You can now hear James Franco’s voice in the audiobook “The Dead Zone,” Stephen King’s 1979 classic paranormal thriller. Back in March, it was announced that Franco would narrate the novel, which wasn’t really a surprise as he had collaborated with the master of horror previously in “11.22.63,” an eight-episode Hulu miniseries.
Franco sat down with Entertainment Weekly to discuss his involvement with the audiobook, released earlier this week.
The actor revealed his preparations and called the highly acclaimed author “one of the most pleasurable authors to read.” And while Franco was all praises for Stephen King and his novel, the chilling resemblance of “The Dead Zone” and today’s political scene did not escape his observation.
The unnerving parallels
Franco was able to identify Stephen King’s prowess – in which he drills the author’s voice into the reader’s head, making the experience all the more gripping. This is the reason why the novelist’s audiences cannot be singled out into one group –a wide range of people call themselves hardcore fans and even arrange group readings in an effort to read every piece of work the author has written.
However, it seems Franco doesn’t see the novel as work of horror alone – he revealed he was “really struck” with the novel’s antagonist, Gregory Stillson, a character with ethics so questionable and yet managed to have infiltrated the sordid world of politics.
In the novel, Stillson generates interest and media attention by putting on a show. He works for the crowd up into a frenzy, he bellows anti-Washington rhetoric, and he makes people laugh with his eccentricities. “You’ll find that the parallels to now are hauntingly close,” Franco said. “It basically shows that Stephen King is a psychic.”
Mind you, the actor didn’t exactly mention Donald Trump, but anybody who has read “The Dead Zone” knows for a fact that the similarities between Stillson and the President are so vivid, it’s easy to say that King, oddly enough, somewhat predicted Trump’s rise to power.
Fans of the author filled Twitter with all sorts of affirmative response, especially after his piece titled, “How do such men rise? First as a joke” for The Guardian made its rounds on the Internet. King reflected on the 45th president’s political rise and wrote that Trump could be both Jim Rennie from “Under the Dome” and Greg Stillson from “The Dead Zone.”
Stillson the Clown
james franco wasn’t far off in pointing out the parallels, and at this point, it’s safe to say Stephen King wouldn’t mind agreeing either. Considering the novel was written almost 40 years ago, the horror that King created out of pure imagination has materialized and people were quick to notice it.
The James Franco-narrated “The Dead Zone” audiobook is now available at Simon & Schuster, Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and Audible.