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Saturday 14 January 2012 at 10:58 | By: Amandine Ronny Montegerai

The Dead Zone (novel)




Author(s) Stephen King
Country United States
Language English
Genre(s) Horror
Publisher Viking
Publication date August 1979
Media type Print (Hardcover)
Pages 428
ISBN 978-0670260775
Preceded by The Stand
Followed by Firestarter




The Dead Zone is a horror novel by Stephen King published in 1979. It concerns Johnny Smith, who is injured in an accident and enters a coma for nearly five years. When he emerges, he can see horrifying secrets but cannot identify all the details in his "dead zone", an area of his brain that suffered permanent damage as the result of his accident. Much of the novel is played out against the historical backdrop of the 1970s. It has been suggested that the story might be based on self-proclaimed "psychic" Peter Hurkos, who received a head injury in a fall from a ladder, and afterward claimed to be able to know things about people by touching objects that belonged to them, psychometry. The Dead Zone was nominated for the Locus Award in 1980.[1]
The book is dedicated to King's son, Owen: "This is for Owen. I Love You, Old Bear."


Plot summary

In 1953, a young boy named Johnny Smith suffers an accident while ice-skating; while recovering he mumbles "Don't jump it no more" to an adult on the scene. A few months later the adult is seriously injured while jump starting a car battery. Two years later in an unconnected incident in Iowa, a young door to door Bible salesman named Greg Stillson, suffering emotional issues and dreaming of greatness, vindictively kicks an aggressive dog to death.
The story skips to 1970. Johnny is now a teacher. After eerily winning repeatedly at the wheel of fortune with his girlfriend Sarah, Johnny is involved in an accident on his way home and is in a coma for 5 years. On waking, Johnny finds that he has suffered neural injury, but on touching people and objects he is able to tell them things they did not know - in this way he knows a nurse's son would have successful surgery, states a mother believed dead is living in Carmel, California, tells his old girlfriend that her lost wedding ring was in her suitcase pocket, and later recounts the story behind a watch owned by a skeptical reporter. Johnny receives an offer to resume teaching but begins to suffer from severe headaches. Local media maliciously print a story denouncing his clairvoyance as phony, but this brings him relief and the hope he can resume normal life - a hope broken when he is contacted by the local sheriff desperate to solve a series of murders including that of a child. His extra sense provides enough detail to identify the killer, who commits suicide and leaves a confession.
Stillson, now a successful businessman and elected mayor of Ridgeway, still suffers from his emotional problems. Asked to "straighten out" a friend's teenaged nephew for wearing an obscene t-shirt, he sets the shirt on fire and terrorizes the youth with a broken bottle, threatening to kill him if he tells anyone. Some time later he decides to run for the House of Representatives, blackmailing a local businessman into raising funds for him.
Johnny loses his teaching role due to being controversial and begins tutoring a young man named Chuck. He also takes up an interest in politics, and becomes concerned when he watches a rally for Stillson. Later on, Johnny meets presidential candidate Jimmy Carter and shakes his hand. Having another clairvoyant incident, he tells Carter that he is going to be president. Johnny then makes a hobby out of meeting politicians to see their futures. At the invitation of Chuck's father, Johnny attends a rally for Stillson and on touching his hand has a horrific vision of an older Stillson as President but causing a massive, worldwide nuclear conflict.
Johnny's health starts to worsen. He contemplates how he might prevent Stillson's presidency and compares the matter to the question whether one would kill Hitler in 1932 if time travel were possible. Eventually, he concludes that the only certain way to avoid the terrible future he has seen is assassination, but procrastinates, rationalizing this by doubt in the vision he has seen, abhorrence of murder, and belief there is no urgent need to act at the moment. As Johnny continues to contemplate the matter, he has another vision and warns Chuck not to go to the graduation party because the facility is going to be struck by lightning and burn down. Chuck's father agrees to host an alternative party for Chuck and other students, but their party at home is interrupted by news of a lighting strike and many deaths at the original venue. Johnny also learns that the FBI agent investigating Stillson has been murdered with a car bomb.
Johnny learns that his headaches and blackouts are due to a brain tumor and that without treatment he only has a few months left to live (although we do not learn this until the epilogue). Johnny takes the fire at the party as a warning, that he knew the fire would happen but had not taken it seriously enough and as a result people had died. Realizing that he won't live much longer whatever he decides, Johnny refuses surgery and buys a rifle to shoot Stillson at the next rally.
At the rally, Stillson begins his speech and Johnny attempts to shoot Stillson, but misses and is wounded by Stillson's bodyguards. Before he can fire again Stillson grabs a young child and holds him up as a human shield. Johnny pauses, unable to shoot, and is shot twice by the bodyguards, falling off the balcony and fatally injuring himself. A young photographer successfully photographs Stillson using the child as a shield, a picture that it is implied destroys Stillson's political future when published. Dying, Johnny touches Stillson a final time but feels only dwindling impressions and knows that the terrible future Stillson would bring around as President has been prevented.
A Senate committee (chaired by real-life Maine Senator William Cohen) investigates Johnny's attempt to assassinate Stillson. Sarah has a brief moment of psychic contact with Johnny's spirit at his grave and drives away comforted.

Published editions

Adaptations

Film

Main article: The Dead Zone (film)
In 1983, the novel was adapted by screenwriter Jeffrey Boam into a film of the same name, starring Christopher Walken as Johnny and Martin Sheen as Greg Stillson, and directed by David Cronenberg. While changing various details, the film manages to maintain the somber tone of the novel, as Johnny's power causes him to become increasingly withdrawn and isolated.

Television

References

  1. ^ "1980 Award Winners & Nominees". Worlds Without End. http://www.worldswithoutend.com/books_year_index.asp?year=1980. Retrieved 2009-07-22. 

External links