Booklist loved The Dark Man by Stephen King!
Another tremendous review for The Dark Man by Stephen King has arrived, this time from Booklist, one of the top sources of book reviews for libraries! We don’t normally reprint full reviews, but this one really sums up the project nicely for anyone who is on the fence:
“Purportedly scrawled by a college-age King on the back of a restaurant place mat, this glowering poem introduced a wandering character of ultimate evil, who would later mature into Randall Flagg of The Stand, The Eyes of the Dragon, and the Dark Tower series. Therefore, even though this is a curiosity, it’s a significant one in the King mythos, and Chadbourne’s black-and-white interpretation gives the spare text just the rotten juice it craves. The poem itself is the sort of metaphysical, apocalyptic piece you might expect from the late 1960s, but is nonetheless evocative. It begins, “i have stridden the fuming way / of sun-hammered tracks and / smashed cinders,” as we follow the slow nighttime progress of a smudgy man traversing a moonlit America of busted merry-go-rounds, dilapidated trains, and agonized cemeteries. Wordless pages fill out the five-stanza poem, with Chadbourne’s flat, snarled pencilwork hiding snakes, spiders, rats, and faces in every twisted tableau. It’s all suitably ominous, and bewitched fans will be able to draw a direct line between this and The Gunslinger (1982).”
— Daniel Kraus, Booklist
