The Shining: How this book still scares us 50 years later

Perched high in the Colorado Rockies, the magnificent Overlook Hotel stands as a tribute to a bygone era of decadence. Its gilded chandeliers, plush tapestries and sweeping mountain views radiate an allure so enchanting, it might just take your breath away – permanently. As the snow begins to fall, and the last guests depart for the season, the Overlook welcomes its new caretakers: Jack Torrence and his wife, Wendy, and their young son Danny, arriving from Boulder Colorado to guard the hotel through the long, isolated winter.  

For me, the unsettling and eerie Overlook Hotel felt a little too familiar. When I picked up The Shining by Stephen King, I was working as a night auditor for a rather run down hotel, in Columbus Ohio. It was the kind of place you booked because it was cheap, but not necessarily because you wanted to stay there. It was a behemoth of a hotel, with décor left over from the early 90s. As a night auditor, I was typically the only person in the building and since the job only took about 45 minutes to complete, I was left with 7 hours to do whatever I wanted, so I read. For reasons I cannot explain, I chose to read a book about a haunted hotel.

The Shining is a masterpiece. Even through the lens of Stephen King’s usual quality of work, this book stands out as uniquely and horrifically classic. Part of what makes this book, and King’s writing so enduring, is his ability to take extraordinary situations and inject a deep humanity into them. On the surface, this is a book about a haunted hotel, but it goes so much deeper than that. We see a family on the verge of total collapse after years of hardship.

The story opens with an exposition detailing how Jack Torrence came to be in the office of the general manager of The Overlook. We learn that he is a writer, and teacher, from Vermont who struggled with alcoholism, and mental issues, that caused him to lose his job after he struck one of his students and broke his own son’s arm. He isn’t a hero, and King doesn’t intend for him to be one. He’s just a man who pulled himself back from the break and wants to try and build a better life for his wife and son. The readers get a sense that he is excited about this new chapter, and the opportunity to write in the peace and tranquility of the isolated mountains.  To Jack, this job represents a lifeline that he desperately needs to rebuild his fractured life. However, from the moment the Torrences arrive at the hotel, insidious supernatural forces plot against them by using the psychic abilities of little Danny to reveal glimpses of the Overlook’s violent and bloody past. As Jack settles into his role as caretaker, it becomes obvious that the hotel is not just haunted, it’s hungry and the weaknesses of its inhabitants are the main course. For Jack, it’s his fragile grip on sobriety and the rage that comes with it. For Wendy, it’s the constant fear of what will happen if Jack goes off the deep end again. For Danny, it’s the powerlessness of youth as it bombards his mind with images so horrific that no one, let alone a child, should ever have to see. King, masterfully, brings the readers along as pressure builds within the family and Jack is pushed further and further into madness. The gradual shift in Jack’s personality is written exquisitely. In the beginning of the story, we see a flawed but sympathetic character who is trying desperately to make up for his sins. Even as readers see him become a pawn of the demonic hotel, there is sympathy to be had for him until he is at the point of violent rampage. To further compound the atmosphere and horror, the author takes the hotel setting and makes it a living entity. He writes of endless winding hallways, and creepy topiary gardens, and the infamous room 217. The snowstorm that traps the family on the property isn’t just weather, it’s a control device by the hotel to isolate them from the outside world so they are totally at the mercy of the monsters within the hotel. 

The Shining is a must-read book for fans of horror literature and even those who simply enjoy a good book. Stephen King pulls no punches as he dives deep into themes of isolation, addiction, and the cycle of abuse and leaves readers in a state of utter shock by the end of the novel. Reading this book in my own isolated hotel setting gave me true awareness for how powerful King’s storytelling is. He doesn’t just scare you – he makes you think.