The Outsider

“‘Doesn’t look like a monster, does he?’

‘They rarely do.’”

This exchange foreshadows Holly’s argument that serial killers like Ted Bundy are no more explicable than the outsider. Ralph accepts Terry as a monster but rejects the evidence of the outsider because it violates his sense of order. The description of Terry as a “monster” plays on the metaphorical usage of the word in a deeply ironic way; although Ralph doesn’t know it, the outsider is literally a monster that doesn’t look like one.

“Until the real killer of Frank Peterson was found—if he ever was—the people of Flint city were going to believe that Terry Maitland had gamed the system and gotten away with murder.”

Once an accusation is made, it tends to stick—sometimes even when the accused is formally exonerated. Most people won’t be in the courtroom to see the conflicting evidence in Terry’s case, but over 1,000 scenes, paralleling Ralph’s insistence on empirical evidence.

“When the mind’s filter disappeared, the big picture disappeared with it. There was no forest, only trees. At its worst, there were no trees, either. Just bark.”

Like most people, Ralph sorts facts and evidence according to the material laws he understands. When those laws don’t work, as when Terry appears to be in two places at once, his view collapses into chaos.

“People had the mistaken idea that Poe wrote fantastic stories about the supernatural, when in fact he wrote realistic stories about abnormal psychology.”

Poe’s association with horror fiction fits well in a Stephen King novel. As the story evolves into a supernatural detective yarn, Poe’s contribution to the detective genre becomes more relevant. Initially, Jeannie, who makes this remark to Ralph, was still looking for real-world solutions to the puzzle of Terry’s apparent bilocation.

“I believe in the stars, and the infinity of the universe. That’s the great Out There. Down here, I believe there are more universes in every fistful of sand, because infinity is a two-way street.”

Jeannie believes in a world beyond what she can see, and she doesn’t share Ralph’s need to impose order and limitations. Infinity is what she likes about the universe. Ralph finds it terrifying.

“[O]nce you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.”

Jeannie is quoting Sherlock Holmes. The characters, especially Ralph, will wrestle with what constitutes the impossible and the improbable. They “know” that it is impossible for Terry to be in two places at one time, but in Ralph’s worldview, the supernatural is by definition impossible as well.

“Once you eliminate the natural, whatever remains must be supernatural?”

This is Ralph’s corollary to the Holmes adage. Ralph is the only character who rejects the idea outright. The other characters will come to accept Ralph’s corollary because unlike Ralph, they accept the possibility of the supernatural. That said, the outsider is a material being, underscoring the truth of Holmes’s proposition: An improbable (or supernatural) truth isn’t really improbable at all, but simply something we aren’t presently equipped to explain.

“If a person did begin considering supernatural possibilities, that person would no longer be able to think of himself as a completely sane person, and thinking about one’s sanity was maybe not a good thing. It was like thinking about your heartbeat: if you had to go there, you might already be in trouble.”

These lines relate to quote number four above. Ralph depends on his rules and filters to make sense of the world, and without them everything dissolves into chaos. He is not so much afraid of becoming insane as of no longer recognizing himself as the person he sees himself to be. This is a potential loss of self and an existential threat.

“The more you find, the wronger it gets.”

Jeannie sounds like Lewis Carroll’s Alice saying, “Curiouser and curiouser.” The similarity evokes another story in which someone falls through the surface of reality and explores the truth beneath the show.

“‘Anything is possible,’ she said to the empty room. ‘Anything at all. The world is full of strange nooks and crannies.’”

Holly is stating the antithesis to Ralph’s materialism, but she proceeds to make a methodical investigation using concrete methods that Ralph would approve of. Holly has found a way to incorporate infinite possibilities into the practical world. The line also calls to mind Lewis Carol’s White Queen saying, “In my youth I tried to believe six impossible things before breakfast.”

“Time probably did heal all wounds, but God, some of them healed so slowly. And the difference between I have and I had was such a gulf.”

Holly expresses the grief and loss she feels regarding the death of Bill Hodges, who was her first friend and her teacher. She lost him before she fully gained confidence in her own abilities.

“Like measles, mumps, or rubella, tragedy was contagious. Unlike those diseases, there was no vaccine.”

Frankie Peterson’s murder initiates a wave of destruction and despair that spreads through the Peterson family and leads directly to Terry’s death. It culminates in the deaths of Howie, Alec, and the unlamented Jack. Even after the outsider is destroyed, Ralph continues to feel the aftershocks in his nightmares.

“A person did what a person could, whether it was setting up gravestones or trying to convince twenty-first-century men and women that there were monsters in the world, and their greatest advantage was the unwillingness of rational people to believe.”

No one can take on the terrors of an infinite universe. Unlike Ralph, who is overwhelmed by the idea of infinity, Holly takes the rational position that she can only tackle the crisis in front of her.

“‘It was no dream,’ [Jeannie] said. ‘Dreams fade. Reality doesn’t.’”

Jeannie had an ambiguous experience with the outsider. On the one hand, it felt real, with the clarity and forcefulness of the waking world. On the other, she fainted in her dining room and woke up in her bed exactly as she would have if she had been dreaming. The latter fact becomes even more puzzling when Holly finds material evidence of the outsider’s presence in the house.

“He uses our modern science—our modern forensics—against us, but his real weapon is our refusal to believe. We’re trained to follow the facts, and sometimes we scent him when the facts are conflicting, but we refuse to follow that scent. He knows it. He uses it.”

The outsider counts on humans being convinced by the show. They refuse to look beneath the order they themselves have imposed on the universe. The outsider has placed too much confidence in this willful blindness. It is unprepared and ill-equipped to defend itself when it encounters people with the ability and willingness to see behind the façade into the outsider’s world.

“There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in your philosophy.”

Jeannie is quoting one of Shakespeare’s best-known lines. Hamlet has just been told by his father’s ghost that Hamlet’s uncle murdered him (the father). When his friend Horatio wonders at the encounter, Hamlet essentially says, “Anything is possible.” Hamlet then launches an investigation into his father’s death in which he wrestles with the conflict between reality and superstition.

“How could a normal man in the twenty-first century accept a shape-shifting monster? If you believed in Holly Gibney’s outsider, her El Cuco, then everything was on the table. No end to the universe.”

Ralph has gone from rejecting the supernatural outright to resisting something he begins to fear may be true: no end to the universe; more things in heaven and earth; anything is possible.

“Wasn’t Ted Bundy just a version of El Cuco, a shapeshifter with one face for the people he knew and another for the women he killed? The last thing those women saw was his face, his inside face, the face of El Cuco. There are others. They walk among us. You know they do. They’re aliens. Monsters beyond our understanding. Yet you believe in them.”

Holly is offering Ralph something material he can cling to—a stepping stone between the reality he knows and the one she needs him to accept if he is to confront the outsider. The parallel isn’t perfect. Ralph can accept the existence of human “monsters” because they fit into the real world. He rejects the reality of the outsider because it violates the laws of the universe as he knows them. Nevertheless, the comparison is enough to persuade him to suspend his disbelief for 24 hours.

“I’m a defense lawyer, son. I can believe anything.”

What Howie is describing is not belief so much as suspension of disbelief—the kind that would presumably allow him to work with a defendant the evidence suggests is guilty. This is what Holly asks Ralph to do before they go after the outsider directly.

“People are blind to explanations that lie outside their perception of reality.”

The outsider is rephrasing quote number one above. This is the premise on which it has survived for millennia, spawning legends and myths but otherwise going undetected.

“Dreams are the way we touch the unseen world.”

Dreams are another take on the reality/superstition theme. In many cultures, dreams are regarded as another layer of reality—a world in themselves. Other writers have played with this theme, including H. P. Lovecraft.

“‘I’m a very curious person. Sometimes that gets me in trouble.’

‘And sometimes it gets you out.’”

This exchange is reminiscent of the adage, “Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought him back.” It’s also a play on words: Holly not only possesses the characteristic of curiosity but is also curious in the sense of being what others might see as odd.

“There’s […] a force for good in the world. That’s something else I believe. Partly so I don’t go crazy when I think of all the awful things that happen, I guess, but...also...well the evidence seems to bear it out, wouldn’t you say? Not just here but everywhere. There’s some force that tries to restore the balance.”

King’s stories often contain a positive force that works to maintain stability across the multiverse. Some of his stories represent this force as the Judeo-Christian deity. In other stories, the force is “The Turtle”—a more enigmatic entity not specifically benevolent toward humans—and sometimes the force is simply unexplained.