James Nicoll Reviews

Stephen King’s 1979 The Dead Zone is a stand-alone paranormal thriller taking place in King’s Castle Rock setting.

1970: life is going well for Castle Rock’s John ​“Johnny” Smith. Johnny has a teaching position, he has pretty girlfriend Sarah, and he has rudimentary precognitive abilities so minor that he’s never really noticed them. His precognition is not enough to keep him from getting into the wrong cab on the wrong night.

One catastrophic head-on collision later and a badly injured Johnny is in a coma. His prognosis is dire.

Four and a half years later…

Johnny wakes to find a world transformed. Flair pens exist. Nixon has been forced to resign. Many rock stars have died. Sarah has moved on and is married to someone else. Johnny’s grieving mother has become an irrational religious fanatic, prevented from bankrupting the family only by the vigilance of Johnny’s father.

Johnny undertakes the long, painful road to rehabilitation. Although he will never recover fully, he should be able to return to work and begin paying down his crushing medical debt. It’s not the life he wanted but it is the life he has.

An unforeseen development complicates Johnny’s life. As a side-effect of the minor brain damage he suffered in the accident, his almost unnoticeable precognitive and clairvoyant abilities have gone into overdrive. Skin to skin contact sometimes produces visions concerning the person he is touching.

On the plus side, Johnny’s gifts allow him to save people, even catch serial killers. On the minus side, even those he helps sometimes fear him. He finds himself the focus of disruptive, often hostile press coverage. His life would be much easier if he were able to stay focused on teaching.

Former Bible salesman, occasional dog-killer, now an up and coming politician, Greg Stillson claims to be an independent who is opposed to the corruption of old-time Democratic and Republican politicians. This is an effective marketing strategy in the Age of Watergate. Stillson’s armed goons facilitate Stillson’s rise by intimidating and murdering anyone who asks uncomfortable questions. How far ruthless ambition can take Stillson is an interesting question.

One handshake shows Stillson’s future. One day Stillson will become President of the United States. As a consequence, Stillson will turn an international crisis into a global thermonuclear war. Billions will perish.

Only Johnny can stop Stillson. Is Johnny willing to pay the price?

~oOo~

Why did I read The Dead Zone? Because I have already reviewed Carrie, I’ve misplaced my copy of The Stand¹, I am saving Night Shift for later, and for some reason I cannot seem to finish Firestarter. Other King books are too late for Tears reviews. The one drawback of this selection: I’ve selected yet another book with time travel themes. I blame the carbon tax.

While stand-alone, The Dead Zone shares a setting with other King works such as Salem’s Lot, Stand by Me, and (unfortunately for recurring supporting character Sheriff George Bannerman) Cujo. King’s Maine is a region well worth avoiding. Castle Rock and the towns around it are hotbeds of paranormal and supernatural activity. How Castle Rock avoids population collapse is unclear.

Stephen King being best known for being Stephen King, this book was marketed as horror. It is horror in the sense that the only choices available are undesirable. Poor Johnny can influence which dismal outcome ensues. but that’s about as much control as he gets. At least unlike a certain Maud’Dib, Johnny can change the futures he sees, as long as he is willing to accept the consequences.

Some readers might see parallels between Stillson and Trump. While it’s true that both are racist popularists who should not be allowed near power, there are important differences. Most important: Stillson’s business ventures have been successful. Unlike Trump, Stillson can legitimately claim to be a self-made man.

King isn’t a visionary like his character Johnny. Instead, King has foreseen that there will be politicians like Stillson because there is always someone like Stillson. King has a pretty good grasp of one particular thread in the American political tapestry. In fact, King understands a certain flavor of small-town America quite well, something he uses to great effect in his novel. A warning for the Hallmark Christmas movie fans: King’s perspective is a bit darker than Hallmark’s.

From a Disco-era SF perspective, King’s pacing is deliberate. King takes his time to establish the cast of characters². In fact, Johnny spends a surprising fraction of the book in a coma, not regaining consciousness until about a quarter of the way through the book. King knows where he is going with all this, but he is in no hurry to get there. This gives a grim inevitability to events.

I think The Dead Zone might be the best of King’s pre-1980 novels. It certainly stood up to this rereading. If you have a different opinion, we can argue about it in comments.

The Dead Zone is available here (Amazon US), here (Amazon Canada), here (Amazon UK), here (Apple Books), here (Barnes & Noble), and here (Chapters-Indigo).

1: I would prefer to read the original version of The Stand (which was skillfully edited). Unfortunately the version I own is the expanded version. Best-selling author can now reverse the killing touch of the editor! Up for debate: are later author revisions of books/movies usually good or bad? 

2: In Johnny’s mother’s defense: she may be a gullible wackaloon but she is the one who encourages Johnny to keep using his gift. Indirectly, she saves billions of people.