The New York Times Book Review - Danielle Trussoni
…Revival is pure Stephen King. Like many of King's novels, it is filled with cultural allusions both high and low: In addition to the Bible and Frankenstein, there are references to Thomas Edison's work at Menlo Park, Dan Brown, The X Files, the "Forbidden Books" (that is, grimoires banned and burned by the Catholic Church) and particularly Ludvig Prinn's The Mysteries of the Worm…As the Kingian references pile up, and become layered into the events of the fictional world, you fall deeper and deeper under the story's spell, almost believing that Jamie's nightmarish experiences actually happened…Reading Revival is experiencing a master storyteller having the time of his life. All of his favorite fictional elements are at play—small-town Maine, the supernatural, the evil genius, the obsessive addict, the power of belief to transform a life.
The New York Times - Janet Maslin
…tenderly realistic despite its roots in horror and science fiction…Revival…finds [King] writing with the infectious glee that has always been at the heart of his popular success…[it] is a well-built book that unfolds on a big canvas…Revival winds up with the idea that to be human, you must know what it is to be inhuman—and to know that only this thin partition separates that horror from ordinary life. So it's not just a book that delivers its share of jolts and then lets the reader walk away unscathed. Older and wiser each time he writes, Mr. King has moved on from the physical fear that haunted him after he was struck by a van while out walking to a more metaphysical, universal terror. He writes about things so inevitable that he speaks to us all.
Publishers Weekly - Audio
02/02/2015
King’s new thriller begins in Maine the summer of 1962, when its narrator, Jamie Morton, at age six, meets a charismatic young minister named Charles Jacobs, who soon becomes something of a mentor. Years later, as Jamie pursues a career as an itinerant rock musician, he crosses paths with Jacobs, who is now working his way from carnival huckster to wealthy faith healer and has developed an obsession with the curative powers of electricity. Jacobs, aged, ill, and more than a little crazed, convinces a skeptical but curious Jaime to assist him in his ultimate experiment with a “secret” form of electricity that he believes will allow him to “tap into the secrets of the universe.” Screen actor Morse (The Green Mile) has a natural, down-to-earth delivery. His middle-aged Jamie narrates with a soft, knowing yet wistful voice as he recalls the happier days of smalltown life, his first paid job as a musician, his first romance. We hear his hope that Jacobs’s “secret electricity” will heal his addiction to heroin, and the fear and uncertainty prompted by the experiment’s nightmarish effects. Morse’s Jacobs, who initially sounds bright and witty and filled with charm, becomes a man distracted and unemotional. By the novel’s end, age and infirmity have slurred his speech. A Scribner hardcover. (Nov.)
People
A fresh adrenaline rush of terror from Stephen King…Maine, rock and roll, engaging characters and a pounding build to a grisly end – this is vintage King.
New York Times Book Review
As the Kingian references pile up, and become layered into the events of the fictional world, you fall deeper and deeper under the story’s spell, almost believing that Jamie’s nightmarish experiences actually happened…reading Revival is experiencing a master storyteller having the time of his life. All of his favorite elements are at play – small town Maine, the supernatural, the evil genius, the obsessive addict, the power of belief to transform a life…it is fun to map it all out, to experience King’s mind at work.
Tampa Bay Times
Revival buzzes with allusions to horror classics….Revival gives familiar themes—the relationship between science and religion, the fine line between grief and madness—new power. It’s King in electrifyingly fine form.
Cleveland Plain Dealer
All of the elements that have made King the preeminent American horror author come alive in this ultra-creepy tale of love, loss, evil and electricity…. Riveting.
Pittsburgh Post Gazette
As with most of his work Mr. King excels at capturing the small moments of the real world, the things that are human and common to everyone. This is a world we all know and recognize. It makes the darkness that lies just beyond our perception seem more real as well.
Boston Herald
Revival is easily his best work in years…fresh…an excellent, simply written story…filled with suspense and curiosity, it’s a one-day read for King fans.
Raleigh News and Observer
It’s a good, scary story, but it’s so much more. Every page is a treasure trove of detail about daily life in America, in the 1960s or whatever decade King’s story lights on. There are tiny stories within stories, and headlines, road signs, soapsuds, state fairs, storefronts … It’s pure poetry.
Miami Herald
This is King’s darkest novel in quite a while… King retains his aw-shucks accessibility and writes about addiction and shattered bones with the insight of personal experience… Revival is a wrestling match between faith and science, and watching King throw himself into that eternal theological debate within the context of a horror novel is fascinating. This is the sort of book he couldn’t have written when he was younger; it’s the work of someone who has lived a long life and experienced its highs and lows.
USA Today
Worshippers at the Universal Church of Stephen King have a lot to rejoice about with his latest literary sermon. Revival is a dark and haunting tale about old-time religion and one man's search for a mythic ‘secret electricity.’ At the same time it's an emotional and spectacular coming-of-age tale that spans 50 years of horrific tragedy and human redemption… Revival is often heartfelt, as characters deal with painful loss, and the author invests you wholly in the separate journeys of Jamie and Charlie as they arrive at their inevitable crossroads and a voltaic endgame. Say hallelujah, for the King has risen to the occasion once again.
New York Daily News
Revival is among King’s very best…tender, moving and terrifying.
Minneapolis Star Tribune
Revival is dark, disquieting and pretty horrifying, revealing a mind (the narrator’s, for sure; King’s, perhaps) searching for answers to life’s age-old questions about life and death.
Washington Post
Stephen King’s splendid new novel offers the atavistic pleasure of drawing closer to a campfire in the dark to hear a tale recounted by someone who knows exactly how to make every listener’s flesh crawl."
The New York Times
Revival finds King writing with the infectious glee that has always been at the heart of his popular success… Older and wiser each time he writes, Mr. King has moved on from the physical fear that haunted him after he was struck by a van while out walking to a more metaphysical, universal terror. He writes about things so inevitable that he speaks to us all.
Associated Press Staff
King fans won’t find anything to complain about here. At just over 400 pages it’s one of his quicker reads and any hint of the supernatural is blended with tender moments that ground the characters….If this is your first King novel, it’s not a bad choice. You don’t need to know anything about his oeuvre coming in, and if you like the writing style, there are dozens of other King books you’ll probably enjoy.
Library Journal - Audio
04/01/2015
When the new preacher, Rev. Charles Jacobs, comes to a small Maine town, six-year-old Jaimie Morton is the first to meet him. Their relationship will span decades and define much of Jaimie's life. King's juvenile characters and family relationships are always well defined, and the early chapters set during Jaime's childhood are especially compelling. The later parts incorporate King's love of music and revisit his recurring themes of obsession, mortality, and life after death. A chilling conclusion finishes off another fine tale, narrated in an effective performance by David Morse. VERDICT King fans will be delighted, and, despite supernatural elements, those who think of King as just a horror writer will be pleasantly surprised. ["King fans will rejoice that the horror master is back in fine form," read the starred review of the Scribner hc, LJ 10/15/14.]—Janet Martin, Southern Pines P.L., NC
DECEMBER 2014 - AudioFile
If you lose interest in this overwritten audiobook, don't blame narrator David Morse, who does his best to keep the story moving. Morse is such a good performer that the listener has no problem knowing who is speaking at any time, whether it’s a young boy, an old man, or a charlatan suffering from a minor stroke. Stephen King's latest novel is the story of a preacher who uses his knowledge of electricity to zap people’s brains and heal them, though many eventually suffer deadly side effects. That story is juxtaposed with the story of a heroin-addicted musician who met the preacher as a child. The story is dense. M.S.
Kirkus Reviews
2014-10-02
In his second novel of 2014 (the other being Mr. Mercedes), veteran yarn spinner King continues to point out the unspeakably spooky weirdness that lies on the fringes of ordinary life. Think of two central meanings of the title—a religious awakening and bringing someone back to life—and you'll have King's latest in a nuthouse. Beg pardon, nutshell, though of course it's madness that motivates all his most memorable characters. In this instance, a preacher arrives in a small New England town—always a small New England town—with an attractive wife and small child. Soon enough, bad things happen: "The woman had a dripping bundle clasped to her breast with one arm. One arm was all Patsy Jacobs could use, because the other had been torn off at the elbow." And soon enough, the good reverend, broken by life, is off to other things, while our protagonist drinks deep of the choppy waters of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll. "My belief had ended," Jamie Morton says, simply—that is, until Rev. Jacobs turns up in his life again, after having spent time at the horrifying North Carolina amusement park that is Joyland (for which see King's 2013 novel of the same name) and mastered not just the carney's trade, but also the mysterious workings of "secret electricity." Well, as Victor Frankenstein learned, electricity can sometimes get away from a fellow, and though young Jamie pleads with the bereaved pastor to get himself back on the good foot ("The newspapers would call you Josef Mengele." "Does anyone call a neurosurgeon Josef Mengele just because he loses some of his patients?"), once it sets to crackling, the secret electricity can't be put back into the bottle. Faith healing run amok: It's a theme that's exercised King since Carrie, and though this latest is less outright scary and more talky than that early touchstone, it compares well. No one does psychological terror better than King. Another spine-tingling pleasure for his fans.
