by Steven Chevalia

Created on: July 08, 2009

Dreamcatcher is one of Stephen King's best works. It might seem odd opening an article with such a bold statement, but this statement is not so bold as it may seem at first. Dreamcatcher is one of Stephen King's best works because within Dreamcatcher, Stephen King writes about himself. Most of Stephen King's works reflect his own insecurities, fears, or inner-workings, but none of them do it to the magnitude of Dreamcatcher.

In his non-fiction work, On Writing, Stephen King ends the feature section with a shocking statement: "Writing is not life, but I think that sometimes it can be a way back to life. That was something I found out in the summer of 1999, when a man driving a blue van almost killed me." (King, 254). Dreamcatcher is what brought Stephen King back to life and it is one of his most compelling and fact driven stories.

The main character, Jonesy, is hit by a car at the beginning of the novel. This seems like an odd place to start, crippling the main character. Yet, it is through this horrific event that Jonesy is able to survive through the horrors that take place later in the novel.

The majority of the novel takes place in a camping area a couple miles out of Derry, a famous fictional town of Stephen King's. Jonesy and his three best friends have gone hunting at a remote cabin called Hole in the Wall, a place they've been going to most of their lives once a year in November. The novel follows these four friends as they experience an alien invasion, a commander who tries to play God, and the true strength of friendship.

The foundation of Dreamcatcher is the binding friendship between the four lifelong friends and the strange connection they all have to a mutual acquaintance of theirs, whom they all bonded with as children. His name is Duddits, and through his mental abilities, the friends learn that they are anything but normal. Stephen King begins to explore, as in most of his works, the realm of the supernatural through linking together the four main characters and Duddits.

This binding friendship is what holds this novel together. The relationships between the five main characters constantly change and morph as they experience the events that change their lives together. Stephen King creates characters that grow on you and that grow with you as they grew with Stephen King while he was recovering from the near fatal injury he subjected his main character to as well.

Stephen King created another masterpiece by pulling his personal experience and transferring his thoughts into the minds of his characters. If you want to read one of Stephen King's finest works I would suggest Dreamcatcher right alongside The Stand and On Writing. This is a novel that focuses on the binds of friendship and the horrors that can be overcome when friends work together.

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