The Drawing of the Three

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Title The Dark Tower II -
The Drawing of the Three

Author	Stephen King
Cover artist	Phil Hale
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre(s)	Fantasy, Horror, Science fiction novel
Publisher	Donald M. Grant
Released	1987
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages	399 pp
ISBN	ISBN 0-937986-91-7
Preceded by	The Dark Tower - The Gunslinger
Followed by	The Dark Tower III - The Waste Lands

The Drawing of the Three is the second book in the Dark Tower series written by Stephen King and published by Donald M. Grant in 1987. The series was inspired by Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came by Robert Browning.

[edit] Plot summary

This story is the continuation of The Gunslinger, Roland of Gilead, and his quest towards the Dark Tower. The book begins with Roland waking up from unconsciousness on a beach where he is suddenly attacked by a strange lobster-like creature, dubbed "lobstrosities." He manages to kill the creature but not before losing the index and middle finger of his right hand, and most of his right big toe. This complicates matters as he's reduced to only using one weapon. Also, his wounds become infected from the "lobstrosities" venom. Feverish and losing strength, Roland continues to trek north along the beach where he eventually encounters three doors. Each door opens onto New York City at different periods in time (1987, 1964 and 1977, respectively) and as Roland passes through these doors he brings back the companions who will join him on his quest to the Dark Tower.

The first door (labelled "The Prisoner," so called for his addiction) brings Eddie Dean, a heroin addict who is in the process of smuggling cocaine for the mafia. Since Eddie was headed deeper into addiction (at the hands of his brother) or prison (at the hands of the government), or worse (at the hands of his mafia boss), he decides to throw his lot in with Roland, although with deep misgivings that he occasionally gives vent to in the form of angry outbursts.

The second door ("The Lady of Shadows", so called for her multiple personalities and metaphorically, multiple shadows) finds Odetta Holmes, a black woman who, like many of her contemporaries, is active in the civil rights movement, but unlike many of her contemporaries, is very wealthy and missing her legs as a result of a subway accident. Odetta has dissociative identity disorder (popularly known as multiple personalities) and has a violent alternate personality named Detta Walker of whom she is completely unaware. Roland and Eddie are forced to contend with both of these personalities when Odetta's body is forcibly abducted into their world.

The third door that Roland encounters brings not a new companion, but instead a new adversary for Roland named Jack Mort ("The Pusher"). Jack Mort is also responsible, at some time in the future beyond Roland's encounter with him, for the death of Jake Chambers (from the first Dark Tower novel), whose murder at the hands of Mort draws Jake into Roland's world. Roland's decisions while dealing with him are crucial to later events in the series. The encounter results in the fusing of the personalities of Odetta and Detta to form a third woman, who will thenceforth be called Susannah.

Each of these people is essential for Roland to continue his quest. They are all part of a ka-tet, defined as "one made from many" and "sharing the same destiny."