Book review: Revival, by Stephen King
Please excuse typos. My laptop died, and the spouse's has a smaller keyboard.
Revival is the story of a man obsessed with the spiritual power of electricity, or more properly, of the boy/man who becomes a key figure in his life. It it not a light read, by any stretch of the imagination.
Jamie Morton first meet Reverend Charles Daniel Jacobs (who will go by several variations of his names at different times) when Jamie is a young boy, and Jacobs assumes the pastorship of the local church. From the beginning, Jacobs reveals a fascination with electricity. When his tenure at the church ends in tragedy and a very public loss of faith, Jacobs departs from the community and Jamie's life. He enters it again when Jamie is near the rock-bottom of a heroin addiction; Jacobs at this point is working as a carnival huckster, and is able to cure Jamie's addiction with electricity. The cure, however, leaves so strange aftereffects, similar to ones afflicting the subjects of Jacobs' demonstrations. Years later, Jamie again stumbles across Jacobs, now a huge sensation as a faith healer, and again learns that those "cured" by Jacobs can leave the recipients with profound mental and behavioral issues.
All of this heads to a final "experiment," in which Jacobs' true goal is revealed. I won't spoil that, or what else is revealed, except to say that the entire sequence is one of the most disturbing, unsettling things I've ever read, and I kind of wish I hadn't read it just before being left alone in my slightly creepy old house for a week.
On the whole, I enjoyed the book. Some of King's interests make their appearance (rock 'n roll, religion, even his new focus on LGB characters). Jamie makes for an observant, interesting narrator with his own quirks but a solid core of Kingian heroism, and the ending hit me with real, genuine, horror). And I think I'm going to spend some time reading the Phryne Fisher mysteries as a palate-cleanser.
Final verdict: recommended, but with some definite disturbing bleakness.
This entry was originally posted at http://cereta.dreamwidth.org/1129001.html. If you can, please speak there.
have spoken there.
Revival is the story of a man obsessed with the spiritual power of electricity, or more properly, of the boy/man who becomes a key figure in his life. It it not a light read, by any stretch of the imagination.
Jamie Morton first meet Reverend Charles Daniel Jacobs (who will go by several variations of his names at different times) when Jamie is a young boy, and Jacobs assumes the pastorship of the local church. From the beginning, Jacobs reveals a fascination with electricity. When his tenure at the church ends in tragedy and a very public loss of faith, Jacobs departs from the community and Jamie's life. He enters it again when Jamie is near the rock-bottom of a heroin addiction; Jacobs at this point is working as a carnival huckster, and is able to cure Jamie's addiction with electricity. The cure, however, leaves so strange aftereffects, similar to ones afflicting the subjects of Jacobs' demonstrations. Years later, Jamie again stumbles across Jacobs, now a huge sensation as a faith healer, and again learns that those "cured" by Jacobs can leave the recipients with profound mental and behavioral issues.
All of this heads to a final "experiment," in which Jacobs' true goal is revealed. I won't spoil that, or what else is revealed, except to say that the entire sequence is one of the most disturbing, unsettling things I've ever read, and I kind of wish I hadn't read it just before being left alone in my slightly creepy old house for a week.
On the whole, I enjoyed the book. Some of King's interests make their appearance (rock 'n roll, religion, even his new focus on LGB characters). Jamie makes for an observant, interesting narrator with his own quirks but a solid core of Kingian heroism, and the ending hit me with real, genuine, horror). And I think I'm going to spend some time reading the Phryne Fisher mysteries as a palate-cleanser.
Final verdict: recommended, but with some definite disturbing bleakness.
This entry was originally posted at http://cereta.dreamwidth.org/1129001.html. If you can, please speak there.
have spoken there.