In a septology, book four is the centre, the crux of the tale. The 27-hour (by audiobook) behemoth at the heart of Stephen King’s Gunslinger series bears the weight of the series with aplomb.

Of the 672 pages in my paperback edition, a full 500 are one extended flashback. Roland and company spend most of the book on an interstate highway in the ravaged world of The Stand. Time stretches while Roland spends a night telling his ka-tet about his own coming of age.

The book works on multiple levels. The flashback itself is a gripping story of a teenage gunslinger encountering his first taste of leadership and love. Within the framework of Eddie, Suzannah, Jake, and Oy’s travels, the story-within-a-story recapitulates the doubling themes developed during the first three books. Looking forward, the flashback story sets the stage for adventures in the Calla to come.

In the same way that King left his constant readers stranded with a homicidal monorail train (Blaine is a pain) at the end of The Wastelands, King keeps us waiting through the majority of The Wizard and the Glass for time to resume and for the ka-tet to continue on their adventures.

But this story matters. If this is your first reading en route to the Dark Tower, be sure to soak it all in.

Here are my thoughts, culled from my hand-written journal the first time I finished Wizard and the Glass on August 6, 2005:

I was a little nervous this one would be slow—lots of pages with a 500 page flashback! But no worries—I’ve never read Stephen King like this before. Brilliant love story.

King, Stephen. The Dark Tower IV: The Wizard and the Glass. Narrated by Frank Muller. Audiobook ed., unabridged, Simon and Schuster Audio, 2016.