by Jay Wilburn
The plan is to reread all of Stephen King’s works in the order that they were published. Richard Chizmar of Cemetery Dance had the vision. I’m doing it because I am a writer and I want to improve my fiction. And I love Stephen King’s stories. I think there is something to be learned through this process.
You can also go back to the beginning and read Before Carrie or any of my other posts up through this one and beyond by checking out this link to the Master List of all my #StephenKingRevisited posts.
Let’s ride with one high-toned son-of-a-bitch in The Dark Half …
The Sparrows are flying again.
This book was dedicated to Shirley Sonderegger and her husband Peter. And the late Richard Bachmann, King’s former dark half.
“People’s lives — their real lives, as opposed to their simple physical existences — begin at different times.” Interesting first line and one that hooked me as a reader all those years ago.
Quotes from George Stark book passages split up the sections of this novel. George Stark of the “Not a Very Nice Guy” Starks.
I so clearly remember reading the opening scenes of this book when reading them in a hotel giftshop. When I got to the scene with the surgery, I knew I had to own this book.
King uses elaborate dream sequences in this story as he does in many stories.
The scene with the old but not bold cop finding the vehicle is great. It sets the tension like something very bad is going to happen to him. I think you can see the building blocks to some of King’s crime fiction writing later. Christine was another earlier hint of that.
“Chewing people to rags is the machine’s business.” Great line.
I haven’t read The Outsider yet, but I wonder how much the plots of these books may overlap with the idea of a crime being committed by someone who must be the person to do it, but they weren’t anywhere that they could have done it. Those scenes in this novel may have been the seeds of that idea in The Outsider.
The scene telling the sheriff about the miscarriage seems like an out-of-left-field information dump. The drop into talking about the writer’s dark half coming alive as the unwanted houseguest metaphor kicks in a little too easily as well.
“Better to leave ill enough alone.” This is a great reversal of a common phrase.
I like when authors use a deteriorating villain. The Big Bad starts falling apart as the hero draws closer. If done well, it makes for an interesting dynamic.
“Those people in New York died from an overdose of privacy.” Great line.
Describing a man that never existed and never could exist as an antagonist is done in subtle little touches throughout this book.
“And what good is writing a thing no one wants to read?”
The name Alexis Machine came from author Shane Stevens and King borrowed it as an homage.
His eyes “rolld.” That’s got to be a typo.
They summer in Castle Rock around Castle Lake. Sheriff Pangborn is on the job in Castle Rock for this novel. Not the best job to have in the Stephen King universe. The strangler in The Dead Zone is mentioned. Cujo killed the last sheriff. Juniper Hill asylum is mentioned. We have Kreig locks in this one again, the official lock of Stephen King stories. “Playing Hamlet” as a phrase to describe indecision was used in The Tommyknockers as well. The Derry animal shelter is mentioned. A busy town with a clown. Jimmy Swaggart was mentioned in three of the last four Stephen King books.
Characters in a corner video store looking for something to rent. They hold on cloth diapers with pins. Johnny Carson and David Letterman make up late night watching. An officer uses a clipboard of hot sheets to look for plates of stolen cars. Guns n’ Roses plays through an apartment door. Bobcat Goldthwaite is mentioned. Mike Tyson is the champ. A dartboard with Ronald Reagan on it is in a professor’s office. Write-protect on a floppy disk is given as an analogy. Remember that, kids?!
Love The Dark Half as much this time as the first time I read it. “And let’s keep our happy thoughts. You know what happens when you lose your happy thoughts.”
My next post will be Before Four Past Midnight which will be linked on the Master List of all my Stephen King Revisited posts.
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