The Dark Half

The Dark Half
First edition cover
Author	Stephen King
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre(s)	Horror novel
Publisher	Viking
Publication date	November 1, 1989
Media type	Print (Hardcover)
Pages	448
ISBN	978-0670829828
Preceded by	The Tommyknockers
Followed by	Needful Things

The Dark Half is a horror novel by Stephen King, published in 1989. Publishers Weekly listed The Dark Half as the second best-selling book of 1989 behind Tom Clancy's Clear and Present Danger. It was adapted into a feature film of the same name in 1993.

Stephen King wrote several books under a pseudonym, Richard Bachman, during the seventies and eighties. Most of the Bachman novels were darker and more cynical in nature, featuring a far more visceral sense of horror than the psychological, gothic style common to many of King's most famous works. When King was discovered to be Bachman, he wrote The Dark Half in response to his outing.

Plot summary

Thad Beaumont is an author and recovering alcoholic who lives in the tiny Maine town of Ludlow (the setting of Pet Sematary and about an hour away from King's fictional town of Castle Rock). Thad's own books--cerebral literary fiction--are not very successful. However, under the pen name George Stark, he writes very successful crime novels about a violent killer named Alexis Machine. When it is learned that Thad Beaumont is really Stark, he and his wife Elizabeth decide to stage a daylight funeral for the fictional Stark during a People magazine photo shoot. His epitaph at the local cemetery says it all: "NOT A VERY NICE GUY".

Stark, however, emerges as a physical entity and goes on a killing spree, gruesomely murdering everyone he perceives responsible for his "death"--Thad's editor, agent, etc. Thad, meanwhile, is plagued by surreal nightmares and is soon visited by Sheriff Alan Pangborn (a main character in the novel Needful Things), asking questions Thad cannot--or does not want to--answer. Thad's voice and fingerprints are identical to Stark's, causing Pangborn to believe that Thad--despite having alibis--is responsible for the murders.

Thad eventually discovers that he and Stark share a mental bond, and begins to find notes from Stark written in his own handwriting. The notes tell Thad what activity Stark has been engaging in. Observing his son and daughter, Thad notes that twins share a unique bond. They can feel each other's pain and at times appear to read the other's mind. Using this as a keystone to his own situation, he begins to discover the even deeper meaning behind himself and Stark.

Pangborn eventually learns that Thad had a twin. The unborn brother was absorbed into Thad in utero and later removed from his skull when the author was a child. He had suffered from severe headaches and it was originally thought to be a tumor causing them. The doctor who removed it found the following inside: part of a nostril, some fingernails, some teeth, and a maliformed human eye. This leads to questions about the true nature of Stark, whether he is a malevolent spirit or Thad manifesting a multiple personality. Thad eventually vanquishes Stark, but the book ends on an unhappy note with Thad's wife having serious doubts about the future of their relationship: Thad not only created Stark (if unintentionally), but a part of him liked Stark and his bloody-minded, psychotic outlook on life.

Post-Dark Half

Sheriff Alan Pangborn goes on to appear two times more in the Castle Rock series. It is revealed that ever since the events of The Dark Half, he is plagued by nightmares, and the memory of Thad Beaumont, whom we are told of his wife and son's subsequent death and his own depression in Needful Things. It is revealed in Bag of Bones that Thad committed suicide. This ties up the novel's ambiguous ending regarding Thad's relationship to Liz.

Stark is also mentioned in the "Notes" section of King's collection Nightmares and Dreamscapes under the story "The Fifth Quarter". It states only "Bachman again. Or maybe George Stark."

Other media adaptations

The novel was adapted within a film, The Dark Half by George A. Romero in 1990, and was released in 1993. It was filmed in part at Washington and Jefferson College and other locations in southwestern Pennsylvania. It starred Timothy Hutton as Thad/Stark, Michael Rooker as Alan Pangborn, and featured Julie Harris as an eccentric colleague of Thad's who provides some vital information about the supernatural.

The computer game The Dark Half, based on the novel, was designed by Symtus and published by Capstone in 1992. Another game titled The Dark Half: Endsville was announced at E3 in 1997, but the game was apparently not released.^[1]

See also

• Parasitic twin

References

External links

• The Dark Half at MobyGames
• The Dark Half Official Website