Revival by Stephen King
373 pages
Horror / Religious Horror
November 2014
https://amzn.to/41ZiBSy
Cover: Lightning strikes a church with the title in a bold, tall sans-serif, designed by Tal Goetsky.
How have I not read this before…
This has been recommended to me online and off for years and sat on my shelf since finding this at a book sale. I love the themes so I feel foolish for not picking it up earlier. This is Stephen King at his best, and for a more modern choice it is refreshing that we can recommend a book that is not older than I am as a quintessential King.
On that topic, Revival was his 53rd, and it is always amazing to me how his voice is unwavering, and while I did not see a nod to constant readers in a foreword, the whole book is fan service notes back-to-back.
While I went into this knowing it was religious, from the jacket copy, recommendations and the title, I was intrigued by the lightning angle on the cover. I had not known abut the Doctor Frankenstein inspirations throughout and was delighted by each incarnation of Jacobs as we follow his experiments and fascination with electricity.
Take Shelter starring Michael Shannon was a film that came out before this book and one that was off my radar entirely until watching it with my husband while I was reading this and boy did it fit. Now, the title fits is several ways; reviving his career post accident maybe, reviving a story idea he had since childhood, the religion revival one character orchestrates, the ghoulish revival of people through experimentation, or the revival of one suffering addiction becoming clean; and perhaps ten more being a Stephen King novel where a cigar is never just a cigar.
A revival in more ways than one…
One thing I did not realize is it is a music themed book as well. This may not be the largest theme but it has a Devil and Daniel Johnston sort of feel to it.
From the back cover:
In a small New England town, a shadow falls over a small boy playing with his toy soldiers. Jamie Morton looks up to see a striking man, the new minister. Charles Jacobs, along with his beautiful wife, will transform the local church. The men and boys are all a bit in love with Mrs. Jacobs; the women and girls feel the same about Reverend Jacobs—including Jamie’s mother and beloved sister, Claire. With Jamie, the Reverend shares a deeper bond based on a secret obsession. When tragedy strikes the Jacobs family, this charismatic preacher curses God, mocks all religious belief, and is banished from the shocked town.
Jamie has demons of his own. Wed to his guitar from the age of thirteen, he plays in bands across the country, living the nomadic lifestyle of bar-band rock and roll while fleeing from his family’s horrific loss. In his mid-thirties—addicted to heroin, stranded, desperate—Jamie meets Charles Jacobs again, with profound consequences for both men. Their bond becomes a pact beyond even the Devil’s devising, and Jamie discovers that revival has various meanings.
From the start I was in love with this as we begin in King territory, 50s childhood recollections with overtones of doom and dread. We soon move in to music and addiction; two topics he’s tread often and are close to his as his readers know well. Same with tragic car accidents, if you want to count that.
I found the pace perfect. There are enough changes in tone as Jamie ages we can follow the thread of his character from childhood to middle age and it helps avoid a sagging centre.
While every one of Jacob’s experiments are high-tension, the duality created between the first time Jamie visits the lightning rod on the mountainside overlooking his childhood haunts and the last time he visits it are exceptionally well tuned for full effect. While I am never interested in spoon-fed talisman plot devices (the kids shoe in Cell is a wretched one) I am drawn to physical landmarks as talismans in writing. Probably because it feels more permanent in reality than a sentimental object, I can’t draw a real parallel with.
Other hidden influences perhaps…
The shapeshifting of Charlie Jacobs in this book is just teetering on too fantastical. He refers to his as the ‘fifth business’ through the book, which is a new termite me and one I needed to look up a few times to remind myself what it was. The characters who are called the fifth business are “…those roles which, being neither those of hero nor Heroine, Confidante nor Villain, but which were none the less essential to bring about the Recognition or the denouement,” as noted by the Canadian author Robertson Davies who wrote the quasi-autobiographical novel ‘Fifth Business’ in 1970. A book I now need to read.
While that book also follows a person though their life, I doubt it ends with such impact
A cross-country tale…
Revival is in essence a Bildungsroman, which is one of my favourite styles of book. Not because it is a coming of age, but something that reaches beyond just a few years in high-school and follows a character from childhood to advanced age. When done well and at the fairly short page length of this book, I feel it best captures the main characters evolutions. So, it traverses a few settings in the United States, and spends a lot of time in small town USA, larger cities, follows a touring musician, rests a while in a studio setting, then on the road again following the protagonist, then returning home, yet roosting elsewhere by the end.
As far as how it fits into the multiverse, there are mentions of place like Castle Rock and what may be the gas station from The Stand existing here, as well as repeated sayings from Fairy Tale, where “all that shit starts with E”, and a band called The Gunslingers; so it may not be directly bound to other books, but it echoes and could be linked via the Null being like Todash or the experiments being like Deadlights.
Summertime is perfect King time…
I had this book recommended to me many times, and I am very glad it was on my shelf for this reading challenge. All-In-August was organized by Roya at RGsDevilship so certainly check out the other King titles a few of us, including Roya, have read this month. While not a King reading exercise, it just fit this time around, and summer is always a good fit for his books fro some reason (except the Shining which is a winter horror for sure) and why we cover King films each summer on Dead Air Podcast! This year for King-a-palooza we are watching Sleepwalkers, The Monkey, and maybe Misery. Great films, all.
While Revival is unlike many King books in that is revolves around faith more directly, and is a standalone novel, it is a must-read for fans of the Master of Horror. With luck, this will be a film soon too!