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640 pages, Hardcover
First published January 28, 1977
I write about writers because I know the territory. Also, you know it's a great job for a protagonist in a book. Without having to hold down a steady job, writers can have all sorts of adventures. Also, if they disappear, it's a long time before they are missed. Heh-heh-heh. 鈥� from anJack Torrance is a writer as well as a teacher. The play that Jack is writing undergoes a transformation that mirrors Jack鈥檚 own. In fact, there is a fair bit or mirroring going on here. Jack鈥檚 affection for his father as a kid was as strong as Danny's is for him. His father was an abusive alcoholic. While Jack is not (yet) the monster his father was, he is also an alcoholic with abusive tendencies.
I never had a father in the house. My mother raised my brother and I alone. I wasn鈥檛 using my own history, but I did tap into some of the anger you sometimes feel to the kids, where you say to yourself: I have really got to hold on to this because I鈥檓 the big person here, I鈥檓 the adult. One reason I wanted to use booze in the book is that booze has a tendency to fray that leash you have on your temper鈥or a lot of kids, Dad is the scary guy. It鈥檚 that whole thing where your mother says, 鈥榊ou just wait until your father comes home!鈥� In The Shining, these people were snowbound in a hotel and Dad is always home! And Dad is fighting this thing with the bottle and he鈥檚 got a short temper anyway. I was kind of feeling my own way in that because I was a father of small children. And one of the things that shocked me about fatherhood was it was possible to get angry at your kids. (from the EW interview cited in Extra Stuff)He鈥檚 right. I have had the pleasure and I know. Wendy gets some attention as well, as we learn a bit about her mother, and see Wendy鈥檚 fear that she has inherited elements of her mother鈥檚 awfulness.
Redrum.
Murder.
Redrum.
Murder.
(The Red Death held sway over all!)
The Written Review![]()
Just published featuring this book and two others!
Check it out to figure out which ones rock and which is the dud! With special guest - Tucker Almengor!
鈥淪ometimes human places, create inhuman monsters.鈥�The Overlook Hotel - gorgeous and isolated - is in need of a winter caretaker.
鈥淲endy? Darling? Light, of my life. I'm not gonna hurt ya. I'm just going to bash your brains in.鈥�So this one was pretty dang good but gosh-dang did I get lost at times.
鈥淭his inhuman place makes human monsters.鈥�
鈥淗is temper was like a vicious animal on a frayed leash. 鈥�
鈥淗ow else could you explain the things that had happened to him? For he still felt that the whole range of unhappy Stovington experiences had to be looked at with Jack Torrance in the passive mode. He had not done things; things had been done to him.鈥�
鈥淎nd yet, through it all, he hadn鈥檛 felt like a son of a bitch. He hadn鈥檛 felt mean. He had always regarded himself as Jack Torrance, a really nice guy who was just going to have to learn how to cope with his temper someday before it got him in trouble. The same way he was going to have to learn how to cope with his drinking. But he had been an emotional alcoholic just as surely as he had been a physical one.鈥�
鈥淭his inhuman place makes human monsters.鈥�
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鈥淒ear God, do old scars ever stop hurting?鈥�