Book · 1994
Insomnia
A widower's sleepless nights open his eyes to auras, and to a war fought for the fate of one small life.
- Year
- 1994
- Kind of horror
- Psychological, Cosmic, Small town
Insomnia does the maddest thing with the ordinary misery of not being able to sleep: it turns it into a way of seeing. Ralph Roberts is a retired widower who's stopped sleeping properly, and the less rest he gets, the more he starts noticing things nobody else can. Auras. Threads. The bits of the world that are usually kept hidden from people who sleep like normal humans.
It's set in Derry, Maine, King's town for the stories that like to reach into each other, so if you've been there before in his other books, you'll recognise the streets even while the ground is shifting under them. What starts as one tired man losing his grip slides into something much bigger, a proper cosmic tug of war that Ralph gets pulled into whether he likes it or not.
This is one for a slow, thinking sort of dread rather than jump scares. Cocoa, a lamp on, and the patience to let it build. Perfect for the night you can't sleep either.
If you like this, try
'Salem's Lot
A writer goes home to Jerusalem's Lot and finds the neighbours have started keeping very strange hours.
Another
A new pupil meets a mysterious classmate, then finds his class caught up in a string of terrible deaths.
Bag of Bones
A grieving writer retreats to an isolated lake house, where writer’s block and delusions make solitude frightening.
Carrie
A telekinetic teenager's revenge after a cruel prom night prank turns Chamberlain, Maine into a nightmare.