I caught on to the Stephen King phenomenon around the time Pet Sematary came out. This was way back in 1983. A very different climate than today, but an exciting one for horror fiction. I ran through every available King title in a frantic binge, and I have never, before or since, had more satisfying reading experiences. The only thing that comes close is when I blew through all the Robert A. Heinlein books when I was a boy.

The early King years culminated in his massive novel, It. It felt like a doorway of sorts, and for me a harbinger of change. It was the height of the horror boom, and heights generally signify a downward trend ahead.

It was a long time before I liked a King novel as much as It, and in fact it may be my favorite. The next several books were good, but none had the magic that captivated me as much as the earlier books. The next two decades proved to be as prolific for King as the previous years. Some of the books I liked quite a bit: Gerald's Game, Dolores Claiborne, The Green Mile. Some I thought were reasonably enjoyable, if not completely satisfying. And unfortunately there were a handful that I did not like at all.

Somewhere in the middle of this graph lies The Dark Half. I dutifully bought The Dark Half, as I did all the previous books. In hardcover, no less. Not so long later I began using the public library for my King fixes.

As the title suggests, The Dark Half is a dark story. The plot of a writer whose pseudonym takes on a murderous life of its own was obviously inspired by King's own Richard Bachman pen name.

The Dark Half deals with Thad Beaumont, a professor who wrote an acclaimed, if not exactly lucrative debut novel. His sophomore publication earned him little more monetary rewards, so he created a fictitious name to write violent thrillers. Thrillers that sold very well. Crime pays, especially in fiction. When a reporter stumbles upon the truth and goes public with it, Beaumont decides to "kill" his pseudonym and go back to his mainstream, literary roots. The pseudonym, George Stark, has other ideas. It likes its life and will stop at nothing to continue on with the writing which keeps him alive.

Like another novel that dealt with the nightmares of a writer's life, Misery, King gets pretty nasty in The Dark Half. There is a ghastly, horrifying opening to the novel, and George Stark dispatches those in the way of his return in particularly gruesome ways. The Dark Half might have been a nice fit for the Hard Case Crime line of noir books, had it been in existence when Stephen King wrote it.

Yes, The Dark Half deals with the schizophrenic life of a writer who works under multiple bylines, but King has often worked in metaphor. Thad Beaumont is, like King himself, a recovered alcoholic. The way Beaumont transformed into the coarse, unpleasant George Stark when he wrote those successful books reminded me of how a person can change when drinking takes control of his life. It's particularly horrifying how Beaumont's children recognize and display affection for the monstrous Stark demon/monster, in the same way children of drunks often remain loyal to a destructive, alcoholic parent.

I liked The Dark Half when it was released. I didn't love it, but I still felt it was a worthy addition to the King oeuvre. Lately I have been in a sort of a reading slump, starting and stopping book after book. I needed something familiar, yet diminished in memory. I wanted to revisit the pleasure I so often got from Stephen King. If you don't know how someone can feel warmth and contentment from a violent horror novel, you are at the wrong website.

I liked The Dark Half about as much as I did the first time. A good, strong novel, far from King's best, but well above his least successful books. Mid-tier King, which isn't a bad thing at all.

Then there is the movie adaptation. I remember it well. George Romero adapting The Dark Half? How could it miss? Well, it did. While competently made, The Dark Half movie is completely lackluster. It's difficult to believe the same director made the original Dead Trilogy, Creepshow, Martin, and my favorite, Knightriders. It goes to show that a producer is just as critical to a film's success as the director. Romero's career was never even close to the same after he and Richard P. Rubinstein parted ways.

Written by Mark Sieber

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