In The Wind Through the Keyhole, Stephen King
returns to the rich landscape of Mid-World,
the spectacular territory of the Dark Tower
fantasy saga that stands as his most beguiling
achievement.
Roland Deschain and his ka-tet—Jake, Susannah,
Eddie, and Oy, the billy-bumbler—encounter a
ferocious storm just after crossing the River Whye
on their way to the Outer Baronies. As they shelter
from the howling gale, Roland tells his friends not
just one strange story but two . . . and in so doing,
casts new light on his own troubled past.
In his early days as a gunslinger, in the guiltridden
year following his mother’s death, Roland is
sent by his father to investigate evidence of a murderous
shape-shifter, a “skin-man” preying upon the
population around Debaria. Roland takes charge of
Bill Streeter, the brave but terrified boy who is the
sole surviving witness to the beast’s most recent
slaughter. Only a teenager himself, Roland calms the
boy and prepares him for the following day’s trials by
reciting a story from the Magic Tales of the Eld that
his mother often read to him at bedtime. “A person’s
never too old for stories,” Roland says to Bill. “Man
and boy, girl and woman, never too old. We live for
them.” And indeed, the tale that Roland unfolds, the
legend of Tim Stoutheart, is a timeless treasure for
all ages, a story that lives for us.
