Harvey's Dream

Plot

Harvey and Janet, a middle aged married couple in a dysfunctional relationship, discuss over breakfast in detail, how Harvey woke up screaming from a dream he had: one of their daughters was run over and killed. Janet soon realises how the details of the dream are unerringly accurate for that morning, especially in noticing how their neighbor's car has a dent in it, along with what looks like a blood stain and a dark patch of dirt or hair. The story ends when Harvey answers a phone call, as he did in his dream, presumably confirming Janet's mounting fears that the events of the dream are true. Everything Harvey described were actual events from earlier that morning, only believed to be a dream due to Harvey's self-denial and his onsetting Alzheimer's disease.

Critical reception

In The Independent, Matt Thorne reviews the book Just After Sunset, in which "Harvey's Dream" can be found. He mentions "Harvey's Dream" as being one of the weaker stories in the collection (along with "Graduation Afternoon"), stating that "in both of these stories, which seem to have been written quickly, [King] seems less interested in creating compelling fiction than in transcribing his night terrors."

In The Washington Times, Christian Toto, also reviewing Just After Sunset, says that ""Harvey's Dream" lasts less than 10 pages, but Mr. King needs only a few paragraphs to evoke a wholly relatable nightmare — being stuck in an emotionless marriage."

A review of Just After Sunset in the St. Petersburg Times calls "Harvey's Dream" "a quietly alarming little story", one in Scotland on Sunday calls it "unusually polished" and "quietly eloquent" and one in the Concord Monitor says the story is "a parent's worst nightmare, viewed in slow motion."