Depending on what you want, there are two ways to read Stephen King's The Dead Zone.

If you want to read of the individual exploits of John Smith, which include his county fair date with new girlfriend Sara, a four-and-a-half year coma, the death of his mother, a re-acquaintance with his father, and then with the now-married Sara, as well as everything that follows, then read The Dead Zone in spurts, a chapter here, a chapter there, but take your time.

If, however, you want to read the story of John Smith and to see how his character develops over the course of the story, meeting him as a general everyday guy, see the world pass him by while he rests in his hospital room for almost five years, and then see him grow into a man willing to give in and take responsibility for a terrible thing that only he knows will happen, then read The Dead Zone as straight through as possible. The hardcover edition is 426 pages, so it'll take a few days no matter how dedicated you are, but for the full effect of who John Smith is, you must read this book in as few sittings as possible.

The Dead Zone is, as we all know--and if we didn't before, the TV series is doing a good job of telling us--the story of John Smith, the stereotypical everyday guy, right down to his name. He's a high school english teacher just starting what promises to be a bright career. He's got a new girl who's falling in love with him, and the world seems to be unfolding in front of him. Then a cab ride home, and the drag racing kids coming the other way, slam Johnny into the black of a fifty-five month coma, from which he awakens to find everything different. His aging parents are under great strain, both in their marriage and financially from supporting John during his coma. The war that had been such big news in 1970 when he took that cab ride is now over and the country is recovering in its own way. And when John finds that Sara has moved on, married, and has a baby, he thinks things couldn't get worse--until he discovers his power to know things just from touching someone. His doctor touches him, just a casual touch, and John knows immediately that the man's mother is alive and living in California. No big deal, except the doctor had thought his mother died during the Nazi invasion. But John assures him she's alive, well, and in the night she dreams of the son she sent off to safety so long ago. He can't see everything, there are parts, small details that he can't see--because they're in the dead zone, that part of his brain that was damaged in the crash--but he can see enough.

Unsure of this new gift, the doctor looks her up in California, calls her number, and then hangs up before she knows who's calling. Some things, he tells John, are probably better left unfound.

John tries to move on, get his life back in order, and slip back into obscurity. He's got a teaching job lined up and he and Sara have made their peace. But when a new problem in the form of serial killer Frank Dodd comes into the picture, Johnny's anonymity is shot. He solves the crimes, but loses his job in the process.

Jump ahead a few years and John has a new teaching job, even though his classload consists of one student, the son of a rich businessman. The son's got a reading phobia and John has to help him through it. During his tenure there, John picks up the habit of attending political rallies, shaking hands with the political prospects and seeing what he can see, if anything. No one provides anything good, except for presidential hopeful Jimmy Carter, and even then the only thing John knows is that Carter will be the next president. Things are going along pretty smoothly with his job and the "divining" (although none of the candidates know that's what he's doing, to them, he's just another handshake in the crowd) until he attends a rally for House of Representatives candidate Greg Stillson. What Johnny sees when he shakes Stillson's hand frightens him so bad he passes out.

When he wakes, he begins his information-gathering. If what he saw when he touched Stillson is the future, John has to do something because if he doesn't, the ghosts of all the people he doesn't save will haunt him until the day he dies.

That, in a nutshell--albeit a long-winded nutshell--is the essence of The Dead Zone. So let's get past the plot and talk about the book itself a little bit.

This was, surprisingly, Stephen King's first number one bestseller, and I find that amazing because of all the books I'd expect to sell the most copies, it wouldn't be this one. I find it difficult to comprehend that a book like The Dead Zone outsold Carrie, 'salem's Lot, The Shining or even The Stand. Not to discredit The Dead Zone but the other novels were better and more deserving of the bestseller status. To be honest, there's really not even anything in The Dead Zone King hadn't already done.

John Smith would be the fourth character in a King novel to have a psychic power (preceded by Carrie White, Danny Torrence, and Randall Flagg). He would be the fourth character in a King novels to be a teacher (preceded by Ms. Desjardin in Carrie, Jack Torrence in The Shining and Nadine Cross in The Stand), and The Dead Zone would be the second book with political overtones, following The Stand. The only difference this time is that someone put a stop to the madness before the apocalypse. Even the character of John's overly-religous mother is a retread of Carrie White's mother AND Mother Abigail from The Stand. So why does The Dead Zone get the honors of a number one bestseller? To be honest, I don't know.

Personally, I think any of the four earlier novels were much better. It's sometimes hard to even see The Dead Zone as a real novel and less a collection of things that happen to one character. The first hundred pages of the book deal with John and Sara's date, then all the things that happen during the four-and-a-half years John is in his coma, how Sara and John's parents deal with the time. The second hundred pages are John learning his powers and the world after hi long absence. The third hundred pages are the Castle Rock strangler case and John getting on with his life, taking the teaching job with Chuck Chatsworth. The last hundred pages are the Stillson story and how John deals with that. Granted, King sprinkles Stillson throughout the novel, showing his rise to power here and there, but it's never really a story about John and Stillson until the last hundred pages, and even then, it's no longer so much about Stillson as it is what John Smith chooses to do about what he knows.

Maybe he meant it to be a novel with a moral lesson, that old thing about if you could go back to 1932 Germany, would you kill Hitler? John asks that question himself, a few times, and gets a few different answers, but it's Chuck, his student, who finally gives him the answer he was looking for all along.

"Would they catch me?"
"Pardon?" That was a question none of the others had asked.
"If I killed him. Would they catch me? Hang me from a lamppost? Make me do the funky chicken six inches off the ground?"
"Well, I don't know," Johnny said slowly. "Yes, I suppose they would catch you."
"I don't get to escape in my time machine to a gloriously changed world, huh? Back to good old 1977?"
"No, I don't think so."
"Well, it wouldn't matter. I'd kill him anyway."
"Just like that?"
"Sure." Chuck smiled a little. . . . "If I didn't, I'd be afraid all those millions of people he ended up killing would haunt me to my grave."

So maybe that was King's point, but I think he could have done it in a different, less wordy manner. Granted, at 426 pages, The Dead Zone is still a LOT shorter than most of his later novels, but it could have been even shorter. The first hundred pages could have been told in 50 or 75, John's waking and discovery of his powers could have been another 75, the Castle Rock strangler case, while a great part of the book could have been shortened. I mean, if it's not the main story, or even a big part of it--it's not until later with Chuck Chatsworth that John realizes what he sees in the future CAN be changed--then don't spend so much time on it. I think he could have gotten to his point in a much cleaner, much quicker way if he'd just not dwelled so long on trying to make John a real person for the reader, because John is already so well-portrayed in the early chapters, that we believe in him almost from the beginning anyway.

The Dead Zone was a good follow-up novel, but I don't think it deserved to be King's first number one. For me, in the long list of King novels, it's just another book.

Recommended: Yes