On highways across America, a tribe of people called The True Knot travel in search of sustenance. They look harmless – mostly old, lots of polyester, and married to their RVs. But as Dan Torrance knows, and spunky 12-year-old Abra Stone learns, The True Knot are quasi-immortal, living off the “steam” that children with the “shining” produce when they are slowly tortured to death.
Haunted by the inhabitants of the Overlook Hotel where he spent one horrific childhood year, Dan has been drifting for decades, desperate to shed his father’s legacy of despair, alcoholism, and violence. Finally, he settles in a New Hampshire town, an AA community that sustains him, and a job at a nursing home where his remnant “shining” power provides the crucial final comfort to the dying. Aided by a prescient cat, he becomes “Doctor Sleep.”
Then Dan meets the evanescent Abra Stone, and it is her spectacular gift, the brightest shining ever seen, that reignites Dan’s own demons and summons him to a battle for Abra’s soul and survival. This is an epic war between good and evil, a gory, glorious story that will thrill the millions of hyper-devoted fans of The Shining and wildly satisfy anyone new to the territory of this icon in the King canon.
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Doctor Sleep is the follow on to Stephen King’s The Shining, which followed Danny Torrance and his family at the tragic events at the Overlook Hotel. Now an adult, Dan has been using his shining to help the older people in the care home he works at pass on. It’s a fulfilling job and helps Dan stay sober with AA. With his life cleaned up, the last thing Dan expects is to be drawn fully back into a world he left behind.
Abra is only a few months old when she first makes contact with Dan, her powers rivalling Dan’s when he was a child, and over her life she attracts the attention of the True Knot, a group of people who live off children’s shining. They have been around for centuries, and while their numbers are slowly dwindling, they get by on natural disasters and kidnapping and killing children they come across.
But the problem occurs when the True Knot are alerted to Abra’s presence, and Dan, Abra’s parents, and his friends must race against time to stop Rose the Hat from hunting down Abra and claiming her shining for her own. This takes them back to a place where Dan thought he had left his demons behind.
Okay, so I loved The Shining when I read it and I was really looking forward to diving back into the world. I know I’m a little bit late to the party with it, but I can say I thoroughly enjoyed it. Also, because of the time it took me to get around to reading it, like I’m sure others were, the age jump didn’t bother me so much. Considering the gap between the two books, the wait probably bothered others more than it did me.
What I really liked about this book was how it tackled real issues of alcohol along with the fantastical, it leaned into the wider world in which the shining lives in and was quite happy to make small in jokes and nods to other novels. Abra was great, stubborn with a lot of fire, she knew what needed to be done, even if it scared her. Dan, while reluctant to begin with, knew also that he couldn’t let it lie and Rose the Hat was allowed to continue she would eventually come for him too.
Rose is quite possibly one of the best antagonists that I’ve read. Antagonists are meant to antagonise, and she certainly did so. She knew what she want and how she was going to get it. Sure, her cockiness showed holes in her amour, but that only strengthened her resolve which throughout was unshakeable.
The climatic ending felt like a nice full top conclusion to Dan’s story, and he, and others, now have the closure they need. All of them are able to move forwards with their lives while embracing this unique part of themselves. Was it a bit twee? For a horror story, yes. But after the brutal events of The Shining, Doctor Sleep needed to give something back, to show that Dan was able to make something of his life despite what happened. No one comes away scar-free, and it’s through learning to live with these scars that they can start to move forwards with their lives.
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