The Wind Through the Keyhole - (Dark Tower) by Stephen King (Paperback)

About the Book

King returns to the rich landscape of Mid-World, the spectacular territory of the Dark Tower fantasy saga. Roland Deschain and his friends encounter a ferocious storm on their way to the Outer Baronies. As they shelter from the howling gale, Roland tells not just one strange story, but two . . . and in so doing, casts new light on his own troubled past.

Book Synopsis

In his New York Times bestselling The Wind Through the Keyhole, Stephen King returns to the spectacular territory of the Dark Tower fantasy saga to tell a story about gunslinger Roland Deschain in his early days.

The Wind Through the Keyhole is a sparkling contribution to the series that can be placed between Dark Tower IV and Dark Tower V. This Russian doll of a novel, a story within a story within a story, visits Roland and his ka-tet as a ferocious, frigid storm halts their progress along the Path of the Beam. Roland tells a tale from his early days as a gunslinger, in the guilt-ridden year following his mother's death. Sent by his father to investigate evidence of a murderous shape-shifter, Roland takes charge of Bill Streeter, a brave but terrified boy who is the sole surviving witness to the beast's most recent slaughter. Roland, himself only a teenager, calms the boy by reciting a story from the Book of Eld that his mother used to read to him at bedtime, "The Wind through the Keyhole." "A person's never too old for stories," he says to Bill. "Man and boy, girl and woman, we live for them."

And stories like The Wind Through the Keyhole live for us with Stephen King's fantastical magic that "creates the kind of fully imagined fictional landscapes a reader can inhabit for days at a stretch" (The Washington Post).

Review Quotes

"A fairy tale of great adventure and beauty."-- "Vulture"

"Each nested narrative delivers its fair share of suspense, action and solid character work. King knows this fictional universe intimately, and his love for it shines through every page."-- "San Francisco Chronicle"

"It's both a pleasure and a surprise to encounter The Wind Through the Keyhole, a new, largely independent narrative set in a previously unexplored corner of Roland's universe."-- "The Washington Post"

"Masterful . . . King shows himself to be an ace storyteller yet again, spinning yarns like a favorite relative about a hero and his adventures in a world like our own but just slightly skewed."-- "USA Today"

"Pitch-perfect . . . Even those who aren't familiar with the series will find the conclusion both satisfying and moving."-- "Publishers Weekly"

"Vivid and precise . . . A genre mash-up of horror/western/detective fiction, in which our hero rides into town to wade through gore, solve a mystery, and bring justice to an unruly frontier town."-- "Esquire"

About the Author

Stephen King is the author of more than sixty books, all of them worldwide bestsellers. His recent work includes Never Flinch (May 2025), the short story collection You Like It Darker (a New York Times Book Review top ten horror book of 2024), Holly (a New York Times Notable Book of 2023), Fairy Tale, Billy Summers, If It Bleeds, The Institute, Elevation, The Outsider, Sleeping Beauties (cowritten with his son Owen King), and the Bill Hodges trilogy: End of Watch, Finders Keepers, and Mr. Mercedes (an Edgar Award winner for Best Novel and a television series streaming on Peacock). His novel 11/22/63 was named a top ten book of 2011 by The New York Times Book Review and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Mystery/Thriller. His epic works The Dark Tower, It, Pet Sematary, Doctor Sleep, and Firestarter are the basis for major motion pictures, with It now the highest-grossing horror film of all time. He is the recipient of the 2020 Audio Publishers Association Lifetime Achievement Award, the 2018 PEN America Literary Service Award, the 2014 National Medal of Arts, and the 2003 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. He lives in Bangor, Maine, with his wife, novelist Tabitha King.