My first review about the master story teller !
I read this book a long time back ... but still remember the whole stuff! That’s the beauty of Stephen King! You read some fast Sidney Sheldon and boom the next week you forget what the story was about or have it confused with some other book. But King makes you remember the story. It doesn’t fade.
The book begins with this quote from Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses
The landscape of her poetry was still the desert
Desperation is a name of the city. It’s desolated. And in here meet the cast of the story : a family of four , a couple, a star, and a girl. And ofcourse a police officer in the city.
The story’s all Good vs Evil ... on the edge horror. That very special King horror which is built from the beginning of the book. Like in this book, when one of the characters (an actor who takes a long ride on his Harley Davidson) gets down on his way for a piss by the side of the road he hears a coyote (a wolf-ish animal) look at him and howl.
And after a while this police officer comes by telling him that it’s against the rules to pee by the side of the road, and that he has to write him a ticket. But when the officer realizes that this dude is a star, he talks all praise of him. And while they talk a pack of coyotes howl real loud at them. At this, the officer gets angry and turns to the pack and mutters Tak, tak-ala!!
And the coyotes just calm down and get away.
Anyway, everyone end up in ’desperation’ and they try to get away from there coz the place is evil. The book is about how they survive the deserted desolated place. And why is the place deserted even though it’s a big town?
And there’s also a Bright Young Kid in this book. There’s always a smart kid in many King’s novels. And these kids play a major role in the plot.
It’s one of the chilling books King has written. My personal favourite.:)
For those who have already read this: Check out ’The Running Man’ by Richard Bachman. I heard it’s pretty much ’Desperation’ but with a different plot. King wrote a few books under the name ’Richard Bachman’. Apparently to get a different opinion about his writing. But that wasn’t standing for a long time coz some reader apparently read both ’Desperation’ and ’The Running Man’ and found out king wrote them both ;)
TAK ! :))