King's
epical Dark Tower hastens to a close, and its penultimate volume is one
of the speediest. The gunslingers of Mid-World and other alternate
Earths have defeated The Wolves of the Calla (2003) but lost one of
their number. Susannah Dean, nee Odetta Holmes, lacking her lower legs
after a minion of the Satan of Mid-World, the Crimson King, pushed her
in front of a subway train, and whose personality is sometimes split
between black bourgeoise Odetta and viciously paranoiac Detta Walker,
has been taken over by the spirit Mia to be the body in which Mia will
gestate a boy who will eventually kill head gunslinger Roland. The child
is to be born in New York in 1999, which is where Susannah-Mia repairs
through one of the doors between worlds. The other gunslingers pursue
through the same door, but only 11-year-old Jake Chambers, accompanied
by former 'Salems' Lot priest Don Callahan, get to New York. Roland and
Susannah's husband, Eddie Dean, tumble into an ambush in New England in
1977. Each chapter--called a stanza and ending with two songlike
quatrains--advances one subset of gunslingers' progress. King keeps us
on tenterhooks throughout--and leaves us there. Before quite departing,
he tacks on a clever coda about the gradual creation of the Dark
Tower--but in which world? The series concludes with The Dark Tower in
September.
