Stephen King: Why I Wrote Shining Sequel

Character of Danny Torrance 'never left my mind,' he says
By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff
Posted Nov 13, 2013 3:25 PM CST
Stephen King: Why I Wrote Shining Sequel
Stephen King poses for the cameras prior to an autograph session during a promotional tour in France for his last book "Doctor Sleep" at a library in Paris, Wednesday Nov. 13, 2013.   (AP Photo/Francois Mori)

Why did Stephen King return to the world of The Shining 36 years later? The character of Danny, the psychic son of alcoholic writer-gone-crazy Jack Torrance, "never really left my mind," King revealed at the Paris book launch for Doctor Sleep, his recently published sequel to the novel. "I don't usually write sequels. When I get to the end of a story, I'm done with these people, not because I don't like them any more, but because I don't know what happens next," King said. But he found himself getting "curious" about Danny, and then ideas about what had happened to the character after the original novel ended "started to form in my head."

In Doctor Sleep, we find out Danny, too, is an alcoholic (as King was when he wrote The Shining; he's now recovering), the Telegraph reports. "I felt that because addiction is something that tends to run in families, I thought I would go ahead and let him be an alcoholic and see if he could do a better job than his dad," King explained. As for what actually scares King, he revealed, "I'm afraid of Alzheimer's. Declining mental ability, that scares the heck out of me." (More The Shining stories.)

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