Sound Waves: "Revival" by Stephen King

Sound Waves: Revival by Stephen King, 2014, downloaded from Wisconsin Digital Library.

I finished this book a month or more ago and never got to completing my notes.

The first King book I have read or listened to in a long while. Nothing scary or spooky much happens until a third of the way into the novel. After that introductory scariness there was not much more until the finale. No chills and thrills for me but the story is entertaining and provides memorable characters. But, I could take or leave it. 

Short: Lifelong rhythm guitarist kicks drugs and fights evil.

Long: Jamie Morton grows up in small town Maine and as a seven-year-old (or so) becomes pals with the new minister in town. Charles Jacobs, his pretty wife, young son, and fancy car move into town and replace the church's aging fill-in. Jacobs and his wife are popular. The boys fall for Mrs. Jacobs and the girls for Minister Jacobs.

Mr. Jacobs has a fascination with electricity and building electrical devices is his favorite past time. When one of Jamie's brothers suffers an injury and loses his sense of hearing - or speaking, I don't recall, Jacobs hooks the kid up to his new device and the device cures him. Or, it seems that way. Jacobs thinks it Jamie's brother was psychosomatic anyway.

Not long after that "healing" Mrs. Jacobs and the Jacobs's son die in a car wreck. Minister Jacobs goes off the deep end and is fired after delivering a sermon that famously strays from orthodoxy. Jamie continues to grow up, fall in love with music, and start playing rhythm guitar in a high school band. Life goes on and Jamie moves from band to band. After a bad motorcycle accident Jamie gets hooked on pills and stays sober enough to join one touring band after another.

A few years later Jamie is stranded in Oklahoma and sees the image of Mr. Jacobs on an advertisement for a magic show at the state fair. He goes and visits Jacobs. Jacobs takes Jamie to a workshop. Jacobs zaps Jamie with a device and cures Jamie's drug cravings.

Things go on. And on. And on. And on. (This is a King novel after all.) Jamie runs into Jacobs on occasion and decides Jacobs is insane. Jacobs, in turn, is brilliant and driven and cares little for anyone he harms with his experiments.

King brings everything back around by united long separated characters and putting them back in Maine. The End.

Comments:
1. King has a daughter who is either a minister, or married a minister, or both. I've not read many King novels but religion has been a part of several of the ones I have. I wonder if the family was religious when the children were growing up.
1.A. I don't actually wonder too much. Hell, I mostly don't give a rat's ass, I just thought about it.