Cemetery Dance gives us this summery of Stephen King's 520 page novel, REVIVAL. It will be coming out in November, 2014. My favorite words, "nightmare" "Edgar Allan Poe" and "dark." In other words, it's a Stephen King novel!
From master storyteller Stephen King comes a spectacularly dark and riveting novel about addiction, religion, fanaticism, and what might exist on the other side of life.
In a small New England town more than half a century ago, a boy is playing with his new toy soldiers in the dirt in front of his house when a shadow falls over him. He looks up to see a striking man, the new minister, Jamie learns later, who with his beautiful wife, will transform the church and the town. The men and boys are a bit in love with Mrs. Jacobs; the women and girls, with the Reverend Jacobs — including Jamie's sisters and mother. Then tragedy strikes, and this charismatic preacher curses God, and is banished from the shocked town.
Jamie has demons of his own. Wed to his guitar from age 13, he plays in bands across the country, running from his own family tragedies, losing one job after another when his addictions get the better of him. Decades later, sober and living a decent life, he and Reverend Charles Jacobs meet again in a pact beyond even the Devil's devising, and the many terrifying meanings of Revival are revealed.
King imbues this spectacularly rich and dark novel with everything he knows about music, addiction, and religious fanaticism, and every nightmare we ever had about death. This is a masterpiece from King, in the great American tradition of Frank Norris, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Edgar Allan Poe.
(Cover picture was taken from: www.pxleyes.com, erathion)
What I like about the description is how it says the book is written "in the...tradition of...Hawthorne and...Poe".
ReplyDeleteI always thought of King as the modern Hawthorne more or less (both New Englanders writing bout their region etc).
Any speculations about what kind of novel it'll be?
ChrisC
It seems like a conglomeration of short stories,
Deleteespecially with over 500 pages.
Guess we'll just have to wait and see in November!
I have been working slowly forever on a book that compares King to people like Poe and Dickens.
ReplyDeleteThat would be very interesting! I would definitely read it! Perhaps you can reach out to Mr. King for some quotes from him to add to your book-in-progress.
DeleteWell, I've never felt the need to reach out to King. seems any commentary I offer should be void of his influence. He's the artist, so I'm not sure I would want him to control the commentary on his art. Besides, there aren't a lot of new questions to ask him!
DeleteHere's my working contents page:
Stephen King, A Face Among The Masters
1. Seven Reasons We Read Stephen King
2. A Modern Charles Dickens
3. Shadowing The Ghost Of Edger Allen Poe
4. Which Book Would Hitchcock Film?
5. Shivering Through The Twilight Zone
6. The man who scared Stephen King
7. Stephen King and The Bible
Now this all sounds like VERY interesting book with potential.
DeleteIn all honesty I'd say keep at it and try to get it published.
Incidentally, if you're looking for some good sources on Dickens, here's a helpful link to a one written by G.K. Chesterton (of particular interest is the defense of the idea of "caricature" in stories).
http://lang.nagoya-u.ac.jp/~matsuoka/CD-Chesterton-CD.html
Also, a good, though scholarly, fictional read about Dickens can be found in Dan Simmons "Drood". Very good stuff.
ChrisC
You know, the more I think about it, after reading over the description, I wonder if this isn't going to be like the dark flipside to Green Mile.
DeleteBecause, like, Mile is also religiously based and this one sounds like it will be also (although I also wonder if this won't be that King rock and roll horror novel I've been waiting for) only it's seems like it's going into much darker territory. I don't know, that's just sort of the vibe I get on a second read through.
ChrisC