Stephen King and the book ‘The Dead Zone’

The fifth book that Stephen King published under his own name is The Dead Zone. Accounting for books written under the pseudonym Richard Bachman, The Dead Zone becomes the seventh book published by King. The notion of multiple head traumas, a five-year coma, and the blessing or curse of extrasensory perception form the beginning of the story told in this fifth and seventh book by Stephen King.

(Writer Stephen King in the contemporary era to the August 1979 release of The Dead Zone).

Johnny Smith and Greg Stillson are the objects of the growing tension of The Dead Zone, which has it’s beginning in 1953 in a random ice skating incident and in a separate and seemingly unrelated incident involving an emotionally troubled door to door salesman who acts in a ghastly way to a dog on a family farm. Years go by with no contact and a lot of story to tell between then and a chance encounter at a New England political rally. The stage would be set for a resolution that answers offers resolution to the tension.

(Two previous covers for The Dead Zone by Stephen King).

The characters in play are Johnny Smith and Greg Stillson. Both men garner their own headlines in the political turmoil that is taking place in the United States of the 1970s. Newspaper stories get the trajectory of these two mixed up, with distrust and suspicion largely aimed where it is seen yet ignored where the narrative sympathies of the story tell you it should lie. One of these men can see the future while the other aims to make the future. The vision of one includes a catastrophic future with a nuclear future in the air. The other contemplates the justice of acting to preempt exactly that. The tension rises as the man with the dead zone in his perception prepares to violently act. The question then is how will things turn out? Who proves to be right. What exactly is the nature of the dead zone?

(Another two covers for The Dead Zone by Stephen King).

Those who appreciate the formulation and slow revelation of tension will appreciate reading The Dead Zone. Those who appreciate a quick reveal for an ending will appreciate The Dead Zone. Those that like something with mystery and the unexpected and would rather see the development take 400+ pages rather than 1000+ pages, as with The Stand or The Tommyknockers, will like The Dead Zone. I rate The Dead Zone by Stephen King at 3.75-stars on a scale of one-to-five.

Matt – Wednesday, August 12, 2020