Desperation

Desperation is a desert town in Nevada. This place, where on the good days the people can be ‘intense,’ has been turned into a wasteland by an ancient evil. A group of unsuspecting strangers drawn to the town must survive their encounter with this force and in the process make a decision that will forever change their lives.

King’s set-up to this story is long, gruesome, and grim. There are parts that any decent person will recoil from–as they should. The evil in this book is not glamorous; it is evil in its most fallen and base form.

Once the dark ‘collecting’ of the opening is through, the novel finally hits full stride. Good appears in the most unexpected form. Evil is engaged in a battle to the death.

Usually ‘good vs. evil’ type novels suffer from too much of a ‘black and white’ didactic moralism. The beauty of Desperation is that the heroes of the novel must first engage the evil and good within themselves before they can lift a finger to fight the real enemy. King never fails to amaze me with the craft of his words and his honest description of the glory and shame of being human.

Desperation is a stand alone novel. However, it ties in (as do many of King’s novels) with the Dark Tower series. It also has a bizarro ‘sister book’ in the late Richard Bachman’s The Regulators.