The Book Bump

First Published: 1989
Author: Stephen King
Reading Language: English
Genre: Horror/Gore
My rating: 3/5

Thad Beaumont, a critically acclaimed author, has been writing best-selling novels under the pseudonym George Stark.
After a good run, Thad decides to publicly retire the pseudonym and starts writing under his own name again. But getting rid of his super-violent pulp thriller writing alter ego isn’t as easy as Thad imagines.
The brutal public death of George Stark sets in motion a series of violent killings. The killer will stop at nothing to get what he wants. Revenge.

The Dark Half is the third Stephen King novel I’ve read (not counting his memoir On Writing).

The novel’s premise is rather intriguing. The idea that pseudonyms are as real as the author who created them and that they’ll fight tooth and nail to stay relevant is genius. On his website, Stephen King says he tried to address the question “where do you get your ideas from?” in this novel, and it truly is an interesting question to create a story from. There’s no faulting King’s storytelling or creativity.

As with all Stephen King novels, the pace is slow. He talks about this in his memoir. He isn’t the fast-paced, full-of-action kind of author, which is great… usually.

The book seemed to drag more than it needed to. The reader and characters know who the killer is, so this novel has little to no suspense.

So why does it take 400+ pages to tell the story?

Maybe Stephen King enjoyed writing the super-violent pulp thriller fiction that his antagonist was inclined to write a little too much. King describes the murders in chilling detail. As a reader, the mental picture of each murder is clear, and you can almost hear the screams. However, the novel lacks any form of suspense or fear factor. As soon as the antagonist has a person in his line of fire, you know they’re as good as dead.

The dialogue felt awkward much of the time. When read aloud, I doubt anyone would talk the way King made his characters speak. A lot of the dialogue felt overexplanatory and very expositional.

The characters were a little flat.

Thad Beaumont is the protagonist, and he’s a little cagey. As a reader, you don’t understand his intentions. Maybe he doesn’t understand them himself? But I felt left out like I wasn’t privy to some information. He repeatedly puts his family in danger despite knowing what type of man is out to get him.
There was no chemistry between him and his wife, Liz, despite his attempts to show the deep connection they shared. Liz felt like a prop—someone to hang over Thad’s head as bait.
Sheriff Pangborn seemed unrealistic. He accepted too readily the explanations given to him by Liz and Thad Beaumont. He also acted irresponsibly and nearly put everyone in danger, too.
The only character whose intentions were clear from the start was the antagonist, George Stark. He knew what he wanted and how he could get it, although he seemed to have it all a bit too easily.
However, there was no real connection between Thad and George despite them being one-half of the same person.

Sometimes, I found myself wanting to yell at the characters for being so obtuse and naïve. It’s like when you watch a horror film, and the characters make all the wrong decisions as they’ve never watched a horror flick before.

I also found the climax rather lacklustre and disappointing. It felt ludicrous and forced, almost as if King didn’t know how to end the story satisfactorily.

Sometimes, I wonder if I’m not sensitive to King’s earlier style, as I enjoyed Sleeping Beauties, which he co-wrote with his son in 2017.  
I still have Cujo and The Bachmann Books on my TBR list, but I might wait a little before picking them up.