Stephen King Returns to Original Horror in Revival
We’ve loved Stephen King’s late-career experimentation. The cat-and-mouse thrills of Mr. Mercedes. The time travel twists in 11/22/63. Catching up with a familiar character in Doctor Sleep. But what we’re really craving is a return to the Stephen King of old, the Stephen King who cranked out one horrific masterpiece after another. Revival, the prolific author’s second major novel this year (after Mr. Mercedes), and arguably his first wholly original horror thriller since 2006’s Cell, promises to be exactly what the doctor ordered.
Revival
Hardcover $30.00
Revival
By Stephen King
Hardcover $30.00
The book centers around Charles Jacobs, a minister in rural Maine whose faith is shattered when he loses his entire family in a brutal car accident. We follow one of his former congregants, Jamie—just a young boy as the novel begins—as his path crosses with Jacobs’ over the course of the next 50 years. Haunted by grief, Jacobs works odd jobs as a carny and a faith healer, but finds his true calling in science (of the “mad” variety), convinced he can harness the secret powers of electricity to pull back the veil between our world and the one beyond. Because we’re well-versed in Stephen King’s work, we’re assuming the titular revival is something much more sinister than a religious reawakening.
Thanks to his prolific, horrific output in the 1980s, Stephen King remains synonymous with the kind of books that keep you up late at night, if only because you’re too scared to stop reading. Over the decades, he’s married his mastery of scare tactics to a deepening interest in human psychology. He has a strong grasp of his characters and the fears that drive them—and us. The prospect of the Master of Horror bringing his mature talents to bear in the kind of book he built his career upon is impossible to resist.
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The book centers around Charles Jacobs, a minister in rural Maine whose faith is shattered when he loses his entire family in a brutal car accident. We follow one of his former congregants, Jamie—just a young boy as the novel begins—as his path crosses with Jacobs’ over the course of the next 50 years. Haunted by grief, Jacobs works odd jobs as a carny and a faith healer, but finds his true calling in science (of the “mad” variety), convinced he can harness the secret powers of electricity to pull back the veil between our world and the one beyond. Because we’re well-versed in Stephen King’s work, we’re assuming the titular revival is something much more sinister than a religious reawakening.
Thanks to his prolific, horrific output in the 1980s, Stephen King remains synonymous with the kind of books that keep you up late at night, if only because you’re too scared to stop reading. Over the decades, he’s married his mastery of scare tactics to a deepening interest in human psychology. He has a strong grasp of his characters and the fears that drive them—and us. The prospect of the Master of Horror bringing his mature talents to bear in the kind of book he built his career upon is impossible to resist.
Shop the Stephen King collection >