Stephen King’s "Revival": Lovecraft Lives!

Revival - Stephen King

Jamie Morton was barely six years old the first time Charlie Jacobs’ shadow fell across him. It would not be the last time – in fact, Charlie Jacobs’ shadow would remain with him until the end of his days. But back in 1962, Charlie was the newly-hired minister at the Morton family’s church, and with his wife and son beside him he'd brought new life to the moribund congregation.

Stephen King Channels H. P. Lovecraft for "Revival"

Revival - Stephen King

The first time Charlie Jacobs’ shadow fell across him, Jamie Morton was just a boy of six playing “army” in the dirt. That would not be the last time, though: the shadow of Charlie Jacobs would drift back and forth across his life for the remainder of his days. In 1962, though, Jacobs was a minister with the ink barely dry on his divinity degree, just arrived at the Mortons’ church. With Charlie's pretty wife and toddler son, the Jacobs family injected a little life into what had been a moribund congregation. 

They brought life that is, until they brought death. After that death came that memorable Sunday that Charlie preached the Terrible Sermon, and then he was gone. Charlie Jacobs dropped out of sight for four decades, during which our narrator grew to be a man, and became a minor rock god, and finally wound up a junkie. The second time that the shadow of Charlie Jacobs fell on him, Jamie Morton found himself at life’s low ebb. Jacobs fixed him up though, fixed him permanently with a special form of electricity that set him on the road to recovery.

Now flirting with the double-nickel, Jamie had never thought he’d see his old minister –and later savior – again, but when he learned that Jacobs was back in the religion biz, healing the lame and curing the sick in a classic tent show, he couldn’t resist. When the shadow fell upon him one last time, Jamie Morton discovered that the now-old man had a last project on his schedule: Revival.

Joe Hill, NOS4A2 -- All I Want for Christmas is Three Rows of Teeth

Victoria "Vic" McQueen discovered she had an unusual talent at the ripe old age of eight, discovered it the first time she rode her too-large bicycle through that abandoned covered bridge in Haverhill, Massachusetts, her home town. What she discovered when she popped out the other end of the bridge wasn't the opposite bank of the Merrimack River -- it was the place where her mother had lost her favorite bracelet that same morning. Vic, she learned, had a talent for finding, and that Shorter Way Bridge was her route from lost to found.

Other people had their own talents and their own means for short-circuiting the journey from then to now; now to then. When she was 13, Vic met another one; Here, Iowa, librarian Maggie Leigh; whose supernatural Scrabble tiles foretold Vic's future... "THE BRAT COULD FIND THE WRAITH." The Wraith?

Stephen King's "Under the Dome" - At Least He Didn't Turn It Into a Trilogy!

Under the Dome by Stephen King

It's been a long time since I stayed awake into the wee hours, eyes propped open, finishing a book. My string ended over the weekend at the hands of thriller master Stephen King. It was definitely a guilty pleasure: no one ever calls King a literary genius, after all. The man can definitely put together a story, though; so when he puts the hammer down, it's "Katie, bar the door!" because that hammer ain't coming up until the last page! And by golly, his latest is no different...