The Complete Stephen King Universe

by Stanley Wiater

  King has always displayed a grudging admiration for gangster and Mafia types. He has demonstrated this in several early stories (“The Man with a Belly,” “The Wedding Gig,” “The Fifth Quarter”) and, most significantly to the world of Richard Bachman, in the character of Salvatore Magliore in Roadwork (1981). In that novel, Magliore is the only person who can perceive the futility of the protagonist’s actions to change the inevitable.

  Ginelli can also see “the big picture,” how no one is going to “win” this blood feud. Ginelli may be an unsavory character, but at least he has a defined moral code that clearly can distinguish black from white. Whether “white” always represents Good and “black” always represents Evil is not the question. What matters is that his actions are carried out through a clear sense of moral responsibility. He alone can accept the fact that in this lawless situation, the only code is an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But justice—whether that of the “white man from town” or the pagan Gypsy’s—is not achieved in the end. As occurs so often in the Stephen King Universe, and seemingly always in The World of Richard Bachman, everyone loses. Life is not fair, King constantly reminds us, and we can do nothing but accept that fact.

  Ginelli carries out a campaign of terror against Lemke and his family, forcing the old man to lift the curse. Lemke does so, but the power of the curse is strong. Transferring the curse to a pie, Lemke tells Billy that he must get someone else to eat it to insure that the spell will be lifted from him. Angry with his wife for her actions during his ordeal, Billy decides to feed it to her. He later repents, but only after both his wife and daughter eat a piece of the cursed pie. Realizing that the only people he loved are now cursed, Billy resignedly cuts himself a piece and sits down to eat it. The circle of vengeance is complete: everyone remotely involved with the accidental death of an old Gypsy woman is dead or will soon perish.

  THINNER: PRIMARY SUBJECTS

  BILLY HALLECK: A successful lawyer whose main problem in life is his tremendous appetite. When he accidentally hits and kills a Gypsy woman with his car, the leader of the clan puts a one-word curse on the man: “Thinner.” Halleck begins to lose two pounds each day. After ruling out cancer and a host of other, equally terminal illnesses, he eventually comes to realize that he is the victim of a supernatural curse.

  Billy learns that the only way he can be free of the curse is if he passes it on to someone else. Suspecting that his wife has been unfaithful to him (at one point she tries to have him committed to an asylum), Halleck tricks her into eating a piece of a strawberry pie that contains the essence of the curse. Unfortunately, his beloved teenage daughter also has a piece of the pie, dooming her to a nasty death. In the end, Billy realizes there is no escape from the Gypsy’s vengeance, and also partakes of the deadly dessert.

  HEIDI HALLECK: Billy’s devoted wife, she is partially responsible for the automobile accident with the Gypsy woman (she was performing oral sex upon her husband while he was driving). Heidi comes to believe that Billy is starving himself out of guilt, and at one point tries to have him institutionalized as mentally ill. There are rumors that she is having an affair with the family doctor, but they are never proven. In her husband’s growing paranoia, he believes she is against him, and so brings home a cursed strawberry pie for her to unknowingly ingest. She presumably perishes soon afterward.

  LINDA HALLECK: Billy and Heidi’s only child. A normal, attractive fourteen-year-old girl, she suffers as she watches her parents’ marriage deteriorate. She is thus thrilled when her dad, who left when his malady became too much for him to handle, calls her to say he is coming back home to stay. Eager to take his revenge on his wife, however, he asks Linda to go stay at a friend’s home for a few days until that last bridge can be mended. Returning home unexpectedly, Linda joins Heidi in a midnight snack, eating part of the cursed pie. Like her mom, she no doubt soon dies a painful and totally undeserved death.

  SUSANNA LEMKE: The Gypsy woman who died when she stepped out from between two parked cars and was hit by the vehicle driven by Billy Halleck.

  TADUZ LEMKE: The elderly leader of the Gypsy clan who puts the curse on Billy Halleck and his associates. How elderly? Official records place his age at well over one hundred. Possessed of supernatural powers, he takes his revenge against all who were responsible for the death of his daughter Susanna, including Billy, the police chief who looked the other way, and the judge, who has a long-standing hatred for all Gypsies. Taduz’s current whereabouts are unknown, but presumably he is still with extended family traveling somewhere along the coast of New England.

  RICHARD GINELLI: The small-time gangster who succeeds in getting the curse lifted from Billy Halleck. Billy had been successful in the past in keeping Richard out of prison, and the gangster feels he owes Halleck a personal debt. When Halleck decides to put “the curse of the white man from town” on the Gypsy clan that had targeted him, he employs Ginelli as his dark angel of vengeance. Ginelli mounts a campaign of terror against the Gypsies, leaving messages that they must take the curse off of Halleck. Although he gets the curse lifted, it is at the price of his own life. (Halleck finds Ginelli’s head on the front seat of the gangster’s car.)

  POLICE CHIEF DUNCAN HOPLEY: He investigates the accident in which Billy Halleck struck and killed the Gypsy woman. A friend of Halleck, he has no trouble assuming that the attorney is completely blameless in the death of the old woman. Taduz Lemke curses Hopley, however, creating a worsening skin condition that transforms the police officer into a hideous freak. Unable to cope with the suffering any longer, he commits suicide with his own service revolver.

  JUDGE CARY ROSSINGTON: An old friend of Billy Halleck’s, he is the judge in charge of the court case involving the automobile accident. An elitist and a racist, he hates the Gypsies who occasionally pass through his district. At the hearing regarding the accident, Rossington wastes no time in clearing Halleck of any possible liability. But the judge, like Halleck, is touched by Taduz Lemke, and has one word spoken to him: “Lizard.” Immediately afterward, Rossington develops a spreading skin growth that rapidly transforms his skin into lizardlike scales. He visits the world-famed Mayo Clinic, but to no avail. Like the police chief, he kills himself to end his suffering.

  THINNER: ADAPTATIONS

  In spite of the novel’s commercial success, the film adaptation of Thinner did not appear until more than a decade later, perhaps due to the dearth of likable characters, or to an inability to create convincing special effects. Despite the fact that adapter Michael McDowell’s and director Tom Holland’s screenplay is remarkably faithful to the plot of the original novel, the ultimate result was similar to the fate of Firestarter. In other words, the plot and the characters were all there, but little of the spirit or mood of the author’s original vision was successfully translated. Although Robert Burke (Robocop 3) and Joe Mantegna do a credible job of portraying Billy Halleck and Richard Ginelli, there is still nothing in any of the characters as portrayed that leads the viewer to care about the fate of any of them; considering how petty and self-centered everyone is, there is very little sympathy we can develop for anyone we meet.

  THINNER: TRIVIA

  • The original title for the novel was Gypsy Pie.

  • The unabridged audio adaptation of this novel was read by Joe Mantegna, who also starred in the movie version.

  • Thinner was the first Richard Bachman title to be published in hardcover and given strong promotion by its publisher, New American Library.

  • In the film version, Stephen King has a cameo role as a pharmacist named Dr. Bangor.

  60

  DESPERATION

  (1996)

  In addition to the paperback serial novel The Green Mile, 1996 saw another unique publishing event devised by Stephen King—the simultaneous publication in late September of two mammoth hardcover novels, Desperation and The Regulators. Companion novels, the two entries share interlocking cover art (a truly unforgettable piece created by Mark Ryden), a
nasty villain (an ancient demon named Tak), and a shared cast of characters who exist in parallel realities.

  The hook here is that Desperation, published by Viking, was written by King, and The Regulators, published by Dutton, was written by King’s alter ego, Richard Bachman.

  In Desperation, King returns to themes he first visited in The Stand (1978), namely man’s relationship with God, and His divine intervention in human events. The God reflected in both books resembles the God of the Old Testament, the God who worked through intermediaries like Moses to achieve his agenda. Like that God, King’s deity seems content to sit on the sidelines and observe, unless forces beyond human ken come into play. In The Stand, that force was the Dark Man, Randall Flagg; in Desperation, it is the ancient demon Tak.

  In both cases, God never acts directly, but through human vessels like The Stand’s Mother Abagail and Desperation’s young David Carver. As depicted here, despite his active role in events, God remains a mystery; both his part in the universe and his motivations are unknown.

  The parallels to The Stand go beyond the religious. For instance, David’s speech in Desperation to the rest of the Collie Entragian Survival Society echoes the words Mother Abagail spoke to the members of the Free Zone. David tells his friends that “if we leave Desperation without doing what God sent us here to do, we’ll pay the price.” In other words, God wants them to take a stand. When the evil is dispatched in The Stand, Tom Cullen witnesses the fist of God in the sky over Las Vegas. In Desperation, Tak’s passing is marked by a gigantic cloud of dark gray dust: “It hung in the sky, still connected to the [China] pit by a hazy umbilicus of a mountain rising into the sky like poisoned ground after a nuclear blast.” The cloud takes the shape of a giant wolf.

  Biblical allusions abound as well here. Wondering why Tak chose them and killed others, his former prisoners conclude that they were selected, that Tak acted like the Angel of Death in Egypt, only in reverse. David’s battle with Tak is reminiscent of the conflict between David and Goliath. David’s first encounter with God recalls Moses on Mount Horeb: When Moses asks “Who are you?,” God replies, “Who I am.”

  In a flashback to the early days of his religious conversion, David recalls the story of Daniel in the lion’s den. Marinville later cites the phrase, “And a little child shall lead them.” David also performs miracles: he gets Steve’s cell phone to work in the midst of a vicious sandstorm; later, he feeds his unfortunate band much like Jesus fed the multitude with the loaves and fishes. Similar to Jesus, he pleads with God to lift the burden placed on his shoulders.

  Let’s not forget the links with The Regulators, which should become a little bit clearer in the next chapter. Kirsten Carver is wearing a Moto Kops 2200 T-shirt when Tak kills her (Moto Kops 2200 is a popular TV show in both realities). The Carver family hails from 248 Poplar Street, Wentworth, Ohio, the setting of The Regulators. Several supporting characters in Desperation bear the same names as leading characters in The Regulators, among them Jim Reed, Brad Josephson, and Cary Ripken.

  Finally, there are the links to the overall Stephen King Universe. Ellen Carver is described as preferring novels with titles like Misery in Paradise. Cynthia Smith, a supporting character from Rose Madder, shows up in Desperation, providing Steve Ames with a capsule version of the events of that novel.

  Publishers Weekly reported that the idea for Desperation came to King in 1991. Driving across the Nevada desert in his daughter Naomi’s car, the author passed through the apparently abandoned town of Ruth. At this point, the internal Voice that King has often written about (his muse, perhaps) began speaking to him. His first thought was, “They’re all dead,” then, “Who killed them?” The Voice shot back, “The sheriff killed them all.”

  The book’s opening scene, featuring Mary and Peter Jackson, sets the eerie tone for the rest of the novel. Peter, an English professor at New York University, has recently published a scholarly article entitled “James Dickey and the New Southern Reality,” ironic in light of what subsequently happens to the couple (think Deliverance, only in the desert). Traveling on Route 50 through the Nevada desert, they get their first hint that something might be wrong when they spy a cat nailed to a speed limit sign on the outskirts of Desperation. Soon thereafter, they are pulled over by a cop who stands six feet five inches tall, easily tipping the scales at 300 pounds; the policeman seems to be bursting out of his skin.

  King, expertly playing on the fear many of us have of authority, raises the tension notch by notch—like Mary and Peter, readers quickly discern that the cop is not quite right. As he reads the Jacksons their rights, the unfortunate couple see just how far gone their persecutor is. “You have the right to remain silent. If you do not choose to remain silent, anything you say may be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. I’m going to kill you. If you cannot afford …”

  DESPERATION: PRIMARY SUBJECTS

  DESPERATION: A small Nevada mining town. Located off Interstate 50, Desperation is inhabited by approximately 260 people, at least until an ancient evil living beneath the earth’s crust is released. Then it quickly becomes a ghost town, haunted by its lone surviving resident, police officer Collie Entragian. Collie has been possessed by a demon named Tak. Tak likes his new host, but knows he can’t use him indefinitely, and thus is looking for another. Having slaughtered the entire town, Tak/Collie takes to pulling people off the highway, seeking an adequate vessel to contain his essence. Collie’s body is worn by Tak, its energy sucked out until it is only a shell or husk.

  TAK: The ancient evil entity that possesses Collie Entragian. Tak has lived under the earth, near the vicinity of the mine called the China Pit, for eons. At first, David tells his friends that Tak is some kind of deity. Later, he tells them he believes it is more like a disease than something ethereal like a demon or spirit. As to where Tak actually lives, David is a little vague. The creature is referred to as an outsider, existing somehow beyond the reality we know. David manages to seal Tak in his tomb, where he remains to this day, presumably waiting for a chance to rise again.

  CAN TAH: Tak, or Can Tak, is a “big god” (a translation of Can Tak). He has minions, or little gods, called Can Tah. They inhabit small stone carvings of wolves, coyotes, snakes, spiders, rats, and bats found inside the China Pit. Merely touching one of these carvings is enough to drive humans crazy with lust and hate.

  THE CHINA PIT: Also known as Rattlesnake Number One, the China Mine, the China Drift, or the old China Shaft, the pit has been home to Tak and the Can-Tah for thousands of years. In September 1859, miners (57 Chinese and 4 whites) broke into a cave containing thousands of small stone carvings, the Can Tah. When the miners picked up these statues, they went crazy. Before they could escape the mine and spread their evil, the mine was sealed by the heroic efforts of the Lushan brothers. The mine remained sealed until a fateful day in 1996 when employees of the Desperation mining company accidentally reopened it, unleashing Tak and his minions on Desperation.

  COLLIE ENTRAGIAN: The big blond police officer possessed by Tak, who uses his body first to decimate the population of Desperation, then to collect new candidates to host his essence. Tak uses Collie up, then casts his ravaged body aside like a child would toss away a candy wrapper.

  PETER and MARY JACKSON: Driving a borrowed car across Nevada, this unfortunate couple is pulled over by Tak/Entragian and subsequently arrested. Arriving at the Desperation police station, Peter is fatally shot by the lawman. Mary is imprisoned along with the Carver family and Tom Billingsley. Tak, who has left Entragian’s body and moved into that of Ellen Carver, intends to possess Mary next, but is foiled when she escapes from her makeshift prison deep in the China Pit mine. Mary Jackson survives her encounter with Tak. She is last seen driving away from Desperation, accompanied by David Carver. Her present whereabouts are unknown.

  JOHN EDWARD MARINVILLE: Winner of the National Book Award, author of the novels Delight and Song of the Hammer. This Norman Mailer-esque bad b
oy is touring the United States on his motorcycle, searching for material for his new nonfiction book (working title: Travels with Harley). Passing by Desperation on Route 50, Marinville decides to relieve himself on the side of the road. Finishing, he looks up to find a giant cop waiting for him at the top of the gulley.

  At first fawning over the famous author, Tak/Entragian soon reveals his true ugly nature. He beats and arrests Marinville, then throws him into jail with Mary Jackson, Tom Billingsley, and the Carvers.

  After David frees the group, Marinville struggles with his inherently selfish nature, eventually emerging as one of the group’s leaders. Never a religious man, Marinville is somewhat contemptuous of David, referring to him at one point as “the Jesus Scout.” Needless to say, he is overwhelmed when he himself receives a message from God, instructing him that he must be the one to finally destroy Tak. The scales fall from the writer’s eyes as he suddenly realizes he has been a part of God’s plan since a near-death experience he had in Vietnam.