Over the duration of The Gunslinger, the first installment of The Dark Tower series, the gunslinger is chasing The Man in Black. The gunslinger is Roland Deschain of Gilead, and the pursuit across a strange, decaying Western landscape drives the novel's central plot.
Roland follows the mysterious figure through the desert and encounters traces of his passage at places including a farm, the town of Tull, and an abandoned way station. The Man in Black is also known as Walter, and later Dark Tower revelations connect him with identities including Marten Broadcloak and Randall Flagg. His identity and supernatural powers become increasingly important as the series unfolds.
The novel also introduces Jake Chambers, whom Roland meets during the journey, but Jake is not the person Roland is pursuing. The Prisoner and the Lady of Shadows are instead names represented in the tarot-like reading near the book's climax. Stephen King first published the novel in 1982 and substantially revised it in 2003, adding material and adjusting continuity with later volumes.