Drawing of the Three by Stephen King, Book #2 of The Dark Tower series
Introduction
Drawing of the Three by Stephen King is Book #2 of The Dark Tower series. The previous book, The Gunslinger, left Roland, the last gunslinger, waiting on a beach. Roland begins the second book on that same beach. He must discover what the drawing of the three means. Roland searches through three transporter portals. He finds the junkie Eddie Dean and the wheelchair-bound Odetta Holmes. They must work together to continue their journey to the Dark Tower or face death.
Summary
At end of the Gunslinger, the man in black does a tarot reading for Roland. The three cards he draws are The Prisoner, The Lady of Shadows, and Death. The three sections of The Drawing of the Three each feature a different character. Roland accesses a portal at the beginning of the section. Each of the three portals is connected to New York City in three different time periods. In between each section is a chapter named shuffle where the previous section is reset and leads to the next.
Section one, The Prisoner, features Eddie Dean the junkie. Eddie must bring drugs across the border or the mob will kill him if he doesn’t.
Section two, The Lady of Shadows, features Odetta Holmes. She is black and lived during the civil rights movement. She lost the use of her legs, uses a wheelchair, and has a secret that they soon find out.
Section three, The Pusher, features a character that I’ll leave to the reader to learn about when reading. That character is important in the journey to The Dark Tower for Roland, Eddie, and Odetta.
Recommendation
I enjoyed Drawing of the Three by Stephen King better than the previous book in the series, The Gunslinger. The Gunslinger novel was a series of short stories featuring Roland’s fight with the Man in Black and his search for the Dark Tower. I didn’t feel like the stories came together. I think the Drawing of the Three came together. There were three new POVs in the story corresponding to the three sections in the novel. Eddie Dean, Odetta Holmes, and the third character are all important to Roland’s journey. I liked the perspectives of the new POVs and look forward to continuing to read the series to its end.
Links
This is the link to the Goodreads page of Drawing of the Three by Stephen King.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7675050-the-drawing-of-the-three
The Gunslinger by Stephen King, book #1 of The Dark Tower series, seemed to set up for a climax that never happened. What is there is a trippy and metaphysical non-ending.