It’s still mid-February, and the East Coast of America is caught somewhere between Winter Storm Maximus and Winter Storm Niko, neither of which proved to be the Storm of the Century. The official first day of spring is over a month away; in the snowy doldrums of late winter, March 20th has never seemed further away. Yet the readers among us, trapped inside due to office closings and school closings and sick days, seem to sense a different sort of storm on the horizon. Stephen King’s novel, Doctor Sleep, remains a presence on the hardcover New York Times bestseller list, a full eighteen weeks after it debuted at #1 – a stunning success for a chart that seems to showcase King books briefly, then spit them out. This is an auspicious omen: despite the snow and the subzero temperatures, it feels as if the Spring of King has already begun.
Recently, King announced that the mass-market paperback publication of Under the Dome was underway, split into two volumes due to its massive page count. Dome Part One arrives on the 25th, just as February gives way to March. Exactly a month later, the conclusion – Under the Dome Part Two– hits paperback shelves, giving readers plenty of time to finish the book before the TV series’ June 30th season two premiere.
Also getting a second – and third – life is King’s 2013 summer smash, Joyland. Back when Hard Case Crime originally published the novel, King made the somewhat controversial decision to publish exclusively in trade paperback. At the time, King stated, “I … loved the paperbacks I grew up with as a kid, and for that reason, we’re going to hold off on e-publishing this one for the time being. Joyland will be coming out in [trade] paperback, and folks who want to read it will have to buy the actual book.” Some readers who preferred eBooks took umbrage with King’s choice of publication (though, to be fair, some readers also took umbrage at King only publishing stories like “Ur” and “Mile 81” exclusively digitally). In late January, King announced that, this April, he’d be rewarding e-readers for their patience: “[N]ow that Joyland is coming up on its second year, I'm … happy to bring it out as an eBook for people who prefer reading that way.”
But the eBook is only the beginning of bringing Joyland to 2014: like Under the Dome, King’s nostalgic crime novel will finally come to mass market paperback. “Joyland is a look back at a long-gone time,” King said, “and I wanted people's initial experience of the book to be like my experiences reading crime stories when I was growing up, back when a book was always something made of paper and ink and glue. I'm thrilled that Hard Case Crime is going back to its roots with a paperback edition that'll fit in your jacket or the back pocket of your jeans.” These statements recall King’s romantic paperback notions upon the release of his serialized novel, The Green Mile. Will this new release of Joyland, appearing in stores on May 27th, replicate that book’s runaway success – or that of its own larger-format counterpart from last summer? Only time will tell.
All this reprint news – one release per month – only amps up the excitement for something brand-new. For the first time since 2011, we get a new hardcover novel that is not a sequel, prequel, or midquel: King’s bloody Mr. Mercedes slams into stores June 3. At a relatively slim 448 pages, Mercedes looks to be a swift, dark finale in the Spring of King, opening the door into summer with an obsessed ex-cop and a few gruesome vehicular murders. King’s last summer hardcover novel was Rose Madder, way back in 1995, and it didn’t exactly burn up the charts. However, the recent overwhelming popularity of 11/22/63, Doctor Sleep, and last summer’s Joyland paperback juggernaut point toward a successful, exciting run for Mr. Mercedes.
But that’s not all!
As a bonus, Scribner, King’s publisher, finally released information about his other 2014 hardcover novel, Revival:
From master storyteller Stephen King comes Revival, a spectacularly dark and riveting novel about addiction, religion, fanaticism, and what might exist on the other side of life.
In a small New England town more than half a century ago, a boy is playing with his new toy soldiers in the dirt in front of his house when a shadow falls over him. He looks up to see a striking man, the new minister, Jamie learns later, who with his beautiful wife, will transform the church and the town. The men and boys are a bit in love with Mrs. Jacobs; the women and girls, with the Reverend Jacobs — including Jamie’s sisters and mother. Then tragedy strikes, and this charismatic preacher curses God, and is banished from the shocked town.
Jamie has demons of his own. Wed to his guitar from age 13, he plays in bands across the country, running from his own family tragedies, losing one job after another when his addictions get the better of him. Decades later, sober and living a decent life, he and Reverend Charles Jacobs meet again in a pact beyond even the Devil’s devising, and the many terrifying meanings of Revival are revealed.
King imbues this spectacularly rich and dark novel with everything he knows about music, addiction, and religious fanaticism, and every nightmare we ever had about death. This is a masterpiece from King, in the great American tradition of Frank Norris, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Edgar Allan Poe.
Evocative stuff. In a 1989 interview with W*B (the Waldenbooks newsletter), King stated, “I’d like to write a novel about an evangelist, not necessarily an Elmer Gantry novel, but I’d like to write about religion.” Once again, King’s recent obsession with returning to old ideas and unpublished work and bringing them to fruition seems at work here (as King’s 1978 attempt at Under the Dome finally saw the light of day in 2010, and his aborted 1973 novel Split Track eventually became 2011’s 11/22/63.)
It doesn’t seem likely that Revival will appear in July – there’s no confirmed release date yet – meaning that Mr. Mercedes will probably end King’s streak of book-length work released each month … and the Spring of King. But who knows what the summer will bring? New short stories, new poems, new eBook essays? It’s a whole different season for King to make his own.
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Under the Dome: Part One is due to be released February 25, 2014
Under the Dome: Part Two is due to be released March 25, 2014
Joyland eBook is due to be released April 8, 2014
Joyland mass market paperback is due to be released May 27, 2014
Mr. Mercedes hardcover, eBook, and audiobook are due to be released June 3, 2014
Revival will most likely be available as a hardcover, eBook, and audiobook later in 2014
Kevin Quigley is an author whose website, CharnelHouseSK.com, is one of the leading online sources for Stephen King news, reviews, and information. He has written several books on Stephen King for Cemetery Dance Publications, including a book on comics and Stephen King, Drawn Into Darkness, as well as Chart of Darkness, Stephen King Limited, 13, and co-wrote the recently released Stephen King Illustrated Movie Trivia Book. His first novel, I’m On Fire, is forthcoming. Find his books at cemeterydance.com