Revival

A gripping book about addiction, obsession, and what could be out there beyond death. Dark and intense.

A little child playing with his toy troops gets shadowed by a shadow in a little New England village more than fifty years ago. When Jamie Morton glances up, he sees the new minister, a guy in striking. Charles Jacobs and his stunning wife are going to change the neighborhood church. While the ladies and girls, including Jamie's mother and Claire, his adored sister, feel the same way about Reverend Jacobs, the men and boys are all a little in love with Mrs. Jacobs. The Reverend has a stronger connection to Jamie because of a hidden preoccupation. This charismatic preacher ridicules all religious beliefs, curses God, and is expelled from the startled community as tragedy befalls the Jacobs family.

Jamie has his own personal demons. After becoming married to his guitar at the age of thirteen, he travels the nation performing in bands and leads a nomadic existence as a bar-band rock and roll musician while escaping the terrible loss of his family. In his mid-thirties—addicted to heroin, stranded, desperate—Jamie meets Charles Jacobs again, with profound consequences for both men. Jamie realizes that resurrection has several meanings as their link grows into a contract that is beyond even the Devil's imagination.

This rich and disturbing novel spans five decades on its way to the most terrifying conclusion Stephen King has ever written. In the great American tradition of Frank Norris, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Edgar Allan Poe, it's a masterpiece written by King.