Book Review: The Dark Half

The Dark Half, by Stephen King

Source: Amazon.com

From the book's cover: How do you kill something that was never born…
Thad Beaumont would like to say he is innocent.
He’d like to say he has nothing to do with the series of monstrous murders that keep coming closer to his home.
He’d like to say he has nothing to do with the twisted imagination that produced his bestselling novels.
He’d like to say he has nothing to do with the voice on the phone uttering its obscene threats and demanding total surrender.
But how can Thad disown the ultimate embodiment of evil that goes by the name he gave it—and signs its crimes with Thad’s bloody fingerprints?

The review: I believe I was only two-thirds of the way through the novel when I started my review notes, but I had an opportunity to sit and write a bit, sans distractions, and so decided to jot down a few thoughts.

At first, I wasn't sure if I would like The Dark Half.  The problem is that I know the basics of the account behind King's outing as Richard Bachman.  And the plot of Dark Half starts off sounding, to someone familiar with King's background, as though the author is simply recycling his own life into the goings-on here.  Not that this is unheard of, or even without its uses.  For one thing, King does use his own life and surroundings to embellish his plots on a regular basis.  And this is obviously a good thing, since his writing has been so successful.  And as far as I am aware (I don't know any experienced fiction writers personally), most writers have to use what they know - their own lives - to build their plots.

The author, Stephen King.  I put "Stephen King 1988" into Google Image search, and this is what I got.  It's from YouTube, so it's not the best image. / Source: YouTube.com

But The Dark Half starts off feeling like King is just going to relate his own... the term the novel best evokes at first would be "sour grapes," I guess you could say. Thankfully, things get better once Dark Half takes a semi-gruesome and spooky turn. But in the early pages, I found myself mentally re-writing the book's slant. I had a feeling that things were going in a way that I would find disappointing, based on what I forecast the book to be.

But then thankfully, the story went a direction that, while I could predict it, I didn't find to be unreasonable. Well let me amend that.  The plot follows a suitably spooky and King-ish direction. But up front, let me warn you that The Dark Half is one of King's more gruesome outings.

As I've related on more than one occasion, I have read more Stephen King novels than is probably considered healthy in many circles.  People might say, "why do you find it necessary, with all that is out in the wide world to read, to spend your time reading such schlocky spectacles?" And in reply, all I can say is that I find King's writing to be quite competent, and his subject matter to be stimulating. I know I could use my time for better pursuits. But like a guilty pleasure, I continue to flip open King's stuff, because more often than not, I know what I'm getting for my efforts.

OK, now that I've re-related that, back to Dark Half.  And gruesomeness. Because this book, as much as any novel from King that I have read in recent memory, seems to wallow in gore. I suppose this has a lot to do with the villain of the book, named George Stark. The guy is a cold-blooded monster.

Some details on The Dark Half, plot-wise. It centers on a writer (King often writes characters he can relate to directly, and Dark Half is more on the nose than most, as I have said) named Thad Beaumont, who as a boy had a tumor removed from his brain. The tumor was actually the undeveloped remains of Thad's twin.  The novel makes a big deal of how this is not an uncommon occurrence, but we readers know that bad things are going to spring from it, nevertheless.

Timothy Hutton plays the role of both Thad Beaumont and George Stark in the 1993 movie adaptation of The Dark Half.  This image, showing Stark, doesn't quite fit up to the gruesomeness that the character is described with as he begins to decay in the novel's concluding segment.  But you get the idea, at least. / Source: thewolfmancometh.com

When Thad grows up, he becomes successful in his writing career after publishing several novels under a pen name.  The name is George Stark.  Well through the course of events, a curious fan discovers Stark and Beaumont are the same person.  Longtime readers of King will see the personal connection there, no doubt.  But this coincidence works for Beaumont, as he had found himself to be very dark person while channeling his Stark side.  And as many characters in the novel who know Beaumont when he is being Stark comment, Stark is "not a very nice fellow." That's putting it mildly.

Beaumont decides to symbolically kill off Stark. But this pen name has taken on a life of his own. Beaumont’s pseudonym does more than just symbolically rise from the grave, in another one of those classic King moments, he does a literal job of it.  Reminded me of the graveyard scene in Salem’s Lot in some ways, though from a different perspective.  And the newly risen version of George Stark goes on a rampage, killing anyone he can get his hands on who had anything to do with Beaumont’s choice to symbolically put Stark six feet under.

The novel has a crime drama motif that is unmistakable.  King acknowledges this himself in the afterword.  The head antihero character from the fictitious novels penned by Beaumont/Stark is named "Alexis Machine," a name lifted - according to Mr. King - from the works of a Mr. Shane Stevens.  I’m not familiar with Mr. Stevens’ works, but oh boy, this Machine fellow a hard case.  He does his close-in work on with a straight razor.  The results are messy.  King’s -err, I mean Thad's alter-ego villain in Dark Half, Stark, is literally an Alexis Machine come-incarnate.  Saying he’s “not a very nice fellow” is like saying the Hundred Years War was just a little misunderstanding over who was really claimant to French sovereignty.

***Some time later***

I’ve completed the book now, and I can conclude my remarks.  The Dark Half is one of King’s more personal works, and even though it started off a bit predictable, the novel ends strong.  In fact, if I base my evaluation of this novel when compared to some of King’s other books, I’d say this is one of his better outings.  I say that because I have found in my experience that King often loses steam by the end of a novel.  His shorter works rarely disappoint me.  But his full length works sometimes seem to fade in the home stretch.  It's as though the beginning of a story was what drew King into the novel, but the end was just appropriated to fill the need of.. well, an ending.  I often point to Dreamcatcher, which was so visceral up front and then lost its punch at the end, for me.

I put "Sparrows Flying Again" in Google Image search and this came up.  But this also gives no true resemblance to the sheer numbers of sparrows that are described as taking part in the climax of Dark Half.  Gives me the willies just thinking about it. / Source:  flickr.com

The Dark Half goes a different way.  Yes, it is visceral up front, as I have already alluded to.  The bad guy runs amok, killing anyone who had anything to do with his untimely retirement as a pseudonym.  It’s not pretty, and not for the faint-of-heart.  But then the book slows down and covers the viewpoint of Beaumont, the metaphorical stand-in for King himself.  The guy’s demons are out to get him, and he knows it.  Worse yet, the demon is him.  As evidence mounts, the police are baffled by the fact that the killer - Stark - has Beaumont’s fingerprints, his voice print, and is so much alike to Thad that if we, as the audience, didn’t know that Thad was innocent…  well you might think King was pulling one over on you.  One of those he-has-amnesia-while-his-alter-ego-goes-on-a-crime-spree types.  But no.  Stark is as real as Thad has made him, and Thad has made him far too real for anyone’s comfort.

Our villain gets his comeuppance at the book's conclusion.  Maybe that's why people like King's works.  The bad guy gets it in the end, even if he/she/it did awful things all the live-long day.  The author did throw a Red Herring at one point, making me think that Stark would be dispatched in a conventional manner in this novel.  But no.  We get some supernatural stuff and then the book concludes in a crescendo of violence that frankly makes its early chapters pale by comparison.  When Mr. Stark leaves the stage, he leaves it messy.  It’s a fitting end for a monster like him.  I’d bet King himself thought that too, as he wrote it. 

As mentioned in my early notes, The Dark Half is not a very subtle book in some respects.  You can see the interweaving of King’s own life in there, and I think this novel must have been cathartic to write.  Thankfully, coming from such an honest place, The Dark Half manages to tell a very personal and yet very frightening story about how a person’s demons can run them to ruin, as well as a great yarn about “what-if.”  Of course so much of King’s works rely on What-If.  Without it, the man probably wouldn’t have a single credit to his name.

 
The film version of King's The Dark Half also spawned a computer game, it appears.  Based on the lukewarm reviews of the film version, I can only wonder if the game managed to do any better with the source material.

The Dark Half…  recommended to those who, like me, think that some of King’s works tend to fizzle by the end.  But on the other hand, if you can’t stomach strong gore and violence, as well as some language (though it is in no way as colorful in that regard as some outings, such as Under the Dome), then pass it by.  After all, George Stark is not a very nice guy, and the reader will get the full taste of that if you delve into this one.

For myself?  I liked it.  After starting off thinking I might not, I’d have to say that this one went places I was glad to go, and concluded in a way that married mortal scares (the “bad” man) with supernatural thrills (“The Sparrows Are Flying Again”) in a way that satisfied, big time.

Don't take my word for it.  Here's another review of The Dark Half that says it better than I do.

Learn more about The Dark Half, by Stephen King, on Amazon.com


The parting comment:

Source: indg.wordpress.com

While King's novel is not about actual twins, but just the inner demon made flesh, I still got a kick out of this picture.  Betcha the one without the mustache drawn on went and grew up to be the "evil" twin.

A two-for-one today.


I love the line: "If you saw who it was (dramatic pause), we hafta call the police!"  A nice little clip from the 1986 iteration of The Twilight Zone.  Talk about very personal demons.  Sure, it's corny, but at twelve minutes, it's like one of King's short stories in TV serial form.