seemed gorgeous to me) was when I was inhabiting another that seemed every bit as real — the postapocalypse world of The Stand. The final segment presented here, “The Gunslinger and the Man in Black,”
was written less than eighteen months ago, in western Maine.
I believe that I probably owe readers who have come this far with me some sort of synopsis (“the argument,”
those great old romantic poets would have called it) of what is to come, since I’ll almost surely die before completing the entire novel.., or epic… or whatever you’d call it. The sad fact is that I can’t really do that.
People who know me understand that I am not an intellectual ball of fire, and people who have read my work with some critical approval (there are a few; I bribe them) would probably agree that the best of my stuff has come more from the heart than from the head… or from the gut, which is the place from which the strongest emotional writing originates.
All of which is just a way of saying that I’m never completely sure where I’m going, and in this story that is even more true than usual. I know from Roland’s vision near the end that his world is indeed moving on because Roland’s universe exists within a single molecule of a weed dying in some cosmic vacant lot (I think I probably got this idea from Clifford D. Simak’s Ring Around the Sun; please don’t sue me, Cliff!), and I know that the drawing involves calling three people from our own world (as Jake himself was called by the man in black) who will join Roland in his quest for the Dark Tower— I know that because segments of the second cycle of stories (called “The Drawing of the Three”) have already been written.
But what of the gunslinger’s murky past? God, I know so little. The revolution that topples the gunslinger’s
“world of light”? I don’t know. Roland’s final confrontation with Marten, who seduces his mother and kills his father? Don’t know. The deaths of Roland’s compatriots, Cuthbert and Jamie, or his adventures during the years between his
coming of age and his first appearance to us in the desert?
I don’t know that, either. And there’s this girl, Susan. Who is she? Don’t know.
Except somewhere inside, I do. Somewhere inside I know all of those things, and there is no need of an argument, or a synopsis, or an outline (outlines are the last resource of bad fiction writers who wish to God they were writing masters’ theses). When it’s time, those things— and their relevance to the gunslinger’s quest—will roll out as naturally as tears or laughter. And if they never get around to rolling out, well, as Confucius once said, five hundred million Red Chinese don’t give a shit.
I do know this: at some point, at some magic time, there will be a purple evening (an evening made for romance!) when Roland will come to his dark tower, and approach it, winding his horn.., and if I should ever get there, you’ll be the first to know.
Stephen King
Bangor, Maine