‘Sleeping Beauties’ (Hodder & Stoughton, 2017) is not a typical Stephen King novel. For one, King shares a writing credit on this project with his son, Owen King. The book is also firmly rooted in a modern political landscape. The elder King, whose success in the late 70s and 80s marked him as a mouthpiece for the fears and anxieties of the baby-boomer generation, now turns his eye to millennial concerns in this new release.

Both Kings seem eager to engage with the current tumultuous social climate – ‘Sleeping Beauties’ is inscribed, “in remembrance of Sandra Bland”, one of the many African-Americans whose death in police custody invoked international outrage. The novel’s premise is ostensibly an exploration of gender politics. The outbreak of a mysterious virus causes all the women in the Appalachian town of Dooling to fall asleep indefinitely – and become violent if awoken. What follows is a battle of the sexes that explores the differences between men and women.

Whether the Kings engage successfully with these themes is debatable. It seems unnecessary for them to throw their wealthy, white, male hats into the feminism ring, especially at a time which engaging discourse about feminism written by women is relatively widespread, and much more interesting. ‘Sleeping Beauties’ devolves into a derivative, diet-Orange Is The New Black. The Kings tell us that “hard right conservatives on talk radio were proclaiming the virus as proof that God was angry with feminism,” and expect a pat on the back from their readers for knowing that this argument is baseless. Perhaps it’s King’s myopic, baby-boomer mindset that thinks this is somehow revelatory, but most of us in 2017 have moved on to more nuanced discussions of feminism and women’s rights. Unfortunately, the Kings’ outlook feels dated, especially bolstered by the fact that the very premise of the novel enforces a gender binary; when “women” fall asleep, we are presumably expected to assume this means “everyone with a vagina,” an antiquated idea in a society beginning to appreciate a wider gender spectrum.

If the Kings’ goal was to craft a socially-conscious story, they failed – but they also failed to create a compelling story overall. The sprawling cast of characters hampers a narrative that lacks tension to such a degree that I thought I had fallen into the same coma as the women of Dooling. This is not an enjoyable book.

Rating: ●○○○○