Title: Revival

Author: Stephen King

Date of First Publication: 2014

Place of Publication: Scribner

Type: Novel

Characters: No Character

Themes: ANDROID; MAD SCIENTIST/MONSTER; BYRONIC HERO

Critical Summary: Stephen King’s Revival is about Jamie Morton and his encounters with Charles Jacobs throughout his life. Everyone is excited about the new pastor, Charles, and his family when the move to town; Jamie is six and Charles Jacobs is in his twenties when they meet. A skiing accident leaves Jamie’s brother mute and seeing the family’s despair, Charles Jacobs experiments with science to bring Conn’s voice back. The experiment is a success and Jamie feels gratitude and a new respect for Charles; however, a car accident takes the life of the pastor’s wife and child leading him to denounce God in one of his sermons. He is fired and leaves town.

We learn more about Jamie, his love for music, and his first love, Astrid. As an adult, Jamie is a musician and a junkie. Fired by his band, he is stuck in the middle of nowhere and stumbles into a carnival where he finds Charles providing entertainment fueled by electricity. Jamie is cured and no longer feels addicted to heroin. Years later, the pastor resurfaces as a spiritual healer claiming to remove cancer, blindness, and any other physical disability. He is successful, but Jamie is skeptical given that Charles Jacobs no longer believes in God and the fact that Jamie experienced side effects from his cure. In his seventies, Jacobs asks Jamie to assist him in his science experiments like the old days. Jamie refuses because there is a pattern of cured patients that have committed suicide or murdered people close to them. Jamie is forced to help when he finds out Astrid has cancer and is seeking treatment from Jacobs. Although she is cured, she later stabs her partner and kills herself. For his last experiment, Jacobs does not plan to heal anyone but uses a dead woman as the key to communicating with the afterlife. Jacobs seeks to know what happened to his wife and child. She tells him there is no such thing as heaven or reward for living a good life. Death is just where the dead are infinitely enslaved by Mother. Mother comes alive as a monster through the dead woman’s body and tries to attack them. Jacobs has a stroke and dies, but Jamie shoots her. The novel ends with Jamie living in Hawaii to be closer to his brother Conn, who has killed his partner. Jamie copes in therapy and wonders if he’ll murder too since he was cured by Jacobs.

Revival is similar to Frankenstein because it celebrates the mad scientist theme through the Pastor who is meddling with science and people’s mortality. Although it seems like he is doing it for the better of mankind, the Pastor hides behind false idols, maintaining focus on his own agenda. We find out at the end that he practiced his science experiments to satisfy his own curiosity of what happens after death. That and his desire to know what happened to his wife and son. Just like Victor Frankenstein, Charles Jacobs is a scientist willing to put other people’s lives at risk for the desire to know more about life beyond death. The pursuit of knowledge is what drives him to play God and step out of his boundaries. The Android theme forces us to question what is human. We are presented with people who have escaped the grim reaper, or so they think, but their demise is just postponed. This novel makes readers wonder if it is better to live life with a disease or extend life with no idea of when the end will come, with a ‘two deaths for the price of one’ deal.

Administrative Notes: Trish Martinez, CSUF; Beck Serna (editing)