The Shining
by Stephen King
Summary
Recovering alcoholic Jack Torrance takes a winter caretaker job at the isolated Overlook Hotel, hoping the solitude will help him write and repair his troubled family, but the hotel's malevolent history begins working on his fragile sanity while his young son Danny's psychic gift reveals the horrors hidden within its walls. King draws on his own struggles with addiction to give Jack's descent into violence a devastating psychological grounding beneath the supernatural terror. The novel became one of the defining haunted house stories in American fiction and later inspired a celebrated film adaptation.
Historical Context & Significance
The book predates the Bram Stoker Award, which the Horror Writers Association would not establish until a decade later in 1987. King's reputation as a master of horror was already well established among readers well before any formal genre prize existed to honor his work.