Letter from the Archive: Stephen King’s “Harvey’s Dream”

Like many stories in The New Yorker, “Harvey’s Dream” takes place in Connecticut. That said, Stephen King’s Connecticut is very different from John Cheever’s. As the story begins, Janet Stevens is in her kitchen, making hard-boiled eggs on “a summer morning in late June.” Her husband, Harvey, is also there—a sixty-something guy in a T-shirt and boxers, a little worse for wear. (“He looked like what the goons on ‘The Sopranos’ called a mope,” Janet thinks.) She’s ruminating about how well she sleeps in summertime, when, because of her allergies, she and Harvey sleep in separate beds. Then Harvey pipes up. He had a bad dream last night, he says; in fact, “I screamed myself awake.” He continues:

“I was screaming words, but I wasn’t really able to say them. It was like … I don’t know … I couldn’t close my mouth around them. I sounded like I’d had a stroke. And my voice was lower. Not like my own voice at all.” He pauses. “I heard myself, and made myself stop. But I was shaking all over, and I had to turn on the light for a little while. I tried to pee, and I couldn’t. These days it seems like I can always pee—a little, anyway—but not this morning at two-forty-seven.” He pauses, sitting there in his bar of sun. She can see dust motes dancing in it. They seem to give him a halo.

“What was your dream?” she asks, and here is an odd thing: for the first time in maybe five years, since they stayed up until midnight discussing whether to hold the Motorola stock or sell it (they wound up selling), she’s interested in something he has to say.

“I don’t know if I want to tell you,” he says.

Spoiler alert: it’s a creepy dream.

“Harvey’s Dream,” like much of King’s work, resembles a riddle, or a joke: the basic setup is familiar, but the punch line is a surprise. It ought to give you a pleasant chill on a warm day. If you’re looking for more King, read “On Impact,” his Personal History about being struck, and almost killed, by a van. Subscribers can read Mark Singer’s 1998 Profile of King, “What Are You Afraid Of?”

Photograph by Inge Morath/The Inge Morath Foundation/Magnum.