Books of 2008, Part VIII

Today's post is about two books I recently read, which were written and published simultaneously in 1996, by Stephen King: Desperation and The Regulators. These two books were intended to fit together; they are "companion" books to each other. That's why I read 'em both, back to back.

The books have a common antagonist in Tak, a disembodied, mysterious evil force that has the ability to influence and direct people and animals to do its bidding. Both books feature pretty standard SK fare: small towns under siege by evil forces, groups of ordinary citizens banding together to survive, children with quasi-supernatural powers, etc. They even use the same character names in both books, though the characters themselves are separate, as both stories take place in different worlds. For instance, in Desperation, the Carver family consists of parents Ralph and Ellen and children David and Kirsten; in The Regulators, David and Kirsten are the parents, and Ralph and Ellen the children.

Desperation is about the corrupting influence of Tak in a small Nevada mining town, called Desperation. A group of people are thrust together in Desperation, where they find the apparent full force of nature and the town's psychotic policeman aligned against them for no particular reason. Tak's lack of motive makes him a particularly frightening adversary; like any random acts of horrific violence, anybody could be targeted for no reason. (Another cool thing about Tak is that, when he possesses a human being, his spiritual force causes his unfortunate host's body to grow and swell out of control; the sheer energy involved in housing Tak eventually causes his hosts' bodies to fall apart at the seams. That's cool.) This is probably the most overtly religious SK book I've ever read, too: the main characters' faith in God is central to the story. Having a child with quasi-supernatural powers is nothing new for King (The Shining) but having his "powers" be, well, faith in God is different.

Meanwhile, The Regulators takes place on a hot summer afternoon in a typical American Midwestern suburb (July 15th, in fact). People are washing their cars or barbecuing, kids are riding around on their bikes or whatever, when, without warning, a van drives through the neighborhood and starts blowing people away with freakish, impossibly dramatic guns. This book, probably more than any other SK book I've read, is a depiction of an utter nightmare scenario--like Desperation, Tak's victims are chosen apparently randomly. The details of the story are wildly implausible, of course, but King's writing style is such that you don't really care about that, you just put yourself in the shoes of the terrified townspeople and wonder where the story's going to go next.

In both stories, two very different small American towns are terrorized in two different ways. Desperation gives more background, more depth, more insight into the situation at hand, but The Regulators is scarier precisely because so little light is shed on what, exactly, is happening here.

As usual, however, King suffers with his endings, more with The Regulators than with Desperation. I think it's kind of inherent in these stories, where insane, terrifying, logic-defying things happen to people, that, when you try to explain it, the explanations always sound cheesy and forced. But I guess you have to finish the story somehow, right?

I understand that Tak hasn't reappeared in any other King books, which is kind of disappointing. If he can reuse Randall Flagg so many times, why not an undying, evil entity from...who knows where? I guess two books about Tak will have to do.

Next: I'm reading another Pulitzer Prize winner! Which one???????