The Shining by Stephen King

I took a complete detour last weekend with my decision to read The Shining by Stephen King.  I don't read much fiction to begin with, certainly not much contemporary fiction, let alone a horror novel.  But intellectually I've always believed that, given the vast success of King (with more than 60 best sellers to his credit), there must be something to his work.  I was right.

I ripped through the book in exactly one week, which almost never happens to me.  Published in 1977, one of King's earliest works, The Shining gripped me throughout.

It's not just the vivid suspense and great writing that propelled me through the book.  What I found surprising was the deep intellectual and psychological examination of the characters.  Much of the book entails flashbacks and internal retrospection of and by Jack Torrance and his wife Wendy.  Most of the first half of the book is a retrospective.  This character development was more interesting to me than the horror that crescendos in the second half of the book.

King understands human psychology deeply and that's what made this book stand out.  It wasn't just the sheer horror of their experience at The Overlook Hotel, it's the humanity of Jack, Wendy, their son Danny and the other characters that draws you in.  The supernatural aside, these characters and their relationships ring true and are drenched in authenticity.

Although I don't think I will read Stephen King with a lot of frequency, he's now my go-to author when I need page-turning diversion.