Doctor Sleep

Doctor Sleep is a 2013 horror novel by Stephen King. It is a sequel to the events that occurred in King’s popular novel The Shining and features the return of Danny Torrance. Decades after the horrors at the Overlook Hotel, Dan Torrance must now reckon with the renewed threat of the spirits. When the novel begins, the dead woman from the Overlook’s Room 217 has returned and threatens Danny in his bathroom. King uses this jumping off point to examine themes of shame, alcoholism, mentorship, and cycles of violence.

This guide references the 2013 paperback edition.

Content Warning: This guide details depictions of alcohol use disorder, violence, and murder. This guide also mentions pedophilia and sexual abuse of a child, as well as the death of a child and violence towards children.

Plot Summary

As an adult, Dan Torrance has an alcohol addiction. He helps his mother as best as he can, but when she dies, he is alone. Dan travels the country aimlessly for a long time, working occasionally and drinking often. He eventually settles in New Hampshire, where he becomes a hospice worker with a special talent for helping terminal patients pass on peacefully. With the help of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), Dan seeks recovery from his addiction. However, this removes the buffer that guards his psyche from the intrusions of the malevolent spirits.

The story of a young girl named Abra Stone, who is eventually revealed to be Dan’s niece, runs concurrently with Dan’s narrative for the first part of the novel. Abra also has the shining, which is much stronger than Dan’s abilities. She and Dan begin communicating through their ability, long before they meet. Abra has always demonstrated paranormal abilities, to the concern and bewilderment of her parents, Lucy and Dave Stone.

After Abra witnesses a boy being tortured to death, she and Dan become entangled with a sinister cult of vampire-like beings who call themselves the True Knot. They feed on the essence—which they call “steam”—of children. The more steam a child has, the greater their shine is. The True Knot are vagabonds who travel in RV caravans. They abduct children and torture them because pain increases the potency and life-prolonging effects of the steam. Their leader is a beautiful, sadistic woman known as Rose the Hat. Rose becomes fixated on Abra because she thinks they could keep her alive and feed on her indefinitely, given her great strength. This would allow them to stop moving, and Rose is tired of life in a convoy.

When the members of the True Knot begin catching the measles, they hope that Abra’s steam will cure them. They are weakening, which makes them more vulnerable to diseases that they would not have caught in the past. Abra bands together to fight the True Knot and avenge the children they killed with Dan, her father, Billy Freeman, and her doctor, John Dalton. During a shootout at a rest area, they manage to kill several of members of the True Knot. Abra delights in gloating and tormenting Rose.

Late in the novel, Abra’s great-grandmother, Concetta, reveals that Dan is Lucy’s half-brother, meaning that Dan is Abra’s uncle. After helping a woman named Eleanora pass on, Dick Hallorann, Dan’s deceased mentor, speaks through her body and gives Dan advice about fighting the True Knot.

After more unsuccessful attempts to catch Abra, the two groups have a final showdown in Colorado at an RV campground that stands at the site of the former Overlook Hotel. Dan releases the steam of Concetta that he has been harboring, which has been making him ill, and it kills the members of the True Knot. He also summons the ghost of Horace Derwent, a ghost that tormented him at the Overlook. Derwent stops Silent Sarey, the final member of the True Knot other than Rose, just before she can attack them.

Abra and Dan push Rose off a viewing platform, killing her. Dan sees the specter of his father on the platform before they leave. Jack blows him a kiss and Dan returns it. 

Years later, Dan celebrates his 15th year addiction-free, as well as Abra’s 15th birthday. He tells the AA group about his greatest shame, which he has never been able to talk about. While drunk, he took $70 from a woman named Deenie while she was passed out. Her toddler, Tommy, saw him do it. The boy was playing near a pile of cocaine.

Dan uses his final conversation with Abra to caution her about the cyclical nature of violence, anger, and alcohol. He goes to the hospice to help a man named Carling pass on, even though they were formerly at odds with one another.