The Gunslinger got me. The Drawing of the Three kept me.
This one felt different in a good way. Roland already had my attention, but bringing Eddie Dean and Odetta Holmes/Detta Walker into the story gave me a lot more to get invested in. Their personalities, their problems, and the way those things collide are a big part of what made this book work for me.
The story follows Roland along a beach where he encounters doors leading into different times in our world. Those doors bring him into contact with people whose lives are already complicated before he becomes part of them. Getting pulled into Roland’s journey means bringing all that trouble along too.
Eddie Dean was the first person who really stood out to me.
He’s a junkie, and King lets that be an ugly, difficult part of his life. The addiction affects his decisions, his relationships, and the situations he gets himself into. Eddie arrives with problems that are already serious enough without suddenly having Roland and another world to deal with.
I liked how raw that felt. There’s a whole person there, including the parts that make him difficult. He has his own attitude, his own way of responding to things, and a life that hasn’t exactly prepared him to calmly accept what’s happening. Putting somebody like that alongside Roland gives their interactions a lot of friction.
Then there’s Detta.
Her attitude is a huge part of what I remember about this book. She’s hostile, aggressive, and ready to turn a situation into a fight. You can feel how difficult it would be to get anywhere with someone who comes at everything that way. Odetta and Detta bring such different personalities into the story that their presence changes the atmosphere around them.
That’s the harshness I liked. These characters are dealing with addiction, anger, fear, and lives that have already done a number on them. They can be abrasive and hard to deal with. King gives them room to be that way, and I think it makes the interactions more interesting. Getting these people together creates its own problems before you even get to the larger journey.
And Roland is still Roland.
He has his goal and his determination, but now there are other personalities pushing against him. Eddie and Detta have plenty of their own shit going on. Roland’s focus doesn’t make all of that disappear, and being good with a gun doesn’t make every person easier to deal with. I liked seeing those different personalities brought into the same story.
The movement between worlds was another big part of why this one kept me reading.
The Gunslinger gives you that desert and the feeling of a world that has moved on. Here, King opens doors into places that are much closer to our own experience. You move between Roland’s strange world and a world of cities, drugs, crime, and ordinary things that become a lot less ordinary when he encounters them.
I liked those shifts. Every crossing gives the story a different setting and a different set of circumstances. The people on the other side have their own lives in progress, and Roland’s arrival complicates them. It makes the idea of other worlds feel connected to the characters themselves.
That combination is what worked for me: the different worlds, the movement between them, and these rough personalities getting tangled up in each other’s lives.
The Drawing of the Three gave me more reasons to stay with The Dark Tower. Roland brought me into the series, and this book started giving me other people to follow too. Eddie stood out first, Detta’s attitude made an impression, and King’s willingness to let the characters be raw made the whole thing more interesting to me.
Who I’d recommend it to: Readers who liked The Gunslinger and want to see the world open up. If raw characters, clashing personalities, and moving between different worlds sound good to you, I’d keep going with this one.
Caution: Read The Gunslinger first. King gets pretty harsh here, with addiction, violence, racism, and strong language. The characters can be difficult people to spend time with, and that’s a big part of the book.
Discussion question: Who stood out most to you in The Drawing of the Three, and what was it about them?
— Cory Lane