Calvin Tower

Calvin Tower

Calvin Tower owns the lease of the Manhattan Restaurant of the Mind bookstore in the series. He first appears in The Waste Lands, where he sells Jake two books which later prove vital to the Ka-tet's survival of their encounter with Blaine the Mono. He is of Dutch lineage and has changed his last name to Tower from Toren, which means "tower" in that language. In later volumes, it is revealed that Tower owns the lot containing the rose, and is being pressured by mobsters to sell the property to the Sombra Corporation. Eddie saves Tower from a beating and persuades him to sell the land to the Ka-tet in the guise of the "Tet Corporation". Tower is an extremely reluctant recruit to the Ka-tet's cause; his selfishness and single-minded obsession with acquiring rare books nearly derail the Ka-tet's efforts on several occasions. His eventual—and reluctant—decision to do the right thing comes largely thanks to the influence of his much more selfless, heroic friend, Aaron Deepneau. In the end, he sells the lot to Tet Corporation, and serves on the board for many years. With Deepneau, he saves Father Callahan from knife-wielding thugs in 1981. Tower dies of a heart attack in 1990; in his honor, a group of Tet Corporation employees adopts the name "The Calvins" and takes on the task of hunting through Stephen King's entire published works for any possible connections to Roland's quest.