Life was good for Johnny Smith. A year out of college, he was excelling with both students and his bosses teaching high school in small-town Maine and things were starting to get serious with another young teacher named Sarah Bracknell. The couple went on a sweet date to a local fair and things got even better: they exchanged I love yous, Sarah was ready to go all the way with Johnny and Johnny was able to use his strange sense of ESP to win hundreds of dollars at the carny version of roulette. Whether it was Johnny's mental theatrics or the carny hot dog she ate, Sarah soon grew sick and the couple postponed their plans for late-night entertainment. Johnny dropped her off at home and then promptly got in a car accident.
Five years later, Sarah's married with a baby, Johnny's mother has entered the world of religious extremism and Johnny is just waking from his coma with a newfound gift of being able to tell people's future by touching them. Word spreads about his new talent and he hides out with his father while he recuperates. Until, that is, he is approached by local police and winds up solving a case of a serial rapist/murderer, which puts him back on the media map.
Again Johnny escapes, this time to New Hampshire, where he gets a job tutoring the learning disabled teenaged son of a wealthy businessman. Johnny's still a good teacher and grows close with the family, and when he uses his powers to save his young student, he again loses his anonymity.
As we're getting to know the pleasant and good-hearted Johnny, we're also meeting his counterpart in Greg Stillson. When we first meet Stillson - back when Johnny is still a boy - he's a door-to-door Bible salesman who murders family pets for fun. Later on, he develops a successful real estate business in New Hampshire and climbs the corporate and political ladder using some tactics (blackmail, threats, physical violence) that aren't exactly exemplary. By the time Johnny's tutoring in the same state, Stillson is running as a renegade third-party candidate to his district's national seat in the House.
During the political season, Johnny gets in the habit of shaking hands with politicians to see what he might find out. Other than a chance encounter with Jimmy Carter, who he learns will soon be President, he doesn't see much until he meets Stillson. What might be in store for him?
I read this book ages ago and liked it, but this time, I liked it so much more. I don't know if it's because I'm older and can appreciate the goodness of Johnny, the badness of Stillson and the dangers of political powers or if I just didn't give it enough of a try, but it really hit me as a great read. It's not like a lot of Stephen King's books - there is no monster (at least no non-human ones) and while Johnny's abilities are certainly supernatural, they aren't over-the-top like Carrie White's.
Frankly, the supernatural undertones, while a big part of the story, are not the whole story. The real question is, are assassins ever right? If you could go back in time and kill Hitler before he ever did anything wrong, would you? You take the story at the surface - regular guy who some people think is crazy takes on a beloved, popular rising politician - and you think you know who the protagonist and antagonist are. But Johnny's utter likeability (perhaps the most likable main character in a King book yet, Johnny doesn't even get bothered when he learns how Sarah's life has moved on since his coma) and Stillson's innate evilness turn that on its head. Plus, there's a lot of comparisons to be made between Stillson's made-up third party and the Tea Party fiasco currently happening in the U.S., almost to the point of freakiness.
Anyway, I don't know that I would have thought The Dead Zone would be a book I'd recommend quickly to someone before, but I certainly do now. For those who are turned off by King's goblins and monsters, who prefer The Green Mile and The Shawshank Redemption to It, this might be a good place to go.
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