19 in the Works of Stephen King Quiz

Answer: Father Callahan

King leans very hard into the power of the number 19 the later he gets into "The Dark Tower", as it is later revealed that Roland's ka-tet is operating between worlds where the 'ka is 19'. 'Ka' itself is the force by which all things in the universe operate; it is the way that things must go.

Once the ka-tet starts realizing the frequency at which 19 appears in their journey, they start drawing the obvious conclusions about the people around them. Father Callahan, who had previously appeared in "'Salem's Lot" but subsequently joined the ka-tet in "Wolves of the Calla" when the group visited Calla Bryn Sturgis, had a full name of nineteen letters (Donald Frank Callahan); Richard Patrick Sayre, who resides in the Keystone World and deliver's Mia's baby, also has nineteen; Ted Stevens Brautigan, who appeared in "Hearts in Atlantis" as well as "The Dark Tower's" final book, also had this number.

Interestingly, while Susannah's name does not contain nineteen letters, it's noted that the names of her three personalities-- Susannah, Odetta, and Detta-- do when they're combined. Although, from the outside, some of these instances may seem contrived in the same way that the 23 enigma leans into conspiracy, the larger preoccupation with 19 in King's works did become an intentional easter egg, the mileage of which may vary depending on how ardent a King reader you are.

Answer: Being hit by a car

An event that happened both in the books and in real life, Stephen King was struck by a van when walking along the side of a road in Lovell, Maine on June 19, 1999. An event that shaped King's writing from that point on, it was included not only as a point of discussion in his non-fiction work "On Writing" (which he was composing at the time), but in "Song of Susannah" and "The Dark Tower", where Jake Chambers is able to save King from the accident at the cost of his own life.

Perhaps not coincidentally, June 19, 1999 is cited to be the date on which the Vermont Yankee nuclear reactor explodes when Jake Epping dabbles too much in changing history in "11/22/63".

Answer: The Dead Zone

Sometimes, King uses the number 19 as a warning.

"The Dead Zone", King's fourth novel, follows Johnny Smith from early in his life to the pivotal moments that lead to his death. Although an incident in his youth indicated the powers he would come to have, it wasn't until visiting a fairground in 1970 that he spun the wheel of fate, so to speak. Playing a game on a wheel of fortune, Johnny momentarily showed his luck, continually spinning and winning (and hitting 19) before everything changed for the worse. On the drive home, an accident put him into a coma.

What followed was a medical phenomenon in which part of Johnny's brain, deemed 'The Dead Zone', allowed the rest of his brain to compensate and develop psychic capabilities, seeing into a person's future through touch. It would subsequently lead him to determine that a local politician, if left unstopped, would trigger a nuclear war.

Answer: The Overlook Hotel

Numerology factors into a handful of key King stories, and it's especially the case when he has characters checking into hotel rooms due to their liminality. The Overlook Hotel, seen in King's early work, "The Shining", is a major example of this as Room 237 acts as the most haunted room in a colossally-haunted space.

The inspiration for this plot point came from a visit that King and his wife made to the real-life Stanley Hotel. They were allegedly checked into Room 217, said to be haunted by the ghost of a housekeeper who died there in the 1910s, and he acknowledged that 2 + 17, adding up to 19, was yet another of those unmissable coincidences. In "The Shining", Room 217 was changed to Room 237 in an effort to prevent people from avoiding booking Room 217 at the Stanley Park.

Interestingly, numerology also factors into room 1408 at the Hotel Dolphin, as featured in his "Everything's Eventual" short story, "1408". The catch is that those numbers (1 + 4 + 0 + 8) add up to thirteen, indicating from the jump, for non-fiction ghost story writer Mike Enslin, at least, that something is just a bit spooky on the thirteenth floor.

Answer: The time at which 'The Dome' hit the ground

Another instance in which the numbers add up to create the link, 11 + 4 + 4 brings us to 19 as a critical point. One of King's later works to appear, being based on an early novel idea but being reworked into a colossal tale published in 2009, "Under the Dome" features this conscious instance of 19 early on, signifying its importance to the mythos of the number.

In this story, the town of Chester's Mill is placed under what appears to be an invisible, but certainly-present, dome, and the people inside are forced to contend with its consequences despite having no real idea of its mysterious origins.

"Under the Dome" was quickly developed as a TV show on CBS that subsequently ran for three seasons. It would end up concluding on September 10, 2013. September 10 is (you guessed it) 9 + 10.

Answer: The Eyes of the Dragon

If you were to count only the novels in King's bibliography, the nineteenth full-length work would be the 1992 story "Gerald's Game", and while it does include its own unique links to the "Dark Tower" series (as surely as all things serve the beam), it doesn't have as strong a connection as the book we're looking for here.

Including King's short story and novella collections in the count, nineteen published books would bring you to "The Eyes of the Dragon", a dark fantasy work featuring characters like King Roland and the powerful wizard, Flagg. Naturally, both characters, and the setting of the novel (Delain) have some of the strongest ties to the "Dark Tower" series in all of King's books, acting as somewhat of a parallel universe take to the events in that series.

While "The Eyes of the Dragon" was first published in 1984, King featured both Roland and 'The Man in Black' (Flagg) in "The Gunslinger" two years before. Flagg had previously appeared in "The Stand" in 1978 but, as we know, ka is a wheel and he's bound to keep turning up.

Answer: N.

Part of the collected short stories in "Just After Sunset", "N." was the only tale that was previously unpublished in the set (of thirteen). In this series of nested tales, a group of people come to uncover and dig into an odd landmark in a field in Maine-- a series of large stones in the ground that appear innocuous to people from the get-go, but turn out to change in quantity and position the harder they look.

N., who sits in the story at the middle of the narrative, recounts his encounter with the stones while speaking to his therapist who, while they have diagnosed him with OCD, finds him to be truly obsessed with his discovery and its further-reaching implications of worlds beyond our own. When his therapist decides to investigate the stones, he too finds himself drawn into their mystery, likewise finding an obsession with numbers (of which 19, N. says, is a bad number) that leads to his own death on the solstice.

Answer: Y

Stephen King created the Richard Bachman pseudonym quite early in his career, assigning the name to some of his darker books (as they turned out) in an attempt to circumvent the fact that his publisher was only willing to publish one book a year under his regular name. It resulted in some King classics (like "The Long Walk", "The Running Man", and "Thinner"), all being originally published under the alternative name.

King retired the pseudonym for the most part when it was revealed that he was Bachman in the 1990s (upon the release of "The Regulators") though he has claimed that his fictional wife, Claudia Inez Bachman, may very well find a long-forgotten manuscript hidden in an attic chest at some point, and he'd be willing to dust it off and have it published (something he did with "Blaze" in 2007).

In "The Dark Tower", Claudia Inez Bachman makes an odd reappearance, acting as the author of the faux children's storybook "Charlie the Choo-Choo" (nineteen characters). The catch is that her name has become Claudia Y Inez Bachman, which Jake notes is only nineteen letters as a result of that added 'Y'. Ka finds a way.

Answer: William Blakely

"Blockade Billy" was released as a stand-alone novella in 2010 though it was subsequently added to King's 2015 "The Bazaar of Bad Dreams" collection alongside nineteen other works from this era of his writings. Recounting the fictional story of William Blakely, the tale starts as a sports story recounting the 1957 games of the New Jersey Titans, but gives way to a grisly tale of murder and potentially supernatural occurrences brought on by 'Billy' and his propensity towards good luck. As it turns out, things go bad quickly.

And naturally, Blockade Billy's jersey number, as a catcher for the Titans, is 19.

Answer: The Horn of Eld

After a lengthy journey through Mid-World along the Path of the Beam, with all of the adventure and tragedy behind him, Roland finally reaches the Dark Tower in the final book and lets himself inside, encountering floor after floor of memories, items, and events from his life, advancing up each level of the Tower by flights of nineteen stairs. Reaching the top of the tower, he's pushed through the final door, which bears his name, and dropped off in the desert to pursue the Man in Black once again. The catch is that, this time, on his belt, is the Horn of Eld, which he dropped during the events of "Wizard and Glass" during his last trip through Mid-World.

Forced to atone, once again, for his sins, Roland must take this presumed twentieth trip to the Dark Tower, repeating the cycle. Ka is, after all, a wheel, but maybe this time things will be different.