" and maybe he's so drunk he's confusing a heavy wooden sports mallet with a reflex hammer. Silly Jack, doctors don't use mallets and they certainly don't spout misogynistic death threats. Unless you're in a Detroit free clinic. Wendy manages to crawl to her room, the knife in Jack's back having slowed him down a bit too, and she's ready to protect her son... but he's not there. Damn it, Doc! Maybe he went to do a house call. Using his mallet o'murder (or should I say, redrum'o tellam), Jack smashes through their room door and when she hides in the bathroom he starts smashing through that door as well. The only thing that saves her are the razor blades in the medicine cabinet that she uses to slash at his hand anytime he tries to reach in to unlock the door. Let this be a lesson, always keep a flamethrower in the bathroom. Because you may not be as lucky as Wendy to have some stranger come driving in on a snowmobile to distract your assailant. After Jack runs off to deal with this new intruder, Wendy emerges from the bathroom and faints. I may have to take back some of the non-scaredy cat praise I offered earlier.

Holy pyromania, Hallorann! That old cook avoided certain death by soaking the hedge lion and setting it on fire! Finally, being a smoking character in a Stephen King book pays off. He gets in the snowmobile and outruns the rest of the hedge animals before rushing into the hotel and calling for Danny. With much fear, he follows the trail of blood Wendy and Jack left to their little room. Dick Hallorann survived a near-plane crash, a near car-crash, and a giant lion made of leaves and branches, only to get taken down by a dying drunk with a hammer sneaking up behind him like a coward. I will relish your demise, Jack Torrance. Meanwhile, Danny is finding out that his invisible friend was just him this whole time. No really. It seems like Tony is a version of him from the future and with his powers, it's very possible. Danny knows his father is after him, under the control of the evil hotel, and his mom and Hallorann could be dying. Doc, Doc, Goose! He's out of the trance and out of time as he's running to the attic. Which is locked. For the love of-!

The only thing that can save him is a tag team kamikaze attack from an injured woman and a sixty year old man. Or one of those sappy moments where the power of Danny's love shakes his father out of his mania. Guess which one of these scenarios happens? In any case, we're almost at the end and there's one last thing that needs to be taken care of. The boiler. She can't take anymore; she's about to blooooow! After smashing his face into hamburger meat, possessed Jack rushes down to try and vent the boiler. So not only is the hotel racist and semi-homophobic, it's forgetful too. The possessed Jack gets down and sees everything hissing and smoking just as Wendy, Danny, and Hallorann run outside to escape the explosion. And what an explosion it is! Even the evil hotel feels the fires and screams in pain but, you know, not literally because it's still just a stupid building. Before they can get away, the hotel tries one last time to possess the weakest link, Hallorann, to get him to kill the Torrances. But since it's a racist building, it gets no where fast and he gets them away in the snowmobile. Woo! It's an early Christmas miracle.

Epilogue time. It's months since that terrible winter in an evil hotel and Cook Hallorann is back to his cooking ways in a little lodge in, you guessed it, Maine. Wendy is recovering in a backbrace and Danny is fishing by the pond when Hallorann stops by to visit them. He talks to Danny about grieving for his father and how unfair the world is but he has to keep going on. And in the end, Danny has Wendy and Hallorann who love him. My cold heart is melting over here. Danny hopes they'll always be friends and Hallorann assures him they will be, as they're joined by Wendy at the sunny pond. D'awwww. After anticipating most things due to my movie experience, I can say with much happiness and genuine surprise that Dick Hallorann made it! In the movie he died but in the book he survived! This makes reading the book all worth it and goes to show that horror movies always kill off the black guy. If I didn't know better, I'd think Director Kubrick is as racist as a Colorado hotel. (I'll just add that to my growing lexicon of Stephen King inspired phrases.)

In some ways I can understand why Stephen King was so angry at Stanley Kubrick's version of 'The Shining'. The minor changes would be enough to piss any writer off but the true insult is in the complete overhaul of the major characters, especially Jack. The semi-sympathetic alcoholic who had his own abusive past and ultimately tried to save his son when it came down to the wire was replaced in the movie by some crazy guy who looks very predator-like even when he shares nice moments with his son. And Wendy Torrance in the movie got all of Book Wendy's crying terror and none of her mama-bear determination, from what I can recall. Little Doc might as well have been replaced by a a cardboard cut out of Bugs Bunny for all the mature insight and fatherly devotion he supplied in the movie. Oh and lest we forget, Kubrick killed off the cook in the movie. Why? For shock value? For a heightened sense of hopelessness? The movie ending gave us plenty of that without the benefit of the book's epilogue that shows the family healing.

I don't want to get into a whole movie vs. book analysis (though that might not be a bad idea for a future post) but I really did love this book. I'm so glad I left it for the end of this month. I might re-watch the Kubrick movie tomorrow, just to compare (I must admit the movie is a bit fuzzy for me in some places) but ultimately, despite their differences, both book version, and the movie version, are the most enjoyable Stephen King works I've experienced yet.

I hope you all have a Happy Halloween tomorrow! Shine on you crazy, diamond.

The Dead Zone

Third entry in and I'm already out of order. There's two reasons for this. Chronologically, I was supposed to be up to The Shining by now but I decided to leave that one for last due to sentimental reasons (it's the only Stephen King book-turned-movie I've seen in full... and loved!) Skipping it over, I should be doing The Stand, right? Guess how hard it is to find the original, non-extended version of The Stand? About as hard as it is to squeeze horror out of a Lifetime original movie even if you stick in psychic powers. With that clumsy segue planted, let us go beyond the third and fourth books and into...  The Dead Zone.

Part One: The Wheel of Fortune

I don't know why Stephen King has such an affinity for the number three but not since Carrie has three parts been so unnecessary for a book. This first part is longer than both parts two and three combined and trust me when I say I felt the length. There's also a prologue which basically shows us two events. A young boy, named John Smith (Generic McLastName not snappy enough?) trips while ice skating because he was a show off. He hits his head really hard and when he comes to, he spouts off vague warnings at an older booze-hound who's questioning which of the two sound drunker, I'm sure. Over on the Christian side of the country, a 20-something year old bible salesman named Greg Stillson attacks and kills a guard dog after getting an evil migraine. He drives off, trying to convince himself he's not crazy but  kicking a dog after spraying it with ammonia has to be leaning away from the sanity side.

The first chapter begins on Halloween. Johnny Smith is all grown up and scaring girls with glow in the dark masks. He's a young, new teacher along with his young, overly serious girlfriend, Sarah. And her tightly wound seriousness in her classes is in direct, and opposite, proportion to her seriousness about her feelings for Johnny. See, School Marm Sarah has what I like to call "Bad Boy Fever". Her old boyfriend was a mean drunk, an uncaring companion, and a "passionate" lover despite not giving her many, how shall I put it, "happy endings" in bed. Ugh. If I wanted to read about a self-loathing woman who's aching for her bad boy ex and unsure of herself sexually, I'd read 50 Shades of Vampire Fanfiction. You know what's interesting? Vietnam. And student strikes and various other things that seem to be happening in this early 1970s time. Okay, maybe interesting is not the right word but it's definitely better than hearing about Sarah's intimacy issues with the douche (not her ex, I mean a literal douche. Yeah.)

Johnny's taking her to the Halloween county fair in some little Maine town because if you want some fun, spooky times, Maine is clearly the place to go. These two lovebirds trade jokes and make-out on every single ride and it's actually rather cute. After gorging themselves on hot dogs and Alka Seltzer (Sarah will be wishing for the latter), they stop at the Wheel of Fortune minus Pat Sajak. It's nothing more than a glorified roulette wheel and Johnny, after more or less finding out he'll be gettin' some from Sarah, tests how good his luck really is. He starts small, betting dimes and putting them on the appropriate slots, winning dozens and dozens of dollars. I'll assume it was a lot back 1970s. Johnny's last spin, however, wins him an amount we can all appreciate, even in the new millennium: over five hundred bucks. Sarah's so excited she runs off and pukes. Or maybe it was the weird vibes Johnny gave off when he was concentrating on the wheel that made her stomach all queasy. Looks like Sarah's sexy offer has gone down the drain, along with her breakfast, lunch, and carnie dinner. This turn of bad luck sticks with Johnny even as he's taking a cab home. The cabbie opts to complain rather than keep his eyes on the road. There are metaphors about America's troubles using hot dogs and Nixon and suddenly Greased Lightning comes out of no where to smash into the cabbie.

The Smiths were Asleep when they got the ill-fated call at two in the morning and Mrs. Smith is in a Panic because This Charming Man, through no fault of his own, is in critical condition at the hospital. She's a bit on the fanatical religious side, and I can't help but Ask if Greg the bible salesman sold her that bible. They find out their son got some severe head trauma and is in a coma that can last from a few hours to a few months. I know it's mean of me to wish the Girlfriend In A Coma, especially when she was Still Ill just a few hours prior but Johnny's too young for the Cemetry Gates. After a few days, the parents go back home because What Difference Does It Make if they stay? Sarah grieves in her own way and her students actually behave, taking pity on the supposed Wonderful Woman. Okay, okay any old school and/or indie music fans are probably thinking "That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore". I'll stop and continue with my writing in this glowing room where There Is a Light That Never Goes Out. (Yeah, that last one was a stretch.)

There's a little interlude with an unknown killer attacking some defenseless girl due to his own mommy issues and sexual inadequacies. Hmm. Then back to Sarah and the Smiths, where Mr. Smith tries to keep in touch with his son's old girlfriend while Mrs. Smith goes off the deep end, religion-wise. I'm talking UFO apocalypse, prayer stone collecting, believing Heaven is under the North Pole levels of kooky. Well these two interludes are rather depressing. Let's see what dog-killer, Bible pushing Greg Stillson is up to. It's been almost twenty years since we last saw him and he's got the same old crazy eyes but now he's got some power. He's aiming to be a mayor in some small town and he's making alliances with a drugged up biker? I wish I could say this kind of corruption in leaders is surprising but no.

Let's summarize a whole bunch of pages and years to get to something major. After about a year and a half, Sarah starts dating again and she marries a law student and later has a baby with him. I feel like such a girl for wanting her to wait by Johnny's side, especially when I was complaining about the mushy emotional stuff earlier. Logically, I can't blame her for moving on. She wasn't actually a serious girlfriend (they didn't even do the "happy ending" snuggle in bed). Mr Smith got himself injured on some construction job and that killer with the sex issues has officially turned serial; the Castle Rock Strangler. Catchy. We're flying by 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974 and I'm learning a lot about the early 1970s and the huge amounts of rioting, Nixon, the Vietnam War, and rioting Nixon's Vietnam War. Four and a half years after that fateful Halloween, Sleeping Beauty wakes up to a dark room and an impending crap storm.

As soon as Johnny touches his doctor, the psychic link makes a connection and he realizes he's been in a coma for an entire presidential term (impeachment not-withstanding) and they've invented felt tip pens. He's pretty shaken by this revelation but not nearly as shaken as his parents when they get the call. His mom is freakin' ecstatic, of course, and his dad, while teary-eyed, isn't exactly a cuddly bear (who shakes his son's hand after he comes out of a nearly five year coma?) but it's the news of Sarah's nuptials, the girl he wanted to marry one day, that brings reality crashing down on Johnny. When did this psychic horror story become a hospital melodrama? All we need is a '70s version of The Fray. Johnny's soon up and ready for physical therapy. The first part of it consists of a CAT scan and ink blot tests. Johnny can visualize 18 out of 20 image scenarios in his mind. The other two are in "the dead zone" of his brain. Really? That's what this title refers to? I should've taken this as a sign of impending disappointments.

Johnny then spices up the usual testing by grabbing one of his doctor's photos; a picture of his mother from the second world war. He sees intense images of Nazis, and fire, and hospitals, and amnesia. Then he tells the doctor that his mother is alive, living in California under a different name. After confirming, his doctor gets all cryptic wondering what they're gonna do with Johnny. I have a suggestion. Let the poor guy sleep. He just found out his president is Gerald 'Nixon Pardoning' Ford and gas prices are a whopping fifty cents. Plus he woke up just in time to see the rise of disco. The good thing about taking your sweet time to wake up is that medical science marches on. It's advanced so that he can get an operation to fix the ligaments in his legs and maybe he can walk again. The pain after surgery is intense enough that he wants to die. There can't be any worse pain short of a long lost love coming back into your- oh, hello Sarah.

Jokes about cocaine use aside (yup that's their running, inside joke), the two former sweethearts try to make nice and catch up. Sarah laments the what ifs. What if she didn't let him leave her place? What if she didn't get sick from a crappy carnival hot dog? What if I chose to devote my blog to Nicholas Sparks instead of Stephen King? Because right now I'm not seeing much of a difference. Bringing up her rich husband doesn't do much to cheer anyone up and after she kisses him I wanna smack her for getting his hopes up like that. This amount of contact allows Johnny to "see" where Sarah lost her wedding ring. Whoop-de-doo. Sarah's delicate constitution has her throwing up in the hospital's ladies room after that little bout of mind-reading and I have no idea what to make of it. Geez, lady, you change poopy diapers with no sweat but can't stomach Johnny's eyes of premonition? Away with you.

Near the tail end of summer, Rip Van Johnny is on his feet and able to walk, and swim, and all that good stuff. He's even offered his old teaching job and a possible book deal. Of course, fate likes to give the good with the bad. After Johnny has another premonition, in front of a bunch of gossipy nurses, the reporters rush over like paparazzi on a Kardashian. One particularly skeptical reporter demands proof of Johnny's power and with much reluctance, he holds an object of the reporter's and does his trance talk. The skeptic trash talking reporter is so shocked he faints. This wouldn't be so bad if it weren't all caught on camera for everyone to see, including Johnny's heart-weakened mother. One stroke later, he's off to visit his mother with his doctor, Dr Weizak, at his side. They're friends by now and it's kind of sad but at least someone's looking out for Johnny this whole time. His mother dies at the hospital but not before telling him to do God's work instead of running away from his destiny and listen to the little voice in his head when it's time. And then she dies. This is depressing all the funny snarkiness out of me. And there wasn't that much funniness to begin with.

We get a much needed reprieve, however brief, with Mayor Greg whose bible selling days are long gone but his bullying days are still going strong. He threatens some rich kid with a broken Pepsi bottle and manages to draw some blood even with a wicked migraine. Remember when glass soda bottles were common? I don't but nostalgia is neat. Sarah gets upset at her husband for thinking Johnny is some kind of liar, after reading his story in the paper. I guess it's worth noting that she flushed the wedding ring she found, thanks to Johnny's vision. She could've pawned it, especially since her good friend Johnny is up to his elbows in hospital debt, but instead she went and pulled a Titanic on that expensive piece of jewelry. Remember the movie Titanic? I vaguely do and it was a tragic story done right. Living back with his dad, Johnny gets a visit from a tabloid city slicker and he finally unleashes the fury of ten thousand... well, he manages a good shake and boot to the ass before getting a headache. Remember when psychics and religious nuts were actually creepy in a King novel? Okay, I'll stop remembering.

While Mayor Greg is gearing up for a presidential campaign with blackmail and vague threats, Johnny is finally getting himself a sweet slice of lovin'... from Sarah. She wants to repay that sexy promise five years ago by sleeping with him. She brought her infant son and her husband is off in some important Washington meeting and she's talking about how it's the "fair" thing to do and I just can't. I was sad before but now I'm just pissed off. I was ambivalent toward this girl but damn it, now I hate the bitch. What the hell kind of reasoning?!? Cheating, blonde, stupid... it's utter bull... gaaaahhh! After they do it in a barn while her baby naps on the porch, they have some dinner with Johnny's dad and she leaves. According to Mr. King, he won't see her for another three years. Good riddance, and I hope the stretch mark sex was worth it, psychic boy.

I'm sorry. I promise not to lose the little sense of open-minded decorum I try to project on this amateur blog. So a few days after the bitch leaves, Johnny sees his name besmirched in that a-hole's tabloid but he'll put up with angry, misspelled hatemail if he'll finally be left alone to live like a poorer, older Peter Parker. And he would succeed if not for a sheriff that wants him to help find the Castle Rock Strangler. Yeah. Bet you'd never thought you'd see that name again. I was starting to think so too but it's about time we get some deranged killer suspense. Johnny refuses to help, citing his pledge to be normal but he still replays the closest thing to an Aunt May speech in his mind. It seems like it was just yesterday his mother urged him to accept responsibility before she stroked out. Remember? (Okay, okay, I'll stop.) It's not until a nine year old girl gets violated and strangled that Johnny agrees to meet with the Castle Rock sheriff. I feel something inside me grow. A sense of hope and interest. This book may have touched upon horror once or twice but right now, above all else, this story is taking a turn for the criminal/murder mystery and damn if that's not another of my genre interests. Grab that strangler by the balls, Johnny!

A bunch of reporters are at the Castle Rock police station and you can bet they'll have themselves a juicy story whether his psychic power catches the perp or not. Is Gerald Ford not doing anything newsworthy? Well Johnny does identify the killer but the Castle Rock sheriff can't believe it. It's one of his younger deputies, a guy he considers like a son. They compare timelines and it seems to fit, especially when they find a similar murder in another town the young deputy went to for a police conference. After much arguing, a thrown punch, and comparing Johnny to a two-headed cow (really?), they go to the deputy suspect's house and muscle pass his big mama who is just as pleasant as can be expected from a woman who made his son wear clothespins on his penis. As if that wasn't bad enough, she knew about the girls he murdered and helped cover it up. How many male readers are still stuck on the penis clothespin thing? Well worry not because he won't be feeling that misery anymore; the Castle Rock Strangler is found on the toilet with his neck slit and an "I confess" note written in lipstick. The Freudian levels are through the roof. All this while his gigantic mother is downstairs having a heart attack. Johnny killed himself two sickos with one psychic stone. Way to go, Johnny!

And that thrilling little detective work was about fifty pages long. We end part one, and the new year, not on a triumphant note but on Johnny once again being in the spotlight and getting screwed over by the attention. He doesn't get the teaching job because the school board is full of old men who think anything more controversial than rock & roll is borne from the devil's colon. While his teacher friend tried to fight for Johnny's job, it was a no go and Johnny doesn't care if he's got some gift from God. He just wants to stop and be left alone. What are the odds on Johnny changing his mind again and being a psychic detective in part two? You bring the roulette wheel and I'll bring the dimes.

Part Two: The Laughing Tiger

Well at least someone is laughing. I regret skipping the second and third stories in King's publishings but I continue on. If Johnny can handle living this lousy post-coma life, I can handle reading about it. As for the beginning of this part, it's actually a happy start. It's months after that terrible winter of discontent and Johnny moved away to try and start a new life. Thanks to his generic name it's very possible for him to blend in. He finds himself work as a tutor to a rich jock who ‒ get this ‒ isn't a jackass! Will wonders never cease. In between tutoring part time and working at a diner during the night shift, Johnny drives around New Hampshire to see, and maybe even touch, the politicians making their rounds. Everyone has their hobbies, I suppose. It's a very important election year and Johnny manages to get little visions of each politician he can get a hold of. That's actually pretty damn handy when trying to differentiate between mounds of political horsecrap. He even shakes Jimmy Carter's hand and predicts he'll win the presidency. Wait, when did King write this book? 1979? Aww, I was almost impressed. Cheater.

Ah hell, I can't stay mad at King when he seems to be giving Johnny a reprieve from his crapshoot life. And even Johnny's rich employer can see he deserves all the praise and five hundred dollar bonuses for making headway with his son. Hmm, last time Johnny won himself five hundred bucks, he got his legs smashed and his head "dead zoned". Johnny and his boss sit back to watch the news and politics, which is surprisingly timely at the time I'm reading this book what with the presidential election mere weeks away. We get the usual democrat and republican candidate but who's the crazy independent in the lead? It's Mayor Greg with a slew of biker bodyguards, promising the people tons of Arab oil, garbage disposal (into outer space), and all the hot dogs they can eat. Wow. Wait, hot dogs? Last time I saw the word hot dog, a certain school marm thought it was the cause of her illness. Are these symbolic connections or mere coincidences? With Stephen King, you never quite knooooow!

So Johnny has the rich man's house to himself and is enjoying his little life. Even his widowed dad is making a new lady friend. This part of the book is named after a Vietnamese game, as explained by one of the rich man's servants; a bunch of kids run around chasing another kid dressed like a tiger. I think this particular metaphor applies to crazy ole Greg as the tiger, who is harmless yet also dangerous? Johnny lets the metaphor rattle him, as he subconsciously drives over to where Mayor Greg is doing his campaigning. Something about the "man inside the skin-beast" being more like the "beast inside the man-skin". Next to depressing details, this book is chock full of metaphors. The campaign site is crazy. It's crowded and I bet at least half the people are there for the amusement factor or to be "ironic". I know I'd check out a candidate who wore a construction hat and ran around like a bull, promising to get rid of politician crooks. Plus free hot dogs.

Johnny and Greg finally meet. It's brief but that one handshake is apparently the most earth-shattering event of either of their lives. King does not spare the tiger-filled metaphors as Johnny sees a future where Greg is president and things are very blue. Both emotionally and literally. After an FBI agent warns him to stay away from Greg, Johnny has another chat about tigers with the friendly Vietnamese servant. The gist of it being that even non-Americans can see there's something not-quite-right about Greg and like a man-eating tiger, Greg has a taste for blood and must be put down. You can't argue with the finger gun, Johnny. And he doesn't argue too much but he does get all obsessive about Greg Stillson. We get the history of Mr. Ruthless, bible thumping, hot dog purveyor. It is long and full of the usual ups and downs. Dead dad, mom who overlooked his troubles, a born-again stint that endeared him to the Christians and fast tracked him to town support and power. I wouldn't have minded getting this information earlier and spread out. You know, before the massive crap Mr. King's text took on my heart.

Seeing his father get re-married and seeing his old flame, Sarah, pregnant again with her husband and toddler in tow, well it's no wonder Johnny gets drunk at his dad's wedding and starts talking about Hitler. Okay, some context. When you think charismatic, underachiever who's had run-ins with the law but won over his citizens with crazy promises, who's the first name that pops into your mind? If it's Hitler, congratulations. I just implanted that answer into your mind. Much like the Vietnamese servant implanted the idea of actually killing Greg before he gets too much power. Johnny poses the age old internet question: if you could go back in time would you kill Hitler? He asks his new step-mother's father, a World War 1 vet. He's very enthusiastic in his affirmation of Nazi murder. Johnny asks his rich boss who thinks he can pull an Inglourious Basterd and infiltrate and take the regime down from the inside. Johnny even asks his jock student and the answer is surprisingly noble. The kid would kill Hitler even if he got caught and hanged. Now I wanna go around asking people what they'd do if they could go back in time to kill Hitler. I'm sure there's been entire papers published on this Hitler conundrum from both sides of the argument. And I think I've used the word "Hitler" about as much as Stephen King used metaphors in regards to this book.

It's graduation time and Johnny's jock student is pretty damn grateful for all that his tutor has done. He goes in for a manly hug and of course the unthinkable happens. Surprise erection. No, I kid. That psychic premonition thing kicks in and Johnny gets all pale and weak-kneed pleading with the rich parents to keep their son from going to some fancy restaurant because it's going to get hit by lightning and burn down. The whole graduating class is going there and the rich family hesitantly humor Johnny, getting as many students to come over to their place for the party instead. His predictions come true and people in attendance freak out. The jock's new girlfriend has the audacity to accuse Johnny of causing it, like Carrie. I kid you not, Stephen King slipped a reference to one of his earlier works into this book. Dude, you do NOT want to remind me of a clearly superior psychic novel in this bundle of depressing, anger inducing tale of politics, cheating wives, and Godwin's Law.

In the weeks and months that follow that fateful night, Johnny has run off to work at some public construction place and his old rich employer is grateful enough to not only pay off his hospital bills but send him one last check. Guilt is a powerful motivator. So are visions of a grim future which motivate Johnny (who may or may not have caught some residual craziness from Greg when they shared that handshake) into ending Greg's political career once and for all. With a vengeance. It's not enough to dig up dirt on him, since the FBI agent who tried ended up dead. It's not even enough to maim the guy because we had a president in a wheelchair. William H. Taft, right? The guy who was so fat he had to wheel around in a rascal? History was always an iffy subject for me. The point is that John Smith is going to shoot and kill Greg Stillson. He looks increasingly sick and pale but he's a man on a mission. My anticipation levels, they are a'rising!

We are winding down to the end folks. The wheel's about to stop and the tiger is ready to keel over. See, I can do nonsense metaphors too. Johnny scopes out the town hall building where Greg will be speaking. He has a newly purchased rifle and he's mailed some letters to the important people in his life. He waits on the balcony, nearly getting caught by a janitor. When Greg gets up to the podium, Johnny takes his shot. And misses. For the love of- He takes a few more shots and keeps missing but Greg's armed, biker bodyguards don't. At one point, Greg grabs a screaming woman's child and uses the kid as a human shield and of course Johnny can't shoot him then. Johnny falls off the balcony, dying. He feels up Greg one last time and thinks everything has changed because he got some kind of blank vision. Does it mean blankness for Greg or is it just blankness from a dying Johnny? It doesn't matter because poor Johnny is dead and that scoundrel Greg still lives, yelling at his flunkies to shut the mother up and find the camera that took the picture of his cowardly human shield stunt. My goodwill towards Mr. King is gone.

Part Three: Notes from the Dead Zone

Like his first, much better, book about a psychic, the third part of this novel is composed of a few pages of excerpts, transcripts, and Johnny's letters to his dad and former flame. I'll summarize to say: Greg figured out his vision of the future with Greg as president would've involved nuclear war. Johnny was running out of time to put a stop to it because he was discovered to have a brain tumor. Dr Weizak vouches for Johnny's character and his sanity while the kid who took the incriminating picture at Greg's rally is thrilled he's practically famous and muses that Greg's likeability is on par with Nixon and the Vietnam War. Sarah's husband is richer and her hair is grayer but she still finds time to visit Johnny's grave, crying at the unfairness of it all. For the first and last time we agree on something.

So Maine's own Johnny B. Good is dead and Mayor Greg and Cuckhold Sarah are still alive. Not since Cupcake Susie have I shook my fist and proclaimed there is no justice in Stephen King's world. This book makes me want to kick a dog after spraying it with ammonia. Is this a headache I'm getting? No wait, that's allergies. Damn sinuses. That must be why I'm tearing up. Yeah... If I can change the subject a bit, I want to share my discovery that this book was not only made into a movie but also a TV show. Not a short-run miniseries but a proper show with a bunch of seasons and an abrupt cancellation. I guess I could see how this gimmick could've worked; a psychic helping detectives and saving lives. There's at least three shows like that already and they're probably more scary and less depressing than this book.

If there's anything to be taken away from this, besides avoiding roulette wheels and distracted taxi drivers, it's please, anyone who reads this, do NOT confuse The Dead Zone for something closer to The Twilight Zone, like I did. To say this is my least favorite book of Mr. King is to put it lightly. I actually had to put it down several times and debate finishing it. I almost didn't post this summary thing but I had the book already and damn if I wasn't curious and hoping for some kind of happy ending for Johnny (yes, I mean it in every way you may think).

I think my dislike for this book, besides the specific things I highlighted in this review, boils down to less focus on the thrilling horror and more on the depressing unfairness of a crippled psychic's life. If he was a woman and beaten up a little more, this would be a perfect Lifetime original movie. And if this is a taste of Stephen King's attempt at drama, I sure as hell hope it's handled better with his later works like Misery, The Shawshank Redemption, or that story about the four kids finding a dead body. Knowledge of these works is mainly thanks to a Family Guy episode, and I'm pretty sure their manatees can come up with a more engaging plot dealing with "coma" "psychic" "evil mayor" and "hot dogs".

Play me off, Johnny!

King Me

October is upon us and after much thought and screwing around, I've finally decided on an idea for a blog I can do. I thought about making this blog all personal and inspiring but quite frankly, I'm not very inspirational. I've got nothing going for me except for my ever growing interest in new shows, movies, and books.

As I've said, since October is coming up (aka the month of Halloween), I've thought about what to do to get into the Halloween spirit. I've always wanted to see those classic horror movies ('Friday the 13th', 'Nightmare on Elm Street', and of course 'Halloween') but it turns out I'm kind of a chicken. The number of horror movies I've watched all the way through and enjoyed I can count on one hand. One of them being the famous Stephen King movie 'The Shining'... though I probably enjoyed it because it was less jump scares and more atmospheric thrills.

I've watched part of 'Carrie' (too much blood!) and a scene or two of 'It' (clown phobias make so much sense now). What I haven't done is read the books they were based on and I think I may actually handle that better than watching the movie versions. I've always enjoyed the goosebumps books more than the TV series when I was younger.

So yeah. I'll expand my literary mind by reading some classic Stephen King to get me in the October-ween mood. Should be great!