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he does, he can enter the minds of the people they represent, leaving his body inert and defenseless on the beach. If he so chooses, he can step through into the alternate location—or locations, since each door opens into a different time: 1987, 1964 and 1977 respectively.
    Another aspect of
The Gunslinger
that presented problems for some readers was the fact that a lot of it was told in flashback, which can impede forward momentum. Not so with
The Drawing of the Three
. From theopening salvo in which Roland is injured, the novel advances at breakneck pace from one crisis to the next to the next.
    Roland’s experiences with the three doors are quite different from one another. His first glimpse through the door marked THE PRISONER shows him a world he’s never seen before from a perspective he’s never had before: out the window of an airplane. When he enters the world of THE LADY OF SHADOWS , he finds himself inside a divided mind. The door marked THE PUSHER gives him access to a sociopath who represents death.
    When Roland enters Eddie Dean’s mind, he spends some time figuring out the rules of doorway travel and learning what he can about this new universe. He discovers that he can bring things from one world to the other, in both directions. This is important, because he needs medicine, and for it to do any good, he has to get it back to the beach. He also learns that he can remain in the background and observe what’s happening around him or he can step forward and take full control.
    Eddie, a heroin addict who has been somewhat clean for a while, is the most accepting of the three people Roland enters. They quickly establish détente. Roland needs Eddie and, as it turns out, Eddie needs Roland. He’s carrying cocaine back from the Bahamas and the flight attendants have grown suspicious of him. If he doesn’t find a way to ditch the drugs, he’ll go to prison. However, if he loses the drugs, he’ll be in serious trouble with the mobsters who sent him on this junket. Roland offers a solution. Before the plane lands, they take the drugs through the door to the beach, where they can retrieve them later.
    Roland will always be a fish out of water in New York. He understands some letters and words, but many things elude him. However, his training allows him to detect danger before it happens. He is the one who notices that the flight attendants are suspicious of Eddie, even if he doesn’t understand exactly what they are. He senses that Eddie will have problems with the ritual of Customs, without knowing what it is. He isn’t protecting Eddie out of goodwill, though. If Eddie ends up in jail, he won’t be able to provide the antibiotics Roland badly needs. Eddie is a means to an end, like most other people Roland encounters.
    Their intimate connection, however, gives Roland a chance to size Eddie up. He is weak, primarily because of his drug addiction, but Roland sees strength in him, too. He reminds Roland of his old friend Cuthbert. With Roland providing moral support, Eddie stands up to the customs officials in a way he couldn’t have managed on his own. He’s also ready to confront EnricoBalazar and a dozen of his henchmen who are holding his older brother, Henry, hostage until he delivers the drugs.
    Henry is Eddie’s true weakness, the source of most of his problems and destroyer of his self-esteem. Their single mother relied on Henry to “look after” Eddie after a drunk driver killed their sister, to make sure something similar didn’t happen again. Henry used this obligation to excuse his own shortcomings, especially when it turned out that Eddie was better than his brother at just about everything. Henry was wounded in Vietnam and came back addicted to painkillers, the first step in his downward spiral into drug addiction. He pulled Eddie in after him, but Eddie was smart enough and resourceful enough to keep at least a partially clear