Stephen King on his game in new novel, Under the Dome

Posted Nov 11, 2009 by Kevin Walker

Updated Nov 11, 2009 at 04:37 PM

Back in the late 1970s, when I was becoming a teen and Stephen King was becoming a dark fantasy legend, he and I began a relationship that has never really flagged. It started because I picked up my sister’s copy of ‘Salem’s Lot. That was quickly followed by Carrie, The Shining and then, let us all pause in reverence, The Stand.

That era of King is worth mentioning because King’s new novel, Under the Dome, finds him back in epic fantasy mode, before all the short story collections and Misery and long series like The Dark Tower. It’s a mode that suits him, allowing for two things he does exceptionally well: the big “what if?” scenario and the small details that make his characters so real.

The latter is a gift for which King does not get enough credit (and why I still remember things like the fact Trashcan Man burned Old Lady Semple’s pension check). It’s the reason “Under the Dome” is both a crazy-good thriller and moving, because by the time bad things start happening (and they do, often) you’re involved because you have come to know the characters so well.

The cast is so huge it requires an index in the front of book, and — at 1,000 pages — King spends plenty of time with many of them. You’ll want to pay attention, too, because bit players become major players in unexpected ways.

The premise is this: the residents of a small Maine town called Chester’s Mill wake one day to find the entire town has been encased inside a force field. The blood flows early as people slam into the invisible barrier and the dome’s weird energy causes electrical gadgets to explode.

The questions throughout the book are: who put the dome there? Why? Will it ever go away? As temperatures rise and plants and animals begin dying (there are obvious environmental themes here), the answers to these questions become imperative.
But King is more interested in how the town’s residents react under stress. The line between heroes and villains is clearly defined. This is especially true of the main villain, “Big” Jim Rennie, a town selectmen who uses the crisis to make a power grab, and his “police force” of wayward young men (including his murderous son).

But King also humanizes them. For example, there’s a whole section in which Rennie reveals his love of women’s basketball and how one player in particular influenced his thinking. That’s not what you expect from a stock villain.

His heroes — led by a former Army captain, a newspaper publisher and a physician’s assistant — are flawed, and King gradually gives us background information about each that will end up becoming very important in the end.

As usual, no one does crazy like King. In the same vein as the legendary Trashcan Man, “Dome” has The Chef, a drug lab operator and Jesus freak who, like Trash before him, sets in motion apocalyptic events through the use of explosive devices. King’s also sly about the references, and alert readers will notice a certain crow who shows up to observe what’s happening.

The novel already has drawn comparisons to “The Stand,” but that’s not quite right. It’s more like a really good episode of “Lost,” or a “Lord of the Flies” with adults rather than children. It’s also an affirmation that King remains one of his generation’s greatest storytellers.