Book Review: "Dreamcatcher" by Stephen King

Stephen King is one of the greatest writers ever and I for one am glad I live in a time where he is still alive. As a teen, I was pretty obsessed with reading all the Stephen King I could get my hands on because it was considered contraband. I went to a school for girls and so, as young women, we weren’t supposed to be reading something as profane as Stephen King and my English Teacher was surprised when I would turn up with one of his books. I read “Misery” when I was a teen and so, I think that really set of the spark to read more. As you know, I didn’t finish “Pet Semetary” when I was a teen, instead only actually reading the whole thing about a few weeks ago, wondering why I never finished it. A decade ago, I was absolutely terrified of that novel - needless to say, I didn’t remember that when I picked it up a few weeks ago. I read “The Shining” and “The Dreamcatcher”. I read “Salem’s Lot” and “Carrie”. I read a lot of them well into my early 20s. But here I sit now about to tell you of the second time I read Stephen King’s “Dreamcatcher” and why it is a highly underrated book by him.

Four boys: Jonesy, Henry, ‘Beaver’ and Pete went down to a place called “The Hole in the Wall” as children and had done so often. When they go as adults on what they consider to be a seminal trip - things start to go wrong from the outset. First of all, a mysterious stranger wanders into their midst and, almost killing the man because they think he’s an animal, Jonesy and Beaver bring him in whilst Pete and Henry get supplies. The book is told in a series of back and forth flashbacks and present-day reckonings. We get to know the jobs of each of the men and how they go about their day-to-day. But, as we get deeper into the story, we are thrown back even further into their childhood where they save a boy with Downs Syndrome from being beaten up by some kids on the football team.

Now, I had always known that this book was filled to the brim with cliffhangers and yet, I had never minded because they were always in a place that made complete sense. As the story progresses further into the strange and the unusual, you feel yourself drawn to certain characters even though you have got to know what exactly their fate is when on this strange holiday. Sickness, disease, creatures and lights in the sky - this book is a great addition to the canon of Sci-Fi/Horror which was pretty much perfected by Stephen King in other novels as well. The darkness of the book is constantly being shadowed by the past, which is something I think was very clever about how King worked it into the story.

Personally, this is possibly in my top ten Stephen King novels and because of that, I actually read it again. I got the courage to read another Stephen King novel, but I also had the wonder of what it would be like to re-read it today and whether I would understand anything differently or in more detail. Most definitely I got the songs right but I was still unsure about the philosophies. The characters, I loved and even the sick man wasn’t cliché or some strange trope. He seemed like a very genuine character - which is probably what made that part of the novel the scariest.