“SSDD”
Revisiting both Derry, the haunted town of IT, and the bodysnatcheresque Sci-fi tone of The Tommyknockers, Dreamcatcher is a rather extreme and often stomach-turning yarn about the events following the crash of a hostile alien spacecraft in New England. Most of the story is concentrated to one or two eventful days, but there are also a number of flashbacks to the main characters’ past, as a small gang of boys in Derry become friends with a strange boy called Duddits. Dreamcatcher swings wildly between black comedy, horror and moving drama, all these emotions skillfully juggled by a King writing in long-hand, since sitting by a computer was too physically painful after his accident in 1999.
There are a number of memorable characters here, such as general Kurtz, the alien Mr Gray and, above all, Duddits. Many of my favourite scenes involve an alien using the body of Jonesy, one of the main characters, as a vehicle, trying to get used to both this strange planet and unpractical human flaws like emotions and hunger, as Jonesy meanwhile, trapped in a “room” inside his own brain struggles to thwart the alien and his evil schemes. I have a theory that the “memory palace” of Dr. Lecter in Thomas Harris’s Hannibal inspired some of these strange and fascinating scenes.