Doctor Sleep (novel)

Doctor Sleep, a horror novel by Stephen King, came out in 2013 as a follow-up to his 1977 book The Shining. It hit number one on The New York Times Best Seller list for print, ebook, and hardcover fiction, and it took home the 2013 Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel. A film adaptation, directed by Mike Flanagan, was released in the United States on November 8, 2019.

The story picks up after the Overlook Hotel’s destruction. Danny Torrance, still scarred from his childhood, moves with his mother Wendy to Florida, where she has found work. Ghosts from the Overlook, like Mrs. Massey from Room 217, still hunt Danny, wanting to consume his powerful “shining” ability. Dick Hallorann, the hotel’s former chef, teaches Danny to build mental lockboxes to trap these spirits, including that of former owner Horace Derwent.

As an adult, Dan (as he now calls himself) falls into his father’s patterns of anger and alcoholism. He drifts across the United States for years before landing in New Hampshire, where he quits drinking on a psychic impulse. He settles in the small town of Frazier, working for the municipal department and later at a local hospice, while attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. His psychic powers, dulled by drinking, return, letting him comfort dying patients. With help from a cat named Azzie that senses impending death, Dan earns the nickname “Doctor Sleep.”

Meanwhile, Abra Stone, born in 2001, shows psychic abilities early on, even seeming to predict the 9/11 attacks. She forms a telepathic link with Dan through Tony, his childhood imaginary friend. As she grows, her shining becomes stronger than his. One night, Abra psychically witnesses the True Knot—a group of quasi-immortal nomads with their own psychic gifts—ritually torture and kill a young boy named Bradley Trevor. The True Knot wander the country, feeding on “steam,” a psychic essence released when people with the shining die in pain. Their leader, Rose the Hat, learns of Abra and plans to keep her alive as a limitless steam source.

The True Knot start dying from measles they caught from Bradley Trevor, and they believe Abra’s steam can cure them. Abra asks Dan for help, and he reveals their connection to her father David and family doctor John Dalton. Though angry and skeptical, David agrees to Dan’s plan.