[Perry] Review of “Revival” by Stephen King

Note: I will do my best to avoid spoilers in the post, but the comments section may contain spoilers to this novel, that novel, and seventeen movies you were planning to get around to someday.

So this morning on my drive to work (Tuesday), I came to the end of an audiobook by Stephen King called Revival.

It’s his most recently published novel, and if you’ve followed along with King’s works recently, you’ll know that he sort of goes through troughs. He’ll put out some good books, then a lemon or two, then back to good books, before inevitably bombing another book or two.

This? I think is perfectly reasonable for a man who publishes as prolifically as he does.

But all that aside, let’s talk about this book.

Premise

We’re introduced to Jamie Morton when he’s six years old. He meets pastor Danny Jacobs (who is then a young man).

The young pastor suffers a tragedy where he loses his faith in God, and so he goes away.

Jamie and Jacobs separate for a time to live their separate lives, only to meet later in life to strange consequences.

Thoughts on Timespan

I don’t really want to say too much, part of the draw to the book was definitely a lot of the reveals, so we’ll leave that to the wayside for now.

Let’s talk about how it feels.

King…I mean, I know there are people that aren’t that into his works? But honestly speaking, it’s amazing to watch the man work.

Despite his occasional misses, this here’s a man who’s been writing and publishing for almost half a century now and. It. SHOWS.

He may not be the most critically acclaimed writer in the world, and nobody would ever argue that his works will go down through the ages as classics, to be studied centuries hence, but he knows how to write for his audience.

The biggest thing that hit me with this novel was the sense of time he manages to impart.

We follow along with Jamie Morton as he narrates his life story from the time he’s six, up until he’s sixty or so.

You can feel the passage of all that time. By the time you get to the end, you really get the sense that the man’s lived his entire life before your eyes, int he brief span of pages from cover to cover.

The novel certainly doesn’t cover his life in any great and exacting detail, but you dip in and out of specifics enough to really get the sense of a man who’s lived a full life, and I found that something marvelous to witness.

In truth? This may be aided by the fact that I listened to the audiobook over the course of a couple weeks, so maybe in my case, the sense that time has passed had been magnified by the real passage of time instead of my normal one or two days of blitz reading…but I don’t think that’s the case.

I feel like I’ve lived this man’s entire life with him, and that’s truly something to behold.

Thoughts on Characters

Another thing that King does well? Characterization. His characters, major and minor alike, feel like real people. They feel like they have their own wants and dreams and ambitions. They talk in ways that make them sound distinct and they perform small actions and employ little mannerisms that make it sound more like they’re being described than being invented, if you get what I’m saying.

Jamie Morton and the choices he makes? The promises he makes and breaks, the ones he keeps, the way he lives his life? He feels like a real person.

And Pastor Jacobs, I think, is easily one of King’s strongest characters in a while. He feels real and vital, with a real person’s obsessions and follies.

It’s a wonder to watch these characters peel themselves off the pages and walk about their daily lives. To tell you the truth, it makes me more than a little jealous, and fires up the urge in me to write, just to see if I can eventually make people as real as these ones.

You get roped along by their quests and desires and sorrows, almost to the point that you lose track of the thread of the story tying everything together.

If you’ve ever experienced it before? You’ll know what I mean by it. And if you haven’t, you really owe it to yourself to take a look at this novel and see if you can’t see it too.

Criticisms

In all honesty, I only really had one gripe about the novel, and that was the ‘twist’ at the end.

The novel isn’t a deus ex machina story, not by a long shot, but I really thought the final screaming left turn into madness could have been introduced a little more gently.

The ending doesn’t come completely out of nowhere. There’s a somewhat vague quotation that’s tossed about liberally throughout the novel that gives a decent clue as to what’s coming.

My issue was mainly with the connection between the two. It felt abrupt. Having a decent idea of what was coming versus being able to see how those two things link together is an entirely different thing, though.

I thought there could have been a little more of a soft linkage between the body of the work and the events of the final two chapters…but that honestly might just be me and my preferences.

I know there are some Stephen King fans among you and I would love to hear what you made of the ending.

Thrilling Conclusion!

All in all, if you’re a fan of Stephen King, whether current or lapsed, I do recommend giving this latest outing a read.

I found it quite…uh, electric.

flees from the fruit being thrown on-stage