Revival

There are few authors that can match King when he's on form & this novel like 11,22,63 is a welcome return to form. Eric Clapton, the blues musician, was asked once how he kicked heroin and remarked part of the process involved being hooked up to a black box and given electrical impulses.

King runs with this idea and weaves a tale of how a local pastor, Charlie Jacobs befriends a young boy, James Morton in a small town. Jacobs has a fascination with electricity and when he suffers a tragedy, he becomes a healing preacher who takes a revival… show more.

This novel is the perfect blend of historical fiction and horror, and King perfectly captures small-town rural life among people who hold a little too strongly to both tradition and stereotypes. The novel invokes that particular dread that can only be raised by those philosophical questions that one can’t seem to answer; the horror of the unknown. Plus, given my own book, I have a soft spot for traveling preachers who aren’t what they seem. 

As someone seeking proof of an afterlife to strengthen my faith, I have an affinity for the ex-preacher in this novel who uses electricity to contact the realm of the dead. Hating God and heartbroken over the death of his wife, he wants to find her in the afterlife, should there be one. The main character journeys from childhood to adulthood, meeting the preacher as a child and then, as an adult, he runs into the former preacher. He witnesses the final experiment that reveals a conclusion that is a complete surprise.