Making up nearly half of its content was a story that had been related within Roland’s flashback. That flashback to Roland’s youth was not all that was embedded in the novel though. Roland’s flashback story concluded at this point and, with the storm having cleared, his Ka-tet continued their journey toward the Dark Tower. The content foreshadowed her later demise in that she forgave her son for her eventual death at his hands. While re-visiting Serenity, Roland was given a letter that his mother had written during her stay in the community. Roland’s story concluded with him and Jamie taking the orphaned Bill to the Serenity women’s community for care. Once identified amid a number of local miners, the Skin Man turned into a snake that the young Roland shot dead with a special silver bullet. Bill eventually helped Roland to identify the Skin Man via a tattoo and scar that the man had on him. They also met with the survivor of a recent Skin Man attack named Bill. Once in Debaria, Roland and Jamie met with the local Sheriff. This brush with the community was notable but its relevance would not pay off until later in the story.

En route, they happened into the Serenity ‘women’s community’ that Roland’s mother had visited in the time after she was caught having an affair with the villainous Marten. Roland and a companion named Jamie De Curry were sent by Roland’s father to the town of Debaria to find a ‘Skin Man’ that has caused violence in that area. The group members passed the time by listening as Roland told another story of his youth.Ī flashback picked up young Roland where he left off in the aftermath of the Mejis storyline and the death of his mother.

“The Wolves of the Calla” contained considerable reference to fiction works such as “The Magnificent Seven,” Harry Potter, Marvel Comics’ Doctor Doom, and King’s own “’Salem’s Lot” and King felt that future series readers needed to be better prepared for how the overall story shifted gears into that fifth book.Īs Roland and his party (his ‘ka-tet’) continued their journey to the Dark Tower, they sat out a storm in a protected shelter building. This book was intended to be volume ‘4.5’ in the series, providing a thematic bridge between the first four books in the series and the three books that followed. “The Wind through the Keyhole” was released in 2012, several years after King had published what was assumed to be his final “Dark Tower” book.

The dark tower 4.5