One of the greatest storytellers of our time introduces the supernatural into his tales with varying degrees. Some of his stories are, literally, out of this world; others are more subtle. This divergence is what originally kept me away from Stephen King. I don’t revel much in the fantastical, although even in the fantastical tale where the plot might make your head spin, the writing, the sub plots, and the character development across Stephen King’s vast body of work is superb.
King’s Under the Dome (2009) follows this more subtle approach with the introduction of a single, seemingly supernatural event followed by a cascade of storylines of real human beings behaving in real human ways. Is this book Science Fiction? Fantasy? Call it what you will…the only thing it is to me is Stephen King and his mind-bending and genre-defying storytelling.
A massive transparent and seemingly impermeable dome isolates a New England town from the rest of the world; and while the rest of the world is concocting all manner of human ingenuity and idiocy to crack it open, the most dramatic events occur within as the air becomes more difficult to breathe and the inhabitants grow testy. Let’s call this one a “locked-town mystery.”
When the dome came crashing down around the wonderfully-named town of Chester’s Mill, Maine, many were trapped inside, others were left outside, and a few unfortunate souls, both man and beast, were caught in-between. Dome Day had arrived.
Invisible at first, as things began crashing into the dome, the remnants of the wreckage were left suspended in mid air, or so it seemed. Among the debris in several cases were remains of those driving on what appeared to be the open road and those flying through what looked to be the open sky.
While the story carries out over eight harrowing days, King’s marvelously crafted tale goes on for over 1000 pages. Five of those include a map of Chester’s Mill and a comprehensive list of the story’s cast; a handy reference site as the story’s many avenues of small town intrigue unwind.
As is true in other circumstances that collectively challenge a group of humans with scarcity, fear, and doom, Under the Dome’s goodhearted characters seek solutions while the naturally wicked seek opportunity and exploitation.
And most commonly, when confronted with the supernatural, Stephen King characters struggling to understand, often seek out religious and spiritual explanations. Leading the charge in Under the Dome is a pleasant minister who seriously questions her own faith while still hoping to guide her flock and a self-flagellating leader of Christ the Holy Redeemer Church speaking of the End Times while secretly stashing birthday suit fashion magazines.
One of a small handful of protagonists is Iraq War veteran Dale Barbara, whose fate was sealed only seconds before the dome fell, as the cute lady in the pickup truck slowed down but then sped away while he was failing to thumb his way out of town. This brief moment locked “Barbie” in as the truck headed out. (BTW, it takes a few pages to see in the mind’s eye that Barbie is a grizzled war veteran and not a… well… you know…)
The baddest of the bad guys in this one is a Trumpian used car salesman whose obligatory sycophants wreak havoc; and this, in 2009, is where Stephen King seems to have seen what was coming even as Barack Obama was only in his first year in office (or, maybe, what happened under the dome, and what is happening to us all now, is simply that product of human nature so debased by a shared inexplicable challenge when no proper leader is at hand).
Other characters include an honorable police chief whose pacemaker doesn’t respond well to Dome proximity and his dutiful wife who steps up big; the owner and editor of the local newspaper who runs around with Barbie while still trying to put out a special edition to unite the town; a 13-year-old genius and his skateboarding pals; a cast of troublemakers who end up with badges and guns; a librarian whose special skills add nuance to the stories as they develop; a chicken farmer, dairy farmer and two supermarket managers; a National Guard colonel who is a friend of Barbie’s; a graying, out-of-town, hippy professor and his daughter-aged grad student girlfriend; two volunteer teenaged nursing assistants who defy the stereotypes of teens in the 2000s; a dentist who accepts only cash; an Oxycontin addict and a town drunk who both rally late; three dogs named Horace, Clover, and Audrey; and a partridge in a pear tree.
As much as you are intrigued by this diverse cast of characters, spoiler alert: they don’t all make it to the end.
Other presences in Under the Dome are standard Stephen King fare; a methamphetamine lab and accompanying large cache of weapons; several huge propane tanks; an old-school roadhouse; a beautiful face disfigured by a thrown stone; a funeral home with questionable standards of body-care; and several human corpses in varying degrees of decay. I told you this one is over 1000 pages, right?
Great effort is taken to destroy the dome while the most interesting struggles are those that try to understand it. The single supernatural event that sets off this tale clearly has a supernatural explanation; but even here, the mystery is explored through the clear lens of human morality. And this might be Stephen King’s greatest gift; reeling off a wild story while reminding all of us that more often than not, we all seem to be our own worst enemies.
Perhaps the most significant realization to me was that, once the crazy notion of a dome falling over a town sets the stage, it eventually becomes clear that this scenario is not so fantastical after all. Cut off from the electric grid, all these many adventures take place while fossil-fueled generators hum in the background. After three or four days of this in the enclosed town, the air becomes acrid, those with respiratory deficiencies fail first, and finally, everyone comes to realize that if the dome mystery is not solved soon, everyone is going to succumb to the poisoned air. Sound familiar?
Of course, we already live in a bubble ourselves; that paper thin living space surrounding the rock we call home. We just don’t spend too much time thinking about it while despoiling it in a slow-motion reality that needs no supernatural intervention. In the end, and this seems to be Stephen King’s most enduring message… Chester’s Mill, Maine and its dome are us.
