October Stephen King Tribute Day 7: The Dead Zone

The Dead Zone was originally published in August of 1979.

Warning, the following review does contain spoilers.

School teacher Johnny Smith takes his girl, fellow school teacher Sarah Bracknell, to the fair. Johnny wins a lot at the Wheel of Fortune, but Sarah becomes ill from eating a hot dog. Johnny takes Sarah home and then takes a cab from there back to his house. Along the way, the cab is hit by two drag racers. The cab driver is killed and Johnny is thrown from the vehicle.

Johnny falls into a coma in the hospital. Sarah and his mother are devastated. Sarah eventually moves on with her life and marries Walt Hazlett. Johnny's parents never give up and continue to pay for his care, burning through everything they have. Sarah remains in touch with Johnny's father.

After almost five year, Johnny awakens from his coma. Johnny has trouble visualizing certain objects, the doctors attribute this to his having a damaged portion of the brain or a "dead zone". While meeting with his neurologist, Johnny goes into a trance and learns details about the doctor's mother that even he had no idea were true at the time. He continues to have several trances that result in visions.

Johnny becomes famous after a reporter does a piece on him for the news. People begin sending in requests for him to tell the future. He helps the Castle Rock police solve a series of murders. Johnny then takes an interest in politics. At a rally for a local politician, Johnny has a vision of the man becoming president and making a decision that leads to a nuclear disaster.

Obsessed with stopping this from becoming true, Johnny attempts to assassinate the man. He sets up with a rifle but misses the man several times. The politician grabs a child and uses it as a shield. Johnny is shot several times. he touches the politician and learns that the vision has changed. It seems a reporter caught the politician on camera using his shield.

The Dead Zone looks at a darker side of being able to see the future. Johnny is haunted by what he sees sometimes and does not want to have the visions. The threat of a nuclear disaster was somewhat more pungent at the time the book was first published.

There was a television series based on this novel starring Anthony Michael Hall. The series took quite a few liberties with the original story. It was a decent series, in my opinion, but I never thought of the novel and the series being the same at all.