#3 Issue: A Hotel In The Mountains

Hello and welcome to the third issue of A Story for the Week!

The story of the week is The Shining, a horror novel, by one of the best-known American authors, Stephen King.

The Shining was inspired by King’s stay at The Stanley Hotel in nearby Estes Park, Colorado after Carrie and 'Salem's Lot. He and his wife, Tabitha, were the only two guests in the hotel in September 1974, and they were staying in room 217. But this isn’t the only inspiration for the book. King himself has struggled with alcoholism, and according to the author, this was “a kind of self-psychoanalysis.”

As you probably know from Stanley Kubrick's movie, The Shining tells the story of The Overlook Hotel and the Torrance family which moved there because Jack Torrance became the hotel’s caretaker for the winter. Even though the movie is a great watch and it does the book justice, it falls short in depicting Jack Torrance’s background, his struggle with alcoholism, and how this all impacts the relationship he has with his family.

For Jack Torrance, becoming The Overlook’s caretaker is far more than just a job—it’s a new start, an opportunity for redemption for his alcoholism, losing his past job as a teacher, and breaking his son’s arm in a fit of drunken rage. At first, Jack is clearly trying to mend the clearly fragile relationship with his wife Wendy, and son Danny. However, this idyll is soon broken up as Danny, who “shines” and has psychic abilities of clairvoyance, premonitions, and mindreading, starts seeing atrocious ghosts, shades, and figures of the past. Thanks to his powers, Danny can resist the influence of Overlook, but his father can’t. Jack Torrance is carrying the burden of alcoholism, and the inability to forgive himself for his past sins, and, from there, we see a textbook example of descent into madness.

The Shining, unlike the past two stories featured in The Story for the Week, doesn’t come with this flowery, fancy language that sends shivers down your spine and makes your head dizzy. In fact, the language that King uses is very much down-to-earth and straightforward, like in most of his books. But what makes King a great writer isn’t the mastery of words, it’s the mastery of character building. All characters in The Shining get their time under the spotlight and the stories they tell, the memories they relive, come back later in one shape or form. For example, early in the book, we find out how Jack used to chew pills to cure his hangover, and he starts doing that in the Overlook Hotel, even though he didn’t drink any alcohol at that moment.

A lot of horror stories, especially in this day and age, want you to fear for your own life and the life of the characters. They are far more aggressive, in your face, and evoke fear with graphic scenes of murder, chases, and torture. The Shining is far more subtle, you slowly descend into the madness, and even though you fear and cheer for your characters, you can’t help but feel compassion for Jack. The build-up, although a bit on the slower end initially, is on point. You aren’t suddenly plunged into the heat of madness, but it’s creeping up on you, just like the Overlook Hotel, and you can’t leave.

The Shining is a novel (and a movie) that will redefine your idea of horror. Written with a grounded tone and simple sentences that hit home, this book slowly instills a sense of eeriness and uncanniness inside of you. But that’s not all, it makes you wonder how much of Jack’s sins you are guilty too. The characters are real, maybe all too real, and you can track back each of their decisions to past experiences and clear motivations.

As usual, I’ll leave you with a couple of quotes from The Shining to convince you to pick the book up:

“She had never dreamed there could be so much pain in a life when there was nothing physically wrong. She hurt all the time.”

“You know, schizoid behavior is a pretty common thing in children. It’s accepted, because all we adults have this unspoken agreement that children are lunatics.”

“Once, during the drinking phase, Wendy had accused him of desiring his own destruction but not possessing the necessary moral fiber to support a full-blown deathwish. So he manufactured ways in which other people could do it, lopping a piece at a time off himself and their family.”

Once again, thank you for subscribing to my newsletter and helping me achieve my dream of becoming a stay-at-home writer. Your support means the world to me and, honestly, it gives me a reason to continue doing this.

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