Doctor Sleep

Doctor Sleep is a sequel to The Shining, but it has many parallels with Stephen King’s life. It also serves as fan service, with its insistence on connecting more of the worlds from King’s literary universe, in addition to giving readers easter eggs from the story that King began decades prior. For instance, the world of Doctor Sleep exists in the same universe as the novel NOS4A2, written by King’s son, Joe Hill. King nods at his son’s work when someone in Doctor Sleep name drops the villain of Hill’s novel.

Fan service aside, the Torrance family, Tony, Dick Hallorann, Mrs. Massey, and the Overlook Hotel are some of King’s most enduring creations. The Shining was made into an acclaimed film by Stanley Kubrick, although King hated the film adaptation. He stated that the movie removed the family drama and Jack’s slow descent into alcoholism in favor of watching Jack Nicholson act like a maniac as Danny’s father set against the eerie, cold backdrop of Kubrick’s set staging.

Although Danny and his mother escaped the Overlook, readers were never able to see how a child who had gone through such an ordeal might respond to the trauma. Despite his desire to avoid his father’s path, Dan Torrance, as an adult, finds himself in a similar situation to Stephen King‘s real life experiences. King also acknowledges that, had his addiction proceeded unchecked, his survival would have been unlikely. King admits that he had an alcohol addiction while writing The Shining, making it a highly personal work about the complex nature of substance use (On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, 2001). By the time he wrote Doctor Sleep, he had been in recovery for decades and used the work, at least in part, as a grateful love letter to Alcoholics Anonymous, dutiful sponsors, affected family members of people with alcohol use disorder, and anyone who is in recovery from addiction.

Had Dan followed in his father’s footsteps, Doctor Sleep would have been another entry in the extending cycle of violence that began in The Shining. Instead, Doctor Sleep serves as a celebration of avoiding the further heartbreak and pain Dan’s—and King’s—alcohol use disorder could have caused.

Life reflected art again during the production of the novel’s film adaptation, as director Mike Flanagan was also newly in recovery from addiction. It was a deeply personal project that has much in common with King’s relationship to the novel. Some of the cast and crew who worked on the film were also in various stages of recovery during the shoot, creating a purposeful atmosphere for film’s set that brought the novel’s intentions full-circle.