A Sojourn into the Stephen King Archive: ‘The Dark Half’

With apologies to the novel, It, Andy Hageman removes the ventilation grille and takes us deep into the Stephen Edwin King Archive for Los Angeles Review of Books. There, as a part of his close reading of the original manuscript of The Dark Half, complete with the author’s handwritten notes and marginalia, Hagemen tries to piece together the perspective King used while writing. Was it King? Was it his alter ego, Richard Bachman, or a combination of those two identities?

These notes, combined with a title page and final resolution that differ dramatically from the published version, reveal the extent to which King was working through matters of identity and authorship when creating this novel, especially during a moment when he had recently been exposed as the author behind the pseudonym Richard Bachman. The archived typescript shows that King approached the processes of drafting and revising this novel as a real-time collaboration between himself and Bachman, whom he treated as an alter ego. The Dark Half was thus forged in a process of existential identity negotiation that transcended the limits of an individual author reflecting on and mourning the loss of his pseudonym. In light of this new evidence regarding the novel’s co-authored origins, The Dark Half merits renewed attention and analysis, whether you’re new to King’s work or what he refers to as a “Constant Reader.”