The Dark Half is the first Stephen King book I read from start to finish. I’d attempted two others previously, It and The Talisman, but was bested by my young age and their prodigious length (I’d chosen, unwisely, two of the chunkier entries into King’s notoriously chunky bibliography).
As a result, I’ve always held a certain affection for The Dark Half, even though I hadn’t reread it until now (nearly twenty-five years later, Jesus) and could clearly recall only two specific things about it beyond the general plot. The first was the improbable and gustatorily unsatisfactory position of a victim’s male member upon discovery of his body (Google it at your peril), and the second was a character (I couldn’t remember who) having a picture of Ronald Reagan on their dartboard. I can see why the first one stuck with me, as it was likely the most gruesome thing I’d ever read to date at that point, but why I hung onto the Reagan thing I have no idea. Especially since the book’s climax contains one of the more striking images in King’s canon: a living corpse borne aloft by a cloak of sparrows and carted screaming to hell. Seems like the sort of thing that would grab my attention, but I didn’t remember it at all.
The lead character is named Thad Beaumont, and he’s the archetype of a King protagonist if ever there was one. He’s a successful writer (check) from Maine (check) with a family (check) who stuck with him through bouts of alcoholism and anger issues (check) and who also teaches English at a local college (check). King writes well enough that this tendency never bothered me much, but I can’t deny that it’s there, especially in much of his 80s-90s work.
The twist (and perhaps the first early nod to the metatextuality that would consume much of the later Dark Tower books) is that Thad achieved most of his commercial success not as himself, but as his pen name, George Stark. A snooping fan outs That as Stark, and in order to get ahead of the story Thad admits everything and stages a “funeral” for the late George Stark. Only George decides he doesn’t like being dead, and opts instead to come to life, rising from his staged grave to wreak havoc on those who outed him, and to persuade Thad through less-than-subtle means to collaborate with him on a final book.
Pulpy stuff, but King does pulp to a high art, in large part through his characters, who I’d argue are richer than truer than many inhabitants of so-called literary fiction. The best one here is Alan Pangborn, a small town sheriff with big city instincts who proves the first bit of the mettle that will be more fully on display in his star turn a few years later, Needful Things.
I love King, and even his more forgotten works are always a pleasure to reread. This may not be his best, but it’s a solid turn.