Revival: proof of how unexpected Stephen King can still be

“E. All this shit starts with E. But wait, you ain’t heard nothing yet”. That’s Stephen King right there. He doesn’t avoid bad words in his books and maybe that’s why he will never win a Nobel Prize. And though ‘Revival’ might not be his best work, it is certainly a pretty good, fantastic, suspense, sci-fi story (with that usual little bit of horror and death) which is worth reading. Drugs, music, some misterious guy that remind us of Dr. Victor Frankestein. All that out of the pen of Master King... what could go wrong? 

That first quote I mentioned up there is one of the few that stayed with me for weeks now (along with “something happened”), after reading the novel. And it makes sense because much of the story has to do with music. It’s like a second or third layer of analysis, but as I’m learning to play the guitar too (like the main character) it hit me. If you like blues, you are gonna find a nice playlist to listen to as you go turning the pages. And guess what? Some of that guitar learning scenes that King describes in ‘Revival’ come from his own personal experience. That being said, let’s get down to business.

For starters I’m going to go out on a limb and say that the first half of the book has nothing to do with terror, horror, scary things, monsters or whatever you may associate with Mr. King. It starts depicting, almost perfectly, ordinary life situations from the perspective of Jamie Morton, a small-town boy. And it goes on and on like that. You kind of forget that you are reading a King novel because nothing rare or wrong happens. Or at the moment you don’t realize. Until it does, of course, and all hell breaks loose. Almost literally. 

Beyond the fantastic ending and the deathly twists that King slides through (also, towards the end), I consider one major and, lets say, abrupt change to be the quality ingredient of the whole thing. That is, passing from that quiet town life to what gives the novel its name, having lightnings and experimenting on humans in between. It’s a trick, a narrative resource, that is not new coming from Stephen King. You can see some of that in ‘It’, for example, or ‘The Body’ and so on. However, in ‘Revival’ it’s the written proof that he can take that technique and dance with it all night long. It caught me with my guard down and I loved that feeling. You think you know someone and then... boom! Nope, you don’t. 

After that, yes, it’s what you can expect from a King novel. And as gripping as it may be, it’s also what it diminishes its effects. Why? Because we have seen and read so many times what he can do in the land of supernatural, horror and gore, that nowadays we are not an easy audience. Personally, I think his best work in this regard was during the 80s. 

So, all in all, ‘Revival’ is probably one of the best (relatively new, published in 2014) options you have if you want to see how good King is at storytelling. And not so much if what you want to read is something crude and violent and gripping as, for example, ‘Desperation’, ‘Needful things’, ‘The Shining’ or ‘Dreamcatcher’. Yet, you gotta love the variety of genres King can jump into and still land on his feet.

My rating for the book: 4 stars. It's very good. Could be 3 stars if you're not (even remotely) a fan. 

More of Stephen King in this blog: Doctor Sleep, Rage (in Spanish).