Song of Susannah

The following item from the North Conway (N.H.) Mountain Ear was pasted into the writer’s journal, marked April 12th, 1988:

LOCAL SOCIOLOGIST DISMISSES “WALK-IN” TALES

By Logan Merrill

For at least 10 years, the White Mountains have resounded with tales of “Walk-Ins,” creatures who may be aliens from space, time travelers, or even “beings from another dimension.” In a lively lecture last night at the North Conway Public Library, local sociologist Henry K. Verdon, author of Peer Groups and Myth-Making, used the Walk-In phenomenon as an illustration of just how myths are created and how they grow. He said that the “Walk-Ins” were probably originally created by teenagers in the border towns between Maine and New Hampshire. He also speculated that sightings of illegal aliens who cross over the northern border from Canada and then into the New England states may have played a part in kindling this myth, which has become so prevalent. “I think we all know,” Professor Verdon said, “that there is no Santa Claus, no Tooth Fairy, and no actual beings called Walk-Ins. Yet these tales

(Continued on P. 8)

The rest of the article is missing. Nor is there any explanation as to why King may have included it in his journal.

June 19th, 1989

I just got back from my one-year Alcoholix Anonymous “anniversary.” An entire year w/o drugs or booze! I can hardly believe it. No regrets; sobering up undoubtedly saved my life (and probably my marriage), but I wish it wasn’t so hard to write stories in the aftermath. People in “the Program” say don’t push it, it’ll come, but there’s another voice (I think of it as the Voice of the Turtle) telling me to hurry up and get going, time is short and I have to sharpen my tools. For what? For The Dark Tower, of course, and not just because letters keep coming in from people who read The Drawing of the Three and want to know what happens next. Something in me wants to go back to work on the story, but I’ll be damned if I know how to get back.

July 12th, 1989

There are some amazing treasures on the bookshelves down here in Lovell. Know what I found this morning, while I was looking for something to read? Shardik, by Richard Adams. Not the story about the rabbits but the one about the giant mythological bear. I think I’ll read it over again.

Am still not writing much of interest…

September 21, 1989

Okay, this is relatively weird, so prepare yourself.

Around 10 A.M… while I was writing (while I was staring at the word processor and dreaming about how great it would be to have an ice-cold keg of Bud, at least), the doorbell rang. It was a guy from Bangor House of Flowers, with a dozen roses. Not for Tab, either, but for me. The card read Happy Birthday from the Mansfields-Dave, Sandy, and Megan.

I had totally forgotten, but today I’m the Big Four-Two. Anyway, I took one of the roses out, and I kind of got lost in it. I know how strange that sounds, believe me, but I did. I seemed to hear this sweet humming, and I just went down amp; down, following the curves of the rose, kind of splashing thru these drops of dew that seemed as big as ponds. And all the time that humming sound got louder amp; sweeter, and the rose got… well, rosier. And I found myself thinking of Jake from the first Dark Tower story, and Eddie Dean, and a bookstore. I even remember the name: The Manhattan Restaurant of the Mind.

Then, boom! I feel a hand on my shoulder, I turn around, and it’s Tabby. She wanted to know who sent me the roses. She also wanted to know if I’d fallen asleep. I said no, but I kind of did, right there in the kitchen.

You know what it was like? That scene at the Way Station in the The Gunslinger, where Roland hypnotizes Jake with a bullet. I’m immune to hypnosis, myself. A guy got me up on stage at the Topsham Fair when I was a kid and tried it on me, but it didn’t work. As I remember, my brother Dave was quite disappointed. He wanted me to cluck like a chicken.

Anyway, I think I want to go back to work on The Dark Tower. I don’t know if I’m ready for anything that complex-after some of the failures of the last couple of years let’s say I’m dubious-but I want to give it a shot, just the same. I hear those make-believe people calling to me. And who knows? There might even be a place in this one for a giant bear, like Shardik in the Richard Adams novel!

October 7th, 1989

I started the next Dark Tower book today, and-as with The Drawing of the Three-I finished my first session wondering why in God’s name I waited so long. Being with Roland, Eddie, and Susannah is like a drink of cool water. Or meeting old friends after a long absence. And, once again, there is a sense that I’m not telling the story but only providing a conduit for it. And you know what? That’s okie-fine with me. I sat at the word processor for four hours this morning and did not once think of a drink or any sort of mind- altering drug. I think I’ll call this one The Wastelands

October 9th,1989

No-Waste Lands. 2 words, as in the T. S. Eliot poem (his is actually “The Waste Land,” I think).

January 19th, 1990

Finished The Waste Lands tonight, after a marathon 5-hour session. People are going to hate the way it ends, w/ no conclusion to the riddle contest, and I thought the story would go on longer myself, but I can’t help it. I heard a voice speak up clearly in my head (as always it sounds like Roland’s) saying, “You’re done for now-close thy book, wordslinger.”

Cliffhanger ending aside, the story seems fine to me, but, as always, not much like the other ones I write. The manuscript is a brick, over 800 pages long, and I created said brick in just a little over three months.

Un-fucking-real.

Once again, hardly any strike-overs or re-takes. There are a few continuity glitches, but considering the length of the book, I can hardly believe how few. Nor can I believe how, when I needed some sort of inspiration, the right book seemed to fly into my hand time after time. Like The Quincunx, by Charles Palliser, with all the wonderful, growly 17th-century slang: “Aye, so ye do” and “So ye will” and “my cully.” That argot sounded perfect coming out of Gasher’s mouth (to me, at least). And how cool it was to have Jake come back into the story the way he did!

Only thing that worries me is what’s going to happen to Susannah Dean (who used to be Detta/Odetta). She’s pregnant, and I’m afraid of who or what the father might be. Some demon? I don’t think so, exactly. Maybe I won’t have to deal w/ that until a couple of books further down the line. In any case, my experience is that, in a long book, whenever a woman gets pregnant and nobody knows who the father is, that story is headed down the tubes. Dunno why, but as a plot-thickener, pregnancy just naturally seems to suck!

Oh well, maybe it doesn’t matter. For the time being I’m tired of Roland and his ka-tet. I think it may be awhile before I get back to them again, although the fans are going to howl their heads off about that cliffhanger ending on the train out of Lud. Mark my words.

I’m glad I wrote it, tho, and to me the ending seems just right. In many ways Waste Lands feels like the high point of my “make-believe life.”

Even better than The Stand, maybe.

November 27th, 1991

Remember me saying that I’d get bitched at about the ending of Waste Lands? Look at this!

Letter follows from John T. Spier, of Lawrence, Kansas:

November 16, 91

Dear Mr King,

Or should I just cut to the chase and say “Dear Asshole'?

I can’t believe I paid such big bucks for a Donald Grant Edition of your GUNSLINGER book The Waste Lands and this is what I got. It had the right title anyway, for it was “a true WASTE.”

I mean the story was all right don’t get me wrong, great in fact, but how could you “tack on” an ending like that? It wasn’t an ending at all but just a case of you getting tired and saying “Oh well, what the fuck, I don’t need to strain my brain to write an ending, those slobs who buy my books will swallow anything”

I was going to send it back but will keep it because I at least liked the pictures (especially Oy). But the story was a cheat.

Can you spell CHEAT Mr. King? M-O-O-N, that spells CHEAT.

Sincerely yours in criticism,

John T. Spier

Lawrence, Kansas

March 23, 1992

In a way, this one makes me feel even worse.

Letter follows from Mrs. Coretta Vele, of Stowe, Vermont:

March 6th, 1992

Dear Stephen King,

I don’t know if this letter will actually reach you but one can always hope. I have read most of your books and have loved them all. I am a 76-yrs-young “gramma” from your “sister state” of Vermont, and I especially like your Dark Tower stories. Well, to the point. Last month I went to see a team of Oncologists at Mass General, and they tell me that the brain tumor I have looks to be malignant after all (at 1st they said “Don’t worry Coretta its benine”). Now I know you have to do what you have to do, Mr. King, and “follow your muse,” but what they’re saying is that I will be fortunate to see the 4th of July this year. I guess I’ve read my last “Dark Tower yarn.” So what I’m wondering is, Can you tell me how the Dark Tower story comes out, at least if Roland and his “Ka- Tet” actually get to the Dark Tower? And if so what they find there? I promise not to tell a soul and you will be making a dying woman very happy.

Sincerely,

Coretta Vele

Stowe, Vt.

I feel like such a shit when I think of how blithe I was concerning the ending of Waste Lands. I gotta answer Coretta Vele’s letter, but I don’t know how to. Could I make her believe I don’t know any more than she does about how Roland’s story finishes? I doubt it, and yet “that is the truth,” as Jake sez in his Final Essay. I have no more idea what’s inside that damned Tower than… well, than Oy does! I didn’t even know it was in a field of roses until it came off my fingertips and showed up on the screen of my new Macintosh computer! Would Coretta buy that? What would she say if I told her, “Cory, listen: The wind blows and the story comes. Then it stops blowing, and all I can do is wait, same as you.”

They think I’m in charge, every one of them from the smartest of the critics to the most mentally challenged reader. And that’s a real hoot.

Because I’m not.

September 22, 1992