Just started this. I think I keep reading King the way I keep buying Bowie albums. May often enjoy for more nostalgic than new reasons . . . but so be it.

400 pages in and pretty much out of patience. The stuff I've always dug--the sense of dread in the every day--bubbles up now and again, and I am pretty fascinated by Edgar's barely-contained rage following his accident.

But I've always hated when King's characters banter. (I don't want everyone to sound like 13-year-old boys being clever unless they're actually 13-year-old boys being clever.) And there's a lot of talk.

I'll probably finish it, hoping to get past signs and portents to some bursts of savage terror, some stray hour in the near future. But I haven't felt compelled lately, so--unless there's a remarkable turnaround, I think this review stands.