Doctor Sleep by Stephen King
Our latest Deep Thoughts from Damp Tresses was...
As you all know, I'm a giant whore for anything written by one Mr. King. He could rewrite the dictionary and I would pre-order that shit from Amazon and then sit on my porch for the next 3 months, eagerly awaiting the arrival of that glorious, happiness-inducing box with the smiley face. So I was sold the minute I heard that he was writing a sequel to The Shining. It's a challenge to write a follow up to such an iconic book, one that could go disastrously wrong. But not with Stephen King at the helm! I may have pre-ordered the Kindle version, apparently not really understanding how ebooks work and that there isn't a finite supply of the electronic copy like there is with the paper version. Oh well... at least I was supporting my boy!
I highly recommend this book to anyone who always wondered what happened to Danny Torrance and "Tony" after that boiler blew. You get to watch Danny's transformation from a loser with a secret to a loving uncle who assists in saving all children with a "touch of the shining".
Amazon's Synopsis:
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 twelve-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 devoted readers of The Shining and satisfy anyone new to this icon in the King canon.
(P.S. Here's the link to the post I wrote about my own experiencing visiting The Stanley Hotel, King's inspiration for The Overlook)