There isn’t a Constant Reader alive who wouldn’t recognize the title of this post. The lobstrosities that plague Roland the Gunslinger in the second Dark Tower book are one of the only constants in a novel that hurls the reader through different points in both time and space (though always returning to New York City).
The Drawing of the Three brings Roland closer to his elusive Dark Tower, but at great cost. Early on, he’s besieged by the horrid, ocean-dwelling lobstrosities, who rob him of the useful parts of his right hand. For a gunslinger, could there be a crueller fate? Worse still, the attack leaves him with a raging infection. Yet the quest continues. As Roland trudges up the beach, ever forward, he encounters three freestanding doors. The first opens to Eddie Dean, a young man making a series of terrible choices. The second to Odetta Walker, a woman in a wheelchair who is far more than she first appears. The third door brings him to Death—“but not for you, Gunslinger.” And what a satisfying death it is.
It’s probably been about 20 years since I last read The Drawing of the Three, and still it felt intimately familiar. I hadn’t realized how many turns of phrase I’d adopted from this novel (“popkins,” “the Great Sage and Eminent Junkie,” “it’s a ‘for special’,” etc.), but clearly it’s left an indelible mark on my psyche. Yet for all its familiarity, there were plot points I’d entirely forgotten. Not Eddie Dean’s stressful plane/customs/drug dealer introduction, nor the maddeningly fractured mind of Detta/Odetta. But the third door? That was nothing like what I remembered—or expected—and it made the conclusion far more thrilling than nostalgic.
Overall, 4 Astin tablets out of 5.