Years go by Jamie becomes a teenager in love, a rock musician and a drug addict. Raging and heartbroken, he gives a blasphemous but honest sermon that shakes the faith of all who hear it. And then, the worst possible bolt from the blue: A terrible accident takes the Reverend’s wife and child from him and turns him into a different man. The Mortons adore him for having restored the voice of Jamie’s older brother after a terrible accident involving a ski pole - but nobody knows exactly what happens over the long run to people cured by the Reverend after he has run electrical currents through them. But three years later there is trouble in paradise: the Reverend’s experiments have taken a turn toward miracle cures, and he dares to suggest that electricity is more powerful than God. Jamie is smitten so is the Reverend, who is madly in love with his beautiful wife and little son. Using a photoelectric cell, he’s built a model of what he calls Peaceable Lake and a miniature Jesus who can walk on water. He invites Jamie’s family to attend his Methodist church and also has Jamie visit his garage to see the toys he has been inventing. Jamie is 6, playing with soldier toys during the Cuban Missile Crisis, when the Reverend stops by to introduce himself. King must warn the reader to watch out for Jamie’s perpetual nemesis, a kindly clergyman calling himself the Rev. How many writers have a biography that can begin something like this: “Stephen King is the author of more than 50 books, all of them worldwide best sellers.”? Mercedes” and now “Revival,” the best of the bunch, finds him writing with the infectious glee that has always been at the heart of his popular success. But the trifecta of “Joyland” (2013), “Mr.

He hit the doldrums with “Doctor Sleep” (2013), his sequel to “The Shining.” And “Duma Key” (2008) seemed to have more to do with his spending time in the part of Florida the book describes than with any burning need to tell a story. King says inspired “Revival” if you don’t want to kill its chances of scaring the hell out of you. And steer clear of the ageless 1890 short novel that Mr. But don’t do it until his new book, tenderly realistic despite its roots in horror and science fiction, has had its way with you. King must have devoured as a boy and a seminal figure in the creation of Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos horror genre, are so far out of the mainstream that they can prompt long, dreamy voyages of discovery.īy all means look up Robert Bloch or Derleth if you’d like to have more insight into what shaped Mr.

Others, like August Derleth, the author of more than 100 books that Mr. Mercedes” arrived in June.) Some, like Bram Stoker and H. You can fall down a very deep rabbit hole just pondering the list of names to whom Stephen King dedicates “Revival,” his second skin-crawler published this year.

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