Insomnia [B0504]

1994 HCDJ 1st edition in excellent condition. Ralph Roberts has a problem: he isn't sleeping so well these days. In fact, he's hardly sleeping at all. Each morning, the news conveyed by the bedside clock is a little worse: 3:15...3:02...2:45...2:15. The books call it "premature waking"; Ralph, who is still learning to be a widower, calls it a season in hell. He's begun to notice a strangeness in his familiar surroundings, to experience visual phenomena that he can't quite believe are hallucinations. Soon, Ralph thinks, he won't be sleeping at all, and what then?

A problem, yes - though perhaps not so uncommon, you might say. But Ralph has lived his entire life in Derry, Maine, and Derry isn't like other places, as millions of Stephen King readers will gladly testify. They remember It, also set in Derry, and know there's a mean streak running through this small New England city; underneath its ordinary surface awesome and terrifying forces are at work. The dying, natural and otherwise, has been going on in Derry for a long, long time. Now Ralph is part of it. So are his friends. And so are the strangers they encounter.

From recent Amazon/GoodReads reviews: "This was a surprise for me, very much a Stephen King novel that addresses aging, growing old and life after death. Very much an underrated read."; "Maybe King's best! Great stuff!"; "This is so far my favorite Stephen King book, it was kind of boring at some parts, but it was interesting as there were concepts about death and living that go against popular belief. I really liked the ending and it even made me shed a tear, great book overall." Note: some reviewers advised reading Dark Tower first: "You don't need to have read The Dark Tower to enjoy or understand Insomnia, BUT it does make a LOT more sense if you have, especially near the end."