In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Stephen King shed some light on his buzzed-about sequel to his 1977 novelThe Shining.

The book, entitled Doctor Sleep, takes place decades after the events of the original book, and sees Danny Torrance as a middle-aged man working at a hospice where he employs his abilities to help comfort and ease the suffering of his patients. King has revealed that Danny happens upon a young girl named Abra, who he takes under his wing. The two are then pursued by a nomadic group called The True Knot who feed off those with psychic energy. All the while, Danny struggles against the notion that he will inherit his father’s madness.

“When the [sequel] idea would pop up in my mind I would think, Now Danny’s 20, or now he’s 25… I wonder if he’s drinking like his father?” King said. “Finally, I decided, Okay, why don’t I use that in the story and just revisit that whole issue? Like father, like son.”

King also noted the pressure he would face to produce a quality sequel to what is largely considered a horror classic.

“When I really got serous about it, I thought to myself Do you really want to do this? Because most sequels really suck. The only two exceptions I can think to that is Huckleberry Finn, a book that is a sequel to Tom Sawyer but is really a much better book, and I think Godfather II is a much better movie than The Godfather.

“Basically, the idea of the story was to try and scare the shit out of people,” he added. “I said to myself, ‘Let me see if I can go and do that again.'”

The book will be released on September 24, 2013 via Scribner. Below is a clip from the 1980 film of The Shining.

(via Paste)