Skip to content

Sleeping Beauties

Sleeping Beauties

DystopianHorror
Pages
702
Published
2017
Language
English

Synopsis

Imagine a world where every woman who falls asleep becomes encased in a mysterious, cocoon-like gauze. If disturbed, these sleeping beauties awaken as feral, violent beings. In a small West Virginia town, one woman, Evie, seems immune, sparking both fear and hope among the abandoned men. As society crumbles, a sheriff fights to stay awake while the sleeping women prepare to open their eyes to a new, terrifying reality.

Prose complexity
5/10

Vibe

DarkTenseGrittyMysterious
SurvivalMultiple POVsMorally GreyFamily Saga

Genres

Dystopian Horror Science Fiction Thriller Fantasy Mystery Paranormal Suspense Post-Apocalyptic

Authors

S
Stephen King

Stephen King (born September 21, 1947) is an American author whose work has defined popular horror fiction for more than half a century. Born in Portland, Maine, he grew up in poverty after his father abandoned the family, and credits his mother's resilience and a voracious reading habit as the foundations of his imagination. He began selling short stories to men's magazines while working as a high school English teacher, and published his first novel, Carrie, in 1974—his wife Tabitha retrieved...

Characters

Lila NorcrossProtagonist
EvieAntagonist
Frank GearyAntagonist

Dooling's animal control officer turned deputy; a volatile, self-justifying man whose escalating actions during the crisis put him in direct conflict with Clint Norcross.

Garth FlickingerSupporting

A plastic surgeon and meth addict whose grief over his institutionalized daughter drives his drug use during the crisis.

Janice CoatesSupporting

The no-nonsense warden of the Dooling Correctional Institute for Women, who fires Don Peters for sexual harassment and works closely with Clint.

All characters in Sleeping Beauties

Frequently asked questions

  • How does this book connect to Stephen King's other works?

    Sleeping Beauties is a standalone novel and does not feature characters or settings from Stephen King's other established universes. It explores themes of societal breakdown and the supernatural, which are common in his bibliography, but within a unique narrative.

  • Is this book a collaboration or did one author write more than the other?

    This novel is a true collaboration between Stephen King and his son, Owen King. They developed the concept and wrote the story together, with both contributing significantly to the narrative and character development.

  • What is the premise of Sleeping Beauties?

    Co-written with Owen King and published in 2017, Sleeping Beauties imagines a world in which all women fall into a mysterious sleep whenever they close their eyes—cocooned in a white fibrous growth and transported to a parallel, women-only world. If the cocoon is disturbed, the woman wakes in a feral, violent state. The novel follows the small town of Dooling, West Virginia, as its men struggle to maintain order with half the population asleep.

  • Does Sleeping Beauties have a definitive ending?

    The novel provides a complete and resolved narrative arc for its central conflict. While it explores profound societal changes, the main storyline reaches a clear conclusion by the end of the book.

  • What is the 'other place' the sleeping women inhabit?

    Women who fall asleep find themselves in a peaceful, verdant version of Dooling unpopulated by men. Over the course of the novel, they build a functioning community—making decisions about whether to return to the world of men when given the choice. The parallel world raises the novel's central question: if women could leave entirely, would they?

  • Who is Evie Black?

    Evie Black is the novel's central enigma—a woman who appears in Dooling at the moment the sleeping sickness begins and, mysteriously, is the only woman immune to it. She is arrested and held in the county jail, where the town's men come to see her as either the cause of the plague or the key to ending it. She is supernatural in ways the novel leaves deliberately ambiguous.

  • How did Stephen and Owen King collaborate on Sleeping Beauties?

    King has said the collaboration grew from a conversation with his son about what the world might look like if women disappeared. They exchanged drafts electronically, each writing sections independently and then revising the other's work. He has noted that the collaboration was more seamless than expected and that it was often difficult to remember who had written which passages in the final draft.

Read all 3 reviews