Sunday, September 25, 2005

Re-reading "The Dead Zone"

Does anyone remember what on earth the lightning rod salesman has to do with anything else in the whole friggin' book? His name is Andrew Dohay, we meet him on page 83 (Signet, 1980) in a bar called Cathy's, where the proprietor declines to buy any lightning rods. He climbs in his car and apparently departs the story on page 86. The scene is written from the seller of lightning rods' point of view.

I'm now on page 316. About a hundred pages ago, I started to wonder what ever happened to the guy. I'm right on the verge of having to stop reading and backtrack to see if I missed anything.

6 comments:

Lori A. Basiewicz said...

Yes, I do, but I recently loaned my copy to someone, so you will have to tell me where you are in the book (other than the page number which could vary according to the copy anyway) before I can tell you if you've reached the point where you should realize the significance of that otherwise odd and seemingly out-of-place little incident or not. If you don't want to spoil the read for anyone else, IM or e-mail me.

ohdawno said...

Dangit, I have way too many things I need to FINISH reading and now I just have to go find my copy of The Dead Zone and re-read it!!

WTOTW said...

I've never read TDZ, but could Stephen King be paying tribute to the lightning-rod salesman in Something Wicked This Way Comes?

Mac said...

*headsmack* Of COURSE he was! I feel so dumb to have overlooked that.

Thanks! That answers a huge question about that scene, which completely makes sense as an homage--which King likes to do.

Anonymous said...

Hey, it's not only the homage, near the ending his private student Chuck and his friends want to do their graduation party in the "Cathy's" where four years ago the proprietor declined buying lightning rods. Johnny has a vision of the restaurant burning down and the students being killed, and half of the students are saved by staying away from that restaurant.

Mac said...

Anon, yes - there's that long scene with the salesman character, though, that otherwise is rather odd.