Dark half

The action takes place in the small town of Castle Rock .

When Ted Beaumond was eleven years old, he suffered a terrible headache during which he heard the sounds of birds. When Ted went to school, he lost consciousness, after an examination in the hospital, the doctor diagnosed a benign head tumor . During the operation, the surgeons found that this was not a tumor at all, but an twin brother absorbed (during intrauterine development) . During the operation, huge flocks of sparrows began to beat in the windows of the hospital. Ted's parents, like himself, were not informed of the twin brother.

Many years later. Ted grew up, got married, he had children (twins) William and Wendy, Ted became a successful writer, he writes books under his own name and under the pseudonym George Stark. Once after work, a guy named Frederick Clawson comes up to him, he blackmails him because he has figured out that Ted Beaumond and George Stark have the same face. Ted consulted with his agent Rick Cowley, Rick advises Ted: to reveal that he is George Stark. Ted does so, the journalists convinced him to "bury" Stark. To do this, make a fake headstone with the inscription "George Stark - not the most pleasant type" and find a place for burial.

After a couple of days. Homer Hamish, Ted’s housekeeper, was found dead and his truck was stolen, but police found him along with Ted Beaumond’s fingerprints. Police officer Alan Pangborn enters Ted’s house and begins to interrogate him, but he replies that he did not know what had happened. He soon learns that Stark’s grave has been excavated. After Ted, on the answering machine hears the last words of Miriam (his agent’s ex-wife) “-Ted, don't let him cut me ...” The third victim is Mike Donaldson, George Stark was waiting for him in the apartment. He takes a razor and kills Mike with it (Ted wrote the book Machin's Way, where the main character wielded a razor, the prototype of the hero of the book served as the image of George Stark). Ted tells police Alan that George Stark came out of the grave and begins to take revenge on him, killing everyone who knew about the pseudonym, and Ted's agent Rick Cowley becomes the next victim. Rick is given protection, but when Rick enters his apartment, Stark kills him.

After the villain begins to haunt Ted, Stark demands that he and Ted begin to write books together again. Even Ted himself admired the protagonist of his own book, The Machin's Way, which served to portray Stark himself. Ted also learns that the sounds of birds that he heard at eleven are “psycho-pumps” that carry the souls of the dead to the underworld. Stark calls Ted and says that he abducted his wife Lisa and the children and drove them to the Beomond country house, Ted arrives there and sees that Stark’s body is rotting, but Stark says that when he replaces Ted’s place, he will look better. They both climb into the attic and begin to write a book, meanwhile Alan Pangborn suspects the abduction of Ted's family, himself and discovers where he is hiding, then he goes to the place where Ted and Stark are.

During the fight, Ted blows a bird decoy, and sparrows attack the house, which tear Stark to pieces and take him with him to the sky.

• Sparrows in the book are called "psycho-pumps." Psychopomp is an epithet of the Greek god Hermes .
• Sheriff Alan Pangborn is one of the main characters in the novel "Necessary Things ."
• The eponymous computer game based on the story was released in 1992 by Capstone Software . Another The Dark Half: Endsville was announced by E3 for release in 1997, but never came out.
• According to Publishers Weekly , according to the results of the 1980s, the book was sold in a circulation of 1.5 million copies, which is more than other King’s works published in those years ^[1] .
• Stephen King often connects his works with each other, so at the beginning of the fourth chapter the rape that happened in Castle Rock is referred to as a reference to the Dead Zone novel, it is also mentioned that a rabid dog killed the sheriff of the city - a reference to Kujo .

In 1992, the film adaptation of the same name was released, directed by George Romero .

• Parasite twin

• Audiobook Stephen King "The Dark Half"