Song of Susannah is #6 in Stephen King's eight-volume The Dark Tower series. It is a dark fantasy set in Earth’s future, where physical and metaphysical laws are significantly altered. There is some collective memory of the old world and occasional portals between the old and new; characters do not refer to different “worlds” but different “whens”.
Roland Deschain is a Gunslinger, not so much a description as a title or profession: a knightly order trained in personal combat to be defenders of justice. Roland is the last of the gunslingers; more precisely, he was. He is on a quest to find the Dark Tower and to set something right that has somehow gone horribly wrong in the world that moved on.
In volume #1, Roland was alone pursuing the man in black. In volume #2, he picks up two companions from a different when: 20th-century America. He encounters Eddie, a former drug addict, and Susannah, a former schizophrenic and double-leg amputee. Eddie and Susanah fall in love and become Roland’s companions and gunslingers in training. In volume #3, the three risk great peril to add one more to their group, a boy named Jake, also from the 20th century. Volume #4 is a flashback telling Roland’s backstory. Volume #5, Wolves of the Calla, is a detour from the quest when they assist a farming community harassed by evil and dangerous beings. The very end of volume #5 leaves a cliffhanger when Susannah, pregnant with an unnatural child, leaves her companions and travels to a different when, late 20th century America to give birth.
Susannah is possessed by Mia, a minor demon who made a sort of reverse Faustian bargain to exchange her immortal being to become a mortal woman in order to have a baby. Mia needs Susannah, a fully human host, to carry the baby until the moment of delivery when the baby will be transferred from Susannah to Mia. Initially, Susannah fears the baby is a monster, but she learns it is the very human offspring of herself and Roland, though her pregnancy came about quite unnaturally.
Meanwhile, Roland, Eddie, Jake, and newly recruited gunslinger Father Callahan attempt to follow Susannah. Actually, Roland and Eddie intend to pursue Susannah, to 1999, while Jake and Callahan travel to 1977 to conduct business regarding their quest. However, the two pairs are sent to the other’s intended destination at the critical moment of passing through the portal. The gunslingers persevere and carry on, determined to do their best. This is particularly hard on Eddie, who is desperate to follow Susannah, but he soldiers on trusting Jake and Callahan to rescue his beloved.
In many ways, this was my least favorite volume thus far. It gets very weird; well, a King novel that isn’t weird would be weird, but this feels very contrived. I will spare further critique until I review the series as a whole. In other ways, this volume was very good. The previous volume, Wolves of the Calla, hinted at a bit of metafiction, which comes full force in Susannah’s Song. It also contains very clever author self-insertion. King writes himself into the tale, every bit the best-selling author he is. Roland and Eddie travel to 1977 Maine on the quest business I mentioned. While there, they learn that Stephen King lives nearby and that he has written about Callahan, the newest member of their company. Callahan is in a different King story: Salem’s Lot. They find King and learn that he has written, but not yet published the beginning of The Dark Tower and created the character Roland of Gilead. He hasn’t gotten to Eddie yet. He tells them…
Yeah, The Dark Tower, it was called. It was gonna be my Lord of the Rings, my Gormenghast, my you-name-it.
And…
…you started to scare me, so I stopped writing about you.
Meeting his fictional creation in the flesh was rather disturbing to King, but Roland and Eddie convince him that he must complete The Dark Tower series. It was very clever and a bit confusing.
My rating: 3 ½ out of 5 stars
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