The beginning chapters of Desperation might seem to be an exploration in past successes. Stephen King has take a young, gifted child (as in The Shining or Firestarter), a writer afraid of losing his artistic worth (Misery, The Dark Half), a psychotic cop (The Dead Zone, Rose Madder), and a small town in which everthing's suddenly gone wrong ('Salem's Lot, It, among many others), and thrown them all together to see what would happen. Readers may sense that King's newest is just a rehash of the old.

But those readers would be wrong. Desperation is unlike any novel King has ever written, and is perhaps one of his most ambitious achievements.

The novel concerns the small desert mining town of Desperation, Nevada (a long cry from the New England in which he usually dwells). The town should be booming: the mining corporation in Desperation has recently discovered a new way to drudge copper from old mines, creating dozens of new jobs and boosting the local economy. But the town is far from booming. The town is completely dead.

Well, maybe not completely. But as the travellers who accidentally veer into the path of Desperation discover, a ghost town would have been a million times better.

The small group trapped in Desperation gradually learn that a recent mining expedition has uncovered something sinister: an old well which has for over a hundred years been the prison of an evil force known as Tak, a type of dicorperal demon that feeds off the living energy of humans. Now Tak is free, and seeks to inhabit the bodies of the surviving residents, causing mayhem and mass destruction wherever it chooses.

But one of the prisoners of Desperation is David Carver, an eleven year old boy who has a special relationship with God. And God, like Tak, must work through people to do His will, no matter how cruel it might seem. It is through David that all hope of escape relies, and it is with God that all the sins of Desperation must be resolved.

A remarkable and entirely unique novel, Desperation is Stephen King at his strongest. His down-and-out scariest novel since The Dark Half, he literally packs the novel with ominous armies of coyotes, spiders, and scorpions. Though terrifying, here King is reliant more on the Bible than Lovecraft or Poe, and he rises to the task with ease. A tale of hope and horror, of revulsion and revelation, King's latest will leave you desperate for more. (Rim shot!)

Personal Observations

I first had a glimpse of Desperation when I traveled at a ludicrous hour of the morning to see Stephen King at a booksigning at Greater Bookland in Portland, Maine. The store had pictures of it (as well as the Bachman mirror novel The Regulators) were plastered everywhere, as well as previews photocopied from Publisher's Weekly. In addition, Bookland was giving everyone who paid for the books a limited edition bookplate, which was the cover of Desperation, with a space provided for the signature that King was giving.

I didn't get my Desperation bookplate signed that day. You had to buy a place in line, and I got a far back place. I did, however, watch the man sign for almost three hours, and that was payment enough. But, here, I'm convinced the fates are on my side. Over a year later, King stopped into my friend's bookstore, chatted a bit and signed books. One of them was Desperation. The next time I was at her store, I bought the book. The inscription reads: "Welcome to Highway 50". And then his wonderful, beautiful signature.

Yeah, sometimes wishes do come true. You just have to be patient. God ain't all that cruel after all.

Audio Adaptations

For one of the first times, King on audio was abridged. It was a sad day indeed when we opened up the box at the bookstore and discovered that both Desperation and The Regulators had been horribly cut down. That's not to say I didn't buy them both...

Kathy Bates reads Desperation, and she does a great job. But you can hear the cuts, especially if you read the book first. However, King was even more unhappy about the fact of abridgement than I was, so he set about to do right. King himself taped Desperation, unabridged, for Recorded Books, usually not for sale but available at libraries. I reccoment checking it out, as it's fantastic.

Bottom line: We all love Kathy Bates, but King is king!

Dedication

"For Carter Withey"

Great Quotes