The Dark Half

Image credit: Wikipedia

Creator signatures and styles are something that I always find fascinating in both film and literature. That excited spark of recognition as you see something from an author or director that is similar to their other works is a stamp or a token that –because you recognise it- gains you entry into this community of fandom and a certain deeper relationship with the creator.

There was definitely a large bit of that sort of thing happening this week, as I sat down and read Stephen King’s The Dark Half.

The book tells the story of writer, (classic King protagonist) Thaddeus Beaumont who has been publishing novels under two names and recently come out and laid his pseudonym to rest –literally. After a staged, metaphoric burial for the author formerly known as George Stark, a series of grizzly murders begin to happen. While the fashion of the murders is like something out of one of Stark’s novels, the real clincher is the fingerprints left at the scene: Thad’s. Suddenly Thad and his family are in very real danger, as it appears that Thad’s pseudonym has come to life and is intent on hunting down Thad in the hopes of forcing him to write him back into existence.

Straight away, the idea is very Stephen King right? A mixture of the scientific (though sometimes it feels like you need to suspend your belief a little bit) and supernatural, The Dark Half is an interesting exploration into the creative mental cavities of the writer’s mind as well as being something of a metaphor for irrational jealousies that can come with art, namely this idea that audiences can love the characters or the works you create under a false name more than the ones that are ‘truly’ you. I imagine there’s a fine, mental tightrope being walked in those cases, especially when it comes to fans of series. King explored this idea of ‘Sherlock Holmes Syndrome’ in Misery where the ‘number 1 fan’ of Paul Sheldon become none-too-friendly when she realised he’d killed off her favourite character. While The Dark Half levels up and makes the pseudonym both the villain and the catalyst for the narrative events, the idea of creator fragility and fan pressure stands starkly evident, driving the story and providing all of the drama.

Image credit: Yankee Magazine

While the idea itself is very interesting and enough to inspire readers to open the cover and dive into the world within, The Dark Half is far from one of the best of King’s works. While there is a level of fun in recognising author’s signatures in their characters or narrative tones, there’s also a level of ‘ugh, this again’, which can lead to a little bit of a soiled reading experience. There were many, many parts to this novel that made me groan and feel like it was a little bit too Stephen King. A few unique, but pretentious phrases here and there, a not so cohesive blend of science and supernatural, and blunt descriptions of graphic violence that characterised the scene, but didn’t really offer much else. In certain areas the prose feels clunky and somewhat forced, but to be fair one can argue that this gives the tale a certain sort of symmetry, mentally reflecting the fractured creative states of the two writers… though this is a thin argument.

Ultimately I enjoyed The Dark Half fine; it was an interesting idea that was succinctly transformed into a visually vibrant piece of literature, but some of King’s signature tricks and traits have a tendency to break the spell of voyeurism and bring you back down to earth with a thump, as you think ‘oh this just makes me want to reread Misery’ or ‘man, I feel like watching The Birds now.’

The Dark Half was written by Stephen King and first published by Viking Penguin in 1989.