#Review #4stars The Dark Half, by Stephen King #keepersofking

MY REVIEW 4 stars:

Thad is a writer with a very unique story to tell about his odd and evil connection with the character who fills the bill of his pen name George Stark. Thad had written several best selling thrillers under the name of George Stark. The books were nasty, deadly sort of books and his fan base was impressive. The trouble was that Thad, with the support of his amazing wife Liz, didn’t like George very well. Thad didn’t like the way he acted while writing George’s books. He was disconnected and a bit outside of himself and that’s not to mention his thought process while writing such raunchy things. So, Thad and Liz work together and bury George… literally. The two of them make a thing of it, and do a public funeral for the pen name of George Stark and they even take photos for the local newspaper. What was meant to be a creative way to announce publicly to fans that Thad is in fact George, and that he’ll no longer be producing books under the pen name, turned into a spiral of ghostly events.

With a crazy twist, twins run in Thads family in an overwhelming way. He himself was a twin in the womb, but his twin didn’t make it and he actually absorbed the second fetus (yes this is actually a real thing). When Thad was a young boy he had a brain tumor that was removed, and the doctors at the time thought it may have had something to do with his fetus partner. THEN, Thad and Liz wind up with a set of twins of their own. These kids are a cute and fun addition to the book, kind of tying things together… but they’re also creeeeeeeppppppyyyy!!!  I don’t want to get much more into that, they just are.

Now, lets get back to George Stark. Shortly after Thad decides to stop writing under the name, and they have this odd little burial of his fake entity things get a little weird. There’s odd footprints coming from the grave and people who were involved with the undoing of George begin to die in horribly awful ways. Murders are calculated and evil, but to make matters strange… Thad’s fingerprints are all over the crime scenes. He has solid alibis, and really has absolutely nothing to do with the killings. In fact, he’s so far away from the crimes that its absolutely impossible for him to have done them. The police are in a fix, and things only continue to spiral down this impossible, evil and gory path. Shit gets weirder and weirder, as the ghost of George Stark comes to light, his personality a disgusting display of deadly evil.

I enjoyed the pacing of this story, and was hooked all the way through. I really love Liz and her connection with Thad is really felt which I enjoyed as an out of the norm for King books. I felt it to be a bit drawn out in places, it could have done without a bunch of scenes. 4 stars for me.

DESCRIPTION:

Set in the fictional town of Castle Rock, Maine

A “wondrously frightening” (Publishers Weekly) tale of terror and #1 national bestseller about a writer’s pseudonym that comes alive and destroys everyone on the path that leads to the man who created him.

Thad Beaumont is a writer, and for a dozen years he has secretly published violent bestsellers under the name of George Stark. But Thad is a healthier and happier man now, the father of infant twins, and starting to write as himself again. He no longer needs George Stark and so, with nationwide publicity, the pseudonym is retired. But George Stark won’t go willingly.

And now Thad would like to say he is innocent. He’d like to say he has nothing to do with the twisted imagination that produced his bestselling novels. He’d like to say he has nothing to do with the series of monstrous murders that keep coming closer to his home. But how can Thad deny the ultimate embodiment of evil that goes by the name he gave it—and signs its crimes with Thad’s bloody fingerprints?

The Dark Half is “a chiller” (The New York Times Book Review), so real and fascinating that you’ll find yourself squirming in Stephen King’s heart-stopping, blood-curdling grip—and loving every minute of it.