Welcome back to Inconstant Reader, the feature column that explores Stephen King’s books in the order they were published — sort of! A twin novel with The Regulators, it’s another reminder that there are more worlds than this.
WARNING: If you’re desperate to avoid spoilers, stop here.
Stephen King is one of the more prolific novelists of our time, but 1996 was a particularly busy period for the Maine native. Following the release of The Green Mile as a six-part serial novel, King also contributed to writing Michael Jackson’s Ghosts. Then there were the twin novels DESPERATION and The Regulators, expanding his multiverse of mythology and creating a small pile of bodies in the meantime.
The main inspiration for DESPERATION comes from two moments in King’s life. The first was when he drove his daughter’s car cross-country in 1991, and came across a seemingly deserted town in Nevada. The legend goes that his inner dialogue told him the town was dead, and the sheriff had killed them all. The other was from 1994, when King rode his motorbike across the US for the Insomnia book tour.
Which brings us Peter and Mary Jackson, driving along their own stretch of the Nevada highways before they are pulled over by apparent cop Collie Entragian. Taking the couple to a police station, it’s soon evident that he isn’t quite right and kills Peter.
He’s one of several people Entragian brings to the empty mining town of Desperation. There’s the Carver family, whose daughter is killed by Entragian. There’s writer Johnny Marinville, who (just like King) is riding across country on a motorbike for inspiration. His assistant Steve Ames trails behind him in a van, and picks up hitchhiker Cynthia Smith (who you may remember from the trauma of Rose Madder). In town, they also come across Tom Billingsley, the alcoholic town vet.
If you’re at all familiar will King’s oeuvre, you’ll recognise that’s a ka-tet assembling there. The term, originating in The Dark Tower books, refers to a group of people drawn together by fate (or ‘ka‘) for a purpose. Although never overtly said here, this is unquestionably what we are seeing. At first, they band together for the simple act of escaping from Entragian. As it becomes clear that he’s actually been possessed by an ancient being named Tak, the focus shifts to stopping his machinations
Like The Stand, or contemporaneous The Green Mile, it’s an often spiritually inspired narrative. Much of this comes from the young David Carver, a 12-year-old boy who seems to have a direct conversational relationship with God. It’s a force that brings this group together and gives them belief, just as much as Mother Abigail in The Stand, Roland’s ka-tet in The Dark Tower and arguably the forces that brought the Derry kids together in It. Indeed, Tak is an extradimensional entity much like the creature calling itself Pennywise, right down to feeding on fear and having a form of deadlights. (In some apocrypha, it’s referred to as ‘Tak the Outsider,’ further drawing connections with another being).
“I’m not sure that place is on earth at all, or even in normal space. Tak is a complete outsider, so different from us that we can’t even get our minds around him.”
There are more direct connections to The Dark Tower. From the first time Entragian/Tak refers to animal minions as his can-toi, which we’ve heard before in relation to the Low Men in Yellow Coats (see: Hearts in Atlantis), we’re in multiversal territory. Tak’s guttural tic, repeating the language of the dead at regular opportunities, infuses the whole piece with the speech of Mid World. There are references to the fictional Misery in Paradise, and the Tommyknockers are mentioned by name. The mine where Desperation is located is in the Desatoya Mountains, the same location as The Gunslinger prequel The Little Sisters of Eluria.
That China Pit mine, previously thought to be the site of a cave-in involving Chinese miners, actually houses the ini, well of the worlds. It’s the most direct references to there being ‘other worlds than these,’ and is one of the links to the The Regulators. The latter, published as a lost Richard Bachman novel, recasts the same players in suburbia, where Tak has possessed an autistic boy and created a divergent timeline.
In many ways, it’s typical of mid-to-late-90s King. It’s filled with violence and religion in equal measure, occasionally revelling in the gore more than necessarily. (Case in point, several children are dead before we even get to the town of Desperation). Horror here comes not just from Tak, but partly results from the evil than men do in the absence of a divine faith. Taken together with The Green Mile, in which the divine figure is ‘crucified,’ it’s fair to say that it’s part of a thematic continuum King was experiencing at the time.
So, DESPERATION is a book that gets deep into the weeds of King lore, cross-referencing his own works and expanding on that universe. Yet it can also be enjoyed as a standalone novel, albeit a twin with The Regulators. It’s a massive blockbuster style book about small-town horror that also appeals to a niche audience, and that contradiction just about sums King up to a tee.
Next time, Inconstant Reader flips worlds and looks at The Regulators, the ‘twinner’ novel to Desperation. While you’re here, go check out Batrock.net, where my buddy Alex Doenau is running through this Stephen King adventure with me.
