The Shining by Stephen King

When people ask me who my favorite writer is, I feel a bit silly and vanilla for answering, "Stephen King." I mean, I'm a horror writer, and I should be bending over backwards to espouse the contributions of little-known writers to the genre. When people ask me who my favorite writer is, I feel like an amateur, a rube, a newbie to the world of horror.

But then I go back and re-read something I read as I kid, something from King's early days, and I remember: He's my favorite because he's so damn good! I'm not a hipster trying to define myself through false-idolization, with my awesome lumberjack beard contrasting stylishly with my Chuck Taylors (full disclosure: I do not have a beard, but I have Chucks).

So, it was with eager anticipation that I bid my time throughout this RIG until it was time to read the Shining. Excitement grew with each passing novel, and I checked them off like so many chores. My reward, halfway through, would be the modern masterpiece that is The Shining. And I wasn't disappointed. When I read it for the first time, probably 25 years ago, the themes presented went over my 11-year old head. Alcoholism, child abuse, the fact that failure was not only a part of life, but presented the bulk of it.

I was young. I was idealistic. I needed the money. (Currency for me at the time was gore, and buckets of it... I mean, what the hell was wrong with me?)

This time around, the book made me profoundly sad (but more on that later).

First, the basics:

The Shining (1977) was King's third book, preceded in publishing by Carrie (1974) and Salem's Lot (1975). It was written while he lived in Boulder, CO, and coincidentally enough takes place near there.

The book is about a young boy... or is it about his father? Possibly the mother. Why the indecision? Because King told the story so perfectly from each's point of view, that pinpointing the exact protagonist is almost impossible. However, it's widely agreed on that the book is about five-year old Danny and his psychic powers dubbed "shining."

But let's talk about it from his father Jack's point of view, because therein is the true horror of the book. Jack is a recovering alcoholic, a mean drunk who inadvertently hurts his little boy in martian (martini)-fueled rage. He gives up the booze, but not before the damage is done to his tenure-track teaching position. Now, out of work and with a deadline looming, he takes any writer's dream job: a low-effort caretaker job in a secluded resort that has closed for the long winter season. In Colorado. With bad roads. And limited communication with the outside world. What could possibly go wrong?

REDRUM.

REDRUM could go wrong. And it does. King uses the setting, the Overlook Hotel, as a backdrop to tell the story of his own alcoholic demons (alcoholism is his demon, not that there are demons that are alcoholics).

The Overlook has a colorful, storied history replete with murders and unnatural deaths. It isn't unlike Hill House, in that it's the building itself that has become the antagonist, and not any single ghost. There’s one thing it wants, and it’s Danny. But to get to him, through the boy’s strength with the Force Shining, it has to go through Dad. Jack’s weakness is his alcoholism and the hotel uses it to slowly tear down Danny’s defenses. Along for the ride is his mom, Wendy, who’s only weakness is her love for her husband. It’s almost a naïve love, and a type that probably wouldn’t get much sympathy with today’s crowd.

So, over the course of a few months, the hotel whittles down both Jack and Danny, until it all comes to a crescendo at the end.

But let’s talk about what makes me sad.

King’s free-form style of writing is often emulated, but never duplicated. It’s a style of writing that leaves the reader both breathless, but so deeply attached to the characters. They are real. They don’t have single sentence feelings. They aren’t Neapolitan with oddly perfect delineations of flavor. They’re complex, with overlapping flavors. They are Moose Tracks, or Rocky Road. And like Rocky Road, they’re nuts. King puts that on the page like no other (especially in his early work when I would argue he was at the top of his game), and when he does it so sublimely as he does in the Shining, even the most damaged character becomes our hero.

In this story, our hero fails. He succumbs. But before all that, he loves his little boy more than booze, more than his wife, and more than himself. And his little boy loves him and King gets that across in a way that is real and deep. If you have a little boy, you see yourself and your son in these roles. When Jack fails, you fail. When Danny loses a father, you are lost to your son. You can feel the feels, as the kids say, and they don’t feel good.

Yes, in the penultimate moment of the story, a part of me died because a part of Danny died.

My name is Chad V. Pritt, and Stephen King is my favorite writer.