Doctor Sleep -- Stephen King (Audiobook Review)

2013 Simon & Schuster Audio
Written by: Stephen King; Read by: Will Patton

THIS REVIEW, BY NECESSITY, CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR THE SHINING
1977's The Shining is one of my favorite horror novels of all time, and certainly an all-timer in general. Author, Stephen King, was able to pour out his struggles with his own vices into the creation of one of fiction's most terrifying and evil settings. The Shining tells the story of a young family, The Torrances, who must winter alone at the Overlook Hotel, in the middle of the snowed-in Rocky Mountains. Father and failed writer, Jack, a recovering alcoholic on his last employment hope, has gotten a job as offseason hotel caretaker, while wife, Wendy, and young son, Danny, are along for the ride. Unfortunately, the family isn't alone, as ancient malevolence lurks The Overlook's halls, coveting the Torrance's souls, particularly young Danny's, as the boy has a gift called The Shining. The Shining is essentially a psychic ability, allowing Danny to see and know things preternaturally, which not only makes him a more attractive target for The Overlook's spirits, but enhances their power. Poor Jack, with no recovery system to help, is easy prey for The Overlook, soon back on the bottle, and soon committed to the hotel's evil will. In the fashion of King's greatest works, The Shining also finds a natural way to incorporate the rich and deep history of The Overlook into the novel, even as horror after overwhelming horror is revealed. At the end, a deeply traumatized Wendy and Danny escape with their lives, but at great psychic cost.
Apparently, King himself has often wondered what Danny has been up to since. Danny, the child of an alcoholic, with deep trauma, and a horrible gift, would surely be leading a difficult, but interesting life. After a fan brought the question to him, King found that he would have to explore the issue in writing, and this 2013 novel, Doctor Sleep, is the result.
Doctor Sleep takes place over a great matter of years, beginning not long after The Shining ends, when Danny and Wendy, still processing the first book's horrific events, finds themselves being revisited by The Overlook's gruesome and terrifying ghosts. The novel then moves ahead to Danny, now "Dan," and his dark 20's, as he succumbs to his father's vices, becoming a brawling, prison-bound drunk. Perhaps the novel's most moving passages come as Dan begins to fight his disease, battling his demons as he bounces around the East Coast. King, himself a recovering drug and alcohol addict, brings a biting realism and strong emotional core to this section of the book, a clear hand of realism guiding the proceedings even as Danny must deal with his horrific supernatural visions. Eventually, Danny settles in New Hampshire, finds AA, kicks drinking, and finds a job at a hospice, where he puts his psychic talents to use comforting dying patients, earning the nickname "Doctor Sleep."
Here, as 15 years swiftly pass, the book begins to divide time between Dan and Abra Stone, a young girl born with psychic powers far stronger than even Dan's. Near this point, Doctor Sleep also introduces and starts to split time with a strange and frightening group called the "True Knot," a secret society who kill those like Dan and Abra to feed off of their psychic energy, in order to stay forever youthful...Shining Vampires, if you will. Unfortunately, this is also where the book begins to lose a bit of focus. Generally, biting off this much would mean King would be gearing up for a hell of a tome. He would give pages upon pages of history on the True Knot, and find ways to make that intersect thematically with Danny and Abra, and the entire world that he's created for this book, and for Doctor Sleep and The Shining in general.
Instead, there's a disjointed lack of focus, where everything never really satisfyingly comes together. The True Knot, while frightening, never become viable villains, as anytime they come against our heroes, particularly the young, but powerful Abra, they are easily defeated. Dan's sobriety and sanity are very hard won throughout the book, and yet The True Knot never even feel like a threat to that, either. As foes, they don't thematically intersect with anything else that's going on, other than the fact that Dan helps people die peacefully at his place of work, and The True Knot refuse to accept death. There's nothing more deeply explored about death here, so that never really comes into play. This, like several other thematic dead links in Doctor Sleep, feels like a missed opportunity. Even the usual depth of history expected from King in regard to The True Knot is lacking.
I enjoyed the passages where Dan has to learn to act fatherly toward Abra, and is given the chance to succeed where his own father failed, but Dan's life, Abra's life, and The True Knot's lives all feel jumbled together, and never part of a cohesive work. Truthfully, once The True Knot are set up as the villain early on, they are left to wander far away from our heroes for nearly the entirety of the book, rarely if ever intersecting with them outside of a few psychic conversations, until the inevitable, if underwhelming final confrontation. So much of the plotting feels like missed opportunity.
And yet, I must say, Dan Torrance's own personal arc is supremely satisfying. Outside of everything else going on in the book, the one question, "I wonder what happened to little Danny from The Shining" is answered sublimely and in full. Doctor Sleep is worth reading for that alone...or worth listening to. Will Patton has done a tremendous job reading for this unabridged audiobook.
You've surely seen Patton in one of his dozens upon dozens of acting roles, but he's got a great talent for narration. Even when Doctor Sleep's plot is lagging, Patton keeps things interesting, providing differing voices for the characters that never fall into cheese, that are always consistent. He won a much-deserved Audie award for his narration here, and considering the way this book lags in the middle to final third, that's saying something.