i remember as a kid reading Insomnia by Stephen King and at one point the male protagonist is like, “stupid women (read: bitches, cunts, etc). why did they automatically trust and let the lady into the women’s clinic/DV shelter and not me!!!” and then at some other point he starts talking about the boner he’s getting about one of the perceived lesbian women from the clinic. peak male behaviour.
It seems unreasonable to think I was finishing up Nightmares & Dreamscapes yesterday morning and a little over 24 hours later I am back, having just finished one of King’s longest novels, Insomnia, in one cycle of sleep. But here I am. Let’s get into it.
I suppose I wasn’t kidding that I was ready for a novel but I didn’t realize how hungry for this story it was. Or maybe call it boredom - 3 day weekends with 95+ degree temperatures don’t lend themselves to my pasty irish ass spending any time anywhere other than the couch.
I knew little of this story headed in. Actually a little embarrassed to say I thought it somehow related to the Christopher Nolan movie of the same name. Once I cracked the spine and read the teaser copy, I knew this was not true. Also, I was worried. Really, really worried. Exhibit A:
Ralph Roberts is seeing some strange happenings in Derry, Maine.
He sees auras around human beings that show him the horror threatening them.
He sees a nice young research chemist like Ed Deepneau turn into a savage wife beater.
He sees Charlie Pickering with blood in his eyes and a gleaming knife in his hand.
And he sees three little bald doctors in the homes of the dying - and he begins to suspect who they really are.
No wonder Ralph stays awake all night. You would too.
INSOMNIA
“JFC, if I’m stepping into another Tommyknockers I’m going to scream” I said to the cat, who was chasing a bug around the hotel room and has no fucking clue what the Tommyknockers are. Little bald men. Aliens for sure, right?
Well I was, thankfully, wrong in my assumptions. Making an ass outta u & me, or however that old saying goes. I’ve complained before about whoever is responsible for writing these teasers, deceiving readers into believing that Gerald’s Game was a spooky bedtime story, Pet Sematary scared King himself, or that Insomnia is about a dude with, well, insomnia.
In reality, this book is as close to a Dark Tower book as it could get without actually being one. I’d rack it against The Talisman in Dark Tower adjacency, and although not as an enthralling tale as The Tailsman, a good chapter in the mythology all the same.
Ralph Roberts, a senior citizen residing in our favorite vacation destination, Derry, Maine, loses his wife to cancer and spills into a depression as one would do when your companion of 45 years is snuffed out of the living. What begins as minor bouts of insomnia quickly evolves into an inability to catch more than 2 hours a night. As someone who has suffered from depression-induced insomnia and sleep paralysis, a terrifying phenomenon I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy, I feel for Ralph. Sleep deprivation is no joke, even if you’re awake watching Arrested Development for the 400th time at 3am. Ralph’s understandably exhausted, and assumes his mind is going when he starts seeing brightly colored auras surrounding humans, objects, street lights, you name it.
(Side story: Once I went on a date with a guy who - after I expressed discomfort in discussing the difference between irony and paradox 5 minutes into our first date - told me I had an unclean aura. I told him to go fuck himself (certainly something someone who’s aura is a little dirty would say) and he gathered his coat and left without a word. Anytime someone mentions auras I can’t help think of this guy - do you think he ever found a gal with a nice looking aura and the ability to discern the difference between irony and paradox? We will never know.)
In any case, Ralph does find himself a lady by the name of Lois, who in fact, does have a real pretty aura. And turns out she’s caught the insomnia and can see the auras too, along with other things that most humans can’t process. Turns out insomnia in Derry can flip a switch to entering worlds that aren’t our own.
Without going too far down the rabbit hole that is the plot of this novel (which squarely lies in the top ten of longest King tomes - say that 10x fast), Ralph and Lois team up on a quest against evil, as so many of King’s protagonists do. I was obviously committed to learning how it ended as I stayed up past my bedtime last night and reached for my paperback copy before I had even poured myself a cup of coffee this morning.
The key conflict in Derry of 1994 revolves around a war between pro-lifers and pro-choicers over a feminist speaking in town about women’s rights. Probably the hardest part of this story to swallow - the realization that 25 years later we’re still having the same argument in America with similar violent and tragic results.
This book is not without it’s faults - King called it “stiff & trying too hard” which is pretty accurate. It is way too long. It reads like a first draft that probably needed a stronger editor hand (or two or three) before publication that it just did not get. King’s ability to paint a picture in your mind is, as always, on point; but the writing describing the aural states seem to clog up the storytelling every ten pages or so. The initial painting of these ethereal halos was beautiful; after the 15th or so description they were just in the way. The use of italics for dialogue was distracting; I had to work to keep my eyes from skimming to the dialogue lines and ignoring the rest of the text on the page.
But it also had so many of my favorite things. For one, the connections to other King stories was strong in this one. Like when I am watching Castle Rock, it makes me feel like an insider to notice the little things that connect King’s worlds together. Like a hipster that listens to a band “before they were cool” - don’t you hate those people? Yeah me too. But here we are.
Derry, and all it’s history covered in depth in the pages of IT is rehashed here. We have mentions of the sewers, the Black Spot Fire, the post-Pennywise storm of 1985. The darkness that hangs over this town lingers, even though we were hoping that the Loser’s Club vanquished the darkness in the mid 80s.
Because something else dark is connected to Derry. The Dark Tower lore sits squarely and open here; we see Roland in children’s drawings and travel between worlds like in The Drawing of The Three. We also are introduced to The Crimson King; the guardian of The Dark Tower, Roland’s adversary and ruler of the highest level. He appears here in our world first as Ralph’s dead mother then as a catfish. I mean, IT was a clown living in a macroverse created by a barfing turtle, so I guess that all makes sense. We also learn Ralph and Lois’s quest is to save a young boy named Patrick Danville, who we’re told is very important in the land-o-the-tower. God, I can’t wait to get to the fourth Dark Tower book.
Other than the obvious references to IT and the DT books, we get a quick mention of the untimely death of Gage Creed in Ludlow. There is also a mention of “Aunt Sadie” in Dallas, and my mind wandered to lovely Sadie Dunhill of 11/22/63. I don’t know if King had the foresight (or the initial manuscript) to reference a character that wouldn’t hit the bookstores for another 17 years, but if so, Bravo Mr. King. Bravo.
By far my favorite photo of King that I’ve randomly stumbled upon on the internet.
My remaining questions are really around the nature of Derry - how can Pennywise and The Crimson King exist (in whatever universe) in or around Derry, without bumping into each other? Why so much evil in this one little town? Are they somehow connected? Are they the same person? Like my friend that claimed my aura needed a good washing, we may never know.
7/10
First Line: No one - least of all Dr. Litchfield - came right out and told Ralph Roberts that his wife was going to die, but there came a time when Ralph understood without needing to be told.
Last Line: And she saw, the long white scar on his right forearm was gone.
Adaptations:
None to speak of - another one of King’s works that’s been discussed in depth but never pushed into any kind of actionable development. All the best I think - a movie version could very easily veer into LSD trip territory.
Stephen King is supposed to scare me witless. Instead I am nearly moved to tears at the ballad of life, growing old, and death that Insomnia is turning into. This is writing. This is glorious.
