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A peaceful suburb in Ohio, at the height of a glorious American summer, is the victim of a driveby shooting from strange-looking vans. And then things start to get really weird, as reality begins phasing in and out, with the suburb sometimes becoming a caricature of a western town. And no one in the suburb, which is besieged by bizarre attackers, can get out or even call out.
Meanwhile, apart from all the running and shooting going on outside, a woman is trapped inside her home with her eight-year-old autistic nephew and the creature possessing him. This is the best part of the book, as it's the only one with emotional weight. Audrey and Seth love each other, but he's trapped by the thing possessing him and she's trapped by her refusal to leave him. (Is it a great portrayal of autism? Not really. Is Seth a character with his own agency and a personality that isn't just "autistic?" Yes.)
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The Regulators is loosely related to Desperation in some ways that are typical of a companion book - some shared characters, a very loosely similar plot - and some ways that I have never seen before, like characters who share names but are otherwise completely different people. In Desperation David is the son and Ralph is the father; this is reversed in The Regulators, and their personalities are totally different. In other cases, the characters have more similarities: Johnny Marinville, the asshole literary writer from Desperation, becomes Johnny Marinville, the good guy children's writer in The Regulators.
In general, I preferred the more normal sorts of similarities, like a different version of the same villain, to the weird ones like characters who share names but nothing else. What I'd have most enjoyed would have been the Desperation characters confronted with the Regulators situation, but we don't quite get that. The shared elements seem kind of random. The most interesting one is the implied similarity in setting, which suggests that a suburb isn't so different from a middle-of-nowhere small town.
The Regulators has a fun concept but it's all over the place and very thinly characterized. The prose isn't as good as in Desperation (the beginning tries for gonzo grandeur and mostly just hits florid), and, surprisingly, it's not about religion at all. As far as I could tell, it's not about anything in particular. The Audrey-and-Seth portions feel like an excerpt from another, better novel. Still, I have to give points to a novel where one of the ultimate weapons against the forces of darkness is a box of Ex-Lax.
Meanwhile, apart from all the running and shooting going on outside, a woman is trapped inside her home with her eight-year-old autistic nephew and the creature possessing him. This is the best part of the book, as it's the only one with emotional weight. Audrey and Seth love each other, but he's trapped by the thing possessing him and she's trapped by her refusal to leave him. (Is it a great portrayal of autism? Not really. Is Seth a character with his own agency and a personality that isn't just "autistic?" Yes.)
( Read more... )
The Regulators is loosely related to Desperation in some ways that are typical of a companion book - some shared characters, a very loosely similar plot - and some ways that I have never seen before, like characters who share names but are otherwise completely different people. In Desperation David is the son and Ralph is the father; this is reversed in The Regulators, and their personalities are totally different. In other cases, the characters have more similarities: Johnny Marinville, the asshole literary writer from Desperation, becomes Johnny Marinville, the good guy children's writer in The Regulators.
In general, I preferred the more normal sorts of similarities, like a different version of the same villain, to the weird ones like characters who share names but nothing else. What I'd have most enjoyed would have been the Desperation characters confronted with the Regulators situation, but we don't quite get that. The shared elements seem kind of random. The most interesting one is the implied similarity in setting, which suggests that a suburb isn't so different from a middle-of-nowhere small town.
The Regulators has a fun concept but it's all over the place and very thinly characterized. The prose isn't as good as in Desperation (the beginning tries for gonzo grandeur and mostly just hits florid), and, surprisingly, it's not about religion at all. As far as I could tell, it's not about anything in particular. The Audrey-and-Seth portions feel like an excerpt from another, better novel. Still, I have to give points to a novel where one of the ultimate weapons against the forces of darkness is a box of Ex-Lax.