Old Friends

The Dead Zone, Stephen King. With the wacky winter we’ve been having, I’ve found myself with a little more inside time for reading, so I’ve been going back and revisiting some books that left a mark on me in my youth. I’ve been a Stephen King fan ever since my middle school days when Salem’s Lot scared me so bad I slept with the lights on for three nights in a row. I’ve read all of King’s fiction books (except for the last three Dark Tower novels, and I’m getting there, dear reader... someday). Sometime in the past month, I decided I’m long overdue to revisit King’s early work, and The Dead Zone happened to be sitting on a display table when I last visited the library, so I decided to start there. King has really grown in his writing as he’s gotten older, but I had forgotten how gripping I’d always found his early work to be, and I tore through this one in two nights. I really enjoyed the book this time around, but more than anything, it made me want to watch the DVDs of the TV series with Anthony Michael Hall just to see how they stretched it into a multi-season story. If you’ve read the book, you know the TV show can’t follow the plot too closely. On the other hand, there’s also the movie version with Martin Sheen and my man Christopher Walken. I know that stayed closer to the storyline of the novel. And did I mention it’s got Christopher Walken?