Jamie joins a band at the University of Maine, dips into dope, and then harder stuff.

Very few writers in America know how to evoke this country’s love of the do-over so well as King. This is largely because Jamie turns into the kind of man who needs a renewal every now and then. He straps Conrad into a chair, hooks him up to a voltage machine, zaps him, and his ability to speak returns.įor the rest of “Revival,” these twin incidents - the pastor’s renunciation of his faith and Conrad’s miraculous recovery - hang over Jamie’s meandering life with a strange, mesmerizing potency. When medical avenues are exhausted, Jacobs offers to help. Jamie’s brother Conrad loses his voice for unknown reasons. Jacobs, wild with grief, renounces his faith on the pulpit and is subsequently chased out of town.īefore he leaves, Jacobs does something remarkable. Not long after they have this conversation, Jacobs’ wife and son die in a hideous car accident.

It’s a strange way for a churchman to teach faith, but it turns out Jacobs doesn’t have much of it to share. The pastor instantly shows Jamie the track on which the figurine travels. The highlight of the diorama is the moment when a motorized Jesus walks across a tiny lake. He merely misses his family - having moved to begin his new job ahead of them - and brings Jamie over to play with a kind of train set he uses to demonstrate the power of electricity. Jacobs isn’t a predator, at least not one of a sexual sort. Just when a reader expects this novel to go someplace sadly familiar, it takes a fork in the road.

Revival stephen king plot