Doctor Sleep by Stephen King

You know you are in the hands of a master storyteller when you start a book at 7 a.m., before breakfast, and suddenly realize 150 pages later that you have been reading for three hours and that you have not yet eaten anything and that you are still in your pajamas. This was my experience.

No matter what literary and/or intellectual pretensions you may have, I challenge anyone to quit reading this novel after 20 or 30 minutes. The action and characters suck you in so that it is almost impossible to stop reading. I read a great many novels at varying levels of literacy and enduring values, and my opinion is that Stephen King (when at his best) tells the most absorbing stories among modern writers.

This is the story of Dan Torrance, the little boy in The Shining, when he is all grown up and has hit rock bottom in his attempt through alcohol to block remembrance and feeling. After tentatively eluding the demon of addiction through AA, Dan has come to be a valued employee of a hospice residence as Doctor Sleep, capable of guiding the dying to a peaceful end. Then he is contacted by Abra, a young girl with even more capability of "shining" than he ever had, and he is drawn into conflict with the True Blood, a group of semi-immortals who feed vampire-like off of children, not from their blood but from of the essence of their "shining," their paranormal abilities.

In less capable hands, this could be only a suspenseful and scarey story of good versus evil, but King makes it much more.

It's about family--dysfunctional families, loving families, families formed without regard for blood connection. And it's about inheritance--what comes to us through genetics and what we choose to do about our inherited tendencies.

And it's about substance addiction and Alcoholics Anonymous and its ability to help those who have trouble helping themselves. Those familiar with Stephen King's life story can readily see that this part, at least, is reflective of his life experience.

In addition to moving along his suspenseful story, King inserts numerous little asides which seem to be such true aphorisms that one is tempted to be believe that they are folk sayings. For example: "Your mind was a blackboard. Booze was the eraser."; and "When you couldn't sleep, when you were afraid to look around because of what you might see, time elongated and grew sharp teeth"; and "She was eighty-five and her sleep was as thin as her skin."; and "...the good thing about being old is that you don't have to worry about dying young."

An additional plus: King's narratives of the guidance of Dan Torrance as he assists dying patients are especially perceptive. They are tear-worthy, but more importantly they seem true.

For Stephen King fans who were looking for scarey, this one is not that frightening, but still you will never look at an RV park in the same way again. It is more theme-driven and contemplative than designed to provide chills in the night. I consider it to be one of King's best ever.