A recovering alcoholic with a penchant for empty hotels and full glasses, Jack Torrance is reinventing the writer's retreat one mental breakdown at a time. When he's not terrorizing his family with an axe or typing his masterwork—the same sentence over and over—he's breaking teachers' unions and arms with equal enthusiasm. His latest residency at the Overlook Hotel has proven wildly productive, though his agent remains concerned about the blood-soaked manuscript pages.