It’s official. Stephen King is writing a sequel to “The Shining.” The project was originally announced in 2009, and the new sequel is said to be titled “Dr. Sleep.”
“The Shining” which is regarded as one of King’s signature stories, became popularized in our popular culture thanks in part to Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 big screen adaptation.
The announcement of “Dr. Sleep” was made on his website, and an excerpt was even read by King at George Mason University over the weekend.
According to a tentative description King gave back in 2009, “Dr. Sleep” takes place 40 years after “The Shining,” and stars an adult Danny Torrance who now works with dying patients in a hospice facility. Danny uses his powers to help his patients pass on to the other side. There are also suppose to be a group of traveling vampires called The Tribe who are able to suck energy from “special people” like Danny.
From King’s official website:
It’s now official–Stephen is working on Dr. Sleep, the sequel to The Shining. This weekend Steve read an excerpt from this at his appearance at George Mason University. They have given us permission to post their taping of the event here on Steve’s site which we will do as soon as we receive the file. Dr. Sleep’s plot includes a traveling group of vampires called The Tribe which is part of the passage he read from.
Here’s what King had to say during his appearance at GMU:
This is an idea that I’ve had for some time. I wrote a novel in the ’70s called The shining… I always wondered what happened to that kid, Danny Torrance, when he grew up… and this story started to form. The book isn’t finished yet, it’s called Dr. Sleep. This kinda goes back to: what’s the worst thing you can think of? I knew that there were bad people in this story that were like vampires, only that what they sucked out was not blood, but psychic energy from special people like Danny Torrance. And I came to realize that these people were called The Tribe and that they move around a lot. Their leader is a woman called Rose [unintelligible] they all have these kinda pirate names, because pirates is sort of what they are.