The Outsider

The story opens as a straightforward murder mystery that will gradually evolve into something more complicated as the supernatural elements become more pronounced. Looking at the first chapter as a murder mystery allows the reader to make some assumptions. Although the evidence against Terry Maitland seems unequivocal, a murder mystery doesn’t start with the protagonist arresting the perpetrator. By the conventions of the genre, the most obvious suspect rarely turns out to be the actual killer. Another convention of the detective genre dictates that the killer typically cannot be a point of view character, which also excludes Terry.

Of course, The Outsider is actually a horror/mystery crossover. The reader has an advantage over Ralph in that we know we are reading a Stephen King novel, which means that we can include supernatural explanations in our calculations, whereas Ralph, a materialist, cannot. As a result, readers may find themselves waiting for Ralph to start believing in the supernatural. This disbelief is a common feature of the horror genre, which often relies on the protagonist trying to persuade other people to believe in the supernatural threat. Blending genres in this way heightens suspense by keeping readers off balance; it isn’t immediately clear which genre conventions, if any, we should rely on. For example, the possibility of a supernatural explanation allows for the possibility that Terry might turn out to be the perpetrator after all: He may be possessed by a demonic force or be experiencing some other supernatural fugue state.

Ralph is a fixed point in this uncertainty, being strongly motivated by the pursuit of justice. His doubts tell us that he is an honorable man; only his absolute confidence in the material evidence allows him to justify arresting Terry without following through on the correct investigative procedure. While he may be making a mistake, he is still someone the reader can like and trust.

Nevertheless, tension between faith and doubt begins to build. Ralph begins with complete faith in the material evidence, but Terry’s reference to Ralph’s son stirs doubts. It reminds Ralph that he has always known Terry as a person who cares about children—not just superficially, but in terms of their long-term well-being. This makes it more difficult to envision Terry attacking, sexually assaulting, and cannibalizing a child. Doing so would require a degree of dehumanization that doesn’t fit with what Ralph knows about Terry. The reader, being privy to Terry’s inner thoughts, knows this on a level that even Ralph can’t. On the other hand, Terry and some of the people around him have noticed that he hasn’t been quite himself lately. This hints at something hidden that has the potential to overturn everything we know or believe about Terry.

The introduction of Terry’s alibi tests Ralph’s sense of justice. If Ralph hadn’t been carried away by emotion, that sense of justice would have prompted him to investigate the crime more thoroughly: He would have known about Terry’s alibi, though he feels sure he would have broken it, trusting in material evidence to resolve all contradictions. Of course, the reader likely knows—because this is a Stephen King novel—that Ralph will never be able to solve the mystery with material evidence alone.

Perhaps Ralph—moved by his sense of justice—would have released Terry until his alibi could be verified or disproved, but Samuels is a different kind of character and wants to save face with an election pending and his job in the balance. Ralph is better able to acknowledge his own mistakes and recognize that his job is not more important than the truth.