Desperation - Stephen King

Written by Tom Clare in Book Reviews, Sunday 2 April, 2006

Desperately Seeking Stephen

I bought the hefty-looking Desperation from a market stall recently, knowing that the least I would get for my 95p would be a decent pennies-to-pages ratio. Having now compiled more or less all of Stephen King's novels, I'd still only managed to read about a third of them (though not through lack of trying!) and on this occasion made the naughty decision to judge Desperation by its cover and dive into straight away. It had a certain dark, minimalistic quality to it and would hopefully add to my understanding of the Dark Tower (to which many of King's standalone novels make reference) before I would eventually embark on that mammoth series.

Desperation was first published in 1996, in that continually uncertain period whereby fans weren't sure whether King's next book was going to be a rip-roaring classic or a waste of space. Desperation presents elements from both of these categories, with my ultimate view of it being somewhere in-between; a fine introduction brimming with potential being severely negated by a half-baked and forgettable second half.

The story is set in a small mining town called, rather ominously, Desperation - an area slap bang in the middle of the Nevada desert. Its inhabitants are nowhere to be seen, save for a single, towering policeman who patrols the surrounding highway; large gun at his hip and a general aura of evil surrounding him.

The opening faze of the story is more or less vintage King, telling from a number of perspectives how husband-and-wife Mary and Peter; holiday-bound family of four the Carver's and one-time literary genius (but more recently ageing hell-raiser and recovering alcoholic) Johnny Marinville are all fooled and captured by the merciless cop. Despite the inevitability of their capture, the opening passage of Desperation is eminently readable and really comes to life through King playing to his strengths; the distinctive characters are introduced nicely and interlaced with the odd successfully implemented shock-tactic, some really grim experiences for the 'goodies' and a villain that conjures up the level of dislike not harboured since Annie uttered 'you're a dirty birdie!' in Misery all those years ago - it's top stuff.

The majority of the rest of the novel sees the unlikely group of allies considering how to escape first their prison cells (where the cop has stored them for safe keeping) and then the town itself, as some shocking and not altogether pleasing information comes to light about the locals and the bizarre police officer. The central figure amongst it all is 11 year-old David Carver, who after witnessing his friend making a miraculous recovery from a horrifying accident (which he was convinced was down to him praying for the first time), becomes heavily involved with religion and God, to the point where even his parents, Ellen and Ralph, think he has gone a little peculiar. But it seems the youngster carries a remarkable presence with him, and when the group begin to understand that Desperation is run by an entity more akin to the devil, they realise that David may be their only hope of getting out alive.

So the opening is energetic enough, but how do the characters fare? A little hit and miss at times, but on the whole, not too bad. Whilst the likes Ellen and Ralph Carver are bland to the point of anonymity at times, Johnny Marinville proves an unlikely source of intrigue, and certainly the character that develops the most over the course of the novel. At varying points he's witty, selfish, childish, bitter, heroic, hard-nose and cowardly - as a one-time successful writer Marinville is portrayed as someone who has fought to overcome personal demons, bouncing back to write a new novel before coming across the cursed mining-town. His strenuous efforts not to believe the apparent miracles that are happening around him make him unpopular with the others for a time, but his sharp tongue and ability to deal with humility, as well as his unpredictable moods, make him a genuinely interesting figure.

Though the various characters in the 'Survival Society' (those captured by the cop) are partnered together at one point or another, few seem to gel together with any great significance - the Carver's especially all tend to act with a peculiar indifference to the others (except David, though even he keeps himself to himself for the most part). The exception to the rule being the two best characters in the novel; Steve, Johnny Marinville's roadie (and secret guardian angel while his 'boss' is travelling the country on a Harley), and Cynthia, a spirited young hitchhiker with brightly-dyed hair and scarred features (from abusive relationships). The sections featuring the two provide a welcome change that for the most part takes place on the highway outside of the town, as they search for the area where Johnny and Co. have gone missing, observing the strange wildlife and supernatural pull of the area. The dialogue that ensues between Steve and Cynthia are amusing and enjoyable and provide the high point of the novel in general; the most memorable snippet being when the two first meet, and when Steve calls her 'Cookie', Cynthia replies, 'Don't call me cookie if I can't call you cake' - she's eccentric but tremendously endearing.

Sadly, Desperation doesn't managed to maintain the momentum it builds up early on, probably due to a mixture of ineffective attempts to scare (coyote's sitting by the roadside can only feel eerie the first time!) and, by King's standards, relatively few tense sections and muted levels of gore-based horror - his forte, after all. There are many long-winded sections whereby characters pasts are examined in a lot of detail, but as King fans will know, this tends to be par-for-the-course in most of his novels, and whilst this is by no means a criticism as such, the success of his work does tend to rest on how interesting these passages are - and as with the rest of the book, they are prove a little hit and miss, becoming steadily more forgettable as the story progresses. Whilst David and Johnny have relatively readable pasts divulged, the sheer size of the book (720 pages) would lead you to believe there was a bit more meat to the story than is actually the case. Granted, it's written as confidently as ever and it has a certain simple, readable quality that the author has honed over the last few decades, but as King himself would have said, irrelevant detail can be the death of a good book.

For all the character examination and exploration of the settings, Desperation comes across as curiously lightweight at times, none more so than in its finale. Several references are made to the mysterious China Pit throughout the story and there's little doubt that King was trying to build some feeling of expectation and mystique about the place as the characters inevitably move towards the area for the final section. But though the book as a whole is very big, the ending itself seems curiously brief and almost totally uninteresting, with the 'confrontation' with the villain of the piece seeming quite rushed and the description of the setting being uncharacteristically poor by King's standard.

Obviously give that it's a) a Stephen King novel and b) based firmly in the horror genre suggests that it isn't something I would recommend to the youngsters or those of a squeamish disposition, though the scare tactics are (first hundred pages aside) a little lacklustre and ineffective, if truth be told. Also, as I mentioned earlier it is a large book and not something that (certainly in my experience) can be polished off all that rapidly, so should only really be tackled by die-hard King fans.

Ultimately, Desperation is a readable but slightly uninspiring work of supernatural horror by Stephen King. A decent beginning introduces some fairly good characters and some pleasing touches provide some genuine hints of excellence, but perhaps (like King's Black House), would have worked much better as a shorter, 200-300 page story than the epic that it tries and fails to be. Much of the tension and interest that was apparent in the beginning fades by the final quarter and the ending is extremely dull. Not recommended, except to the bigger Stephen King and horror fans among you.

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