Hello Interwebs!
So my third book of 2021 is the first Stephen King novel I've read in a long time which was The Long Walk, originally published under King's pseudonym Richard Bachman. This is definitely the shortest King novel I've ever read in my life at just over 300 pages. I enjoyed it alright but found it a distinctly odd book and settled on a 3.5 rating for it. As always spoilers abound after the picture.
The Long Walk is a contest of sorts in which 100 boys enter to walk. You must continue walking with no stop at a minimum speed of four miles per hour, if a boy drops lower than that for 30 seconds he gets a warning after three warnings you get ticketed. It's unclear what "buying a ticket" is but you soon realize that it means to be shot dead by the soldiers following along the walkers in a truck. Warnings are also given for other offenses like interfering with other walkers and walkers are shot immediately for larger offenses like trying to attack the soldiers or trying to run away from the walk. The walk is run by a character known only as "the major" who starts the walk and then comes along once in a while to encourage them. It starts at the Maine/Canada border at 9am on May 1st and the walkers walk down the east coast until the winner is determined by the last man standing. The winner recieves just "the prize" which is described as anything he wants for the rest of his life, although the book reveals that most past winners die shortly after completing the walk due to the physical and mental conditions.
In this book you follow 16 year old Raymond Garraty from Pownal, Maine. He falls in with several other boys: McVries, Baker, Olson, Parker, Pearson, Harkness and Abraham. They also are walking near Barkovitch who taunts the other walkers, leading to the death of one. And then there's Stebbins bringing up the end as a loner. The group whittles down one by one until only McVries, Stebbins, and Garraty are left. McVries makes the decision that he can't go on and sits down and lets the soldiers kill him. When Garraty decides to die when Stebbins collapses and dies instead. Seemingly unaware that he is the winner and the crowd is celebrating Garraty hallucinates a dark figure not far ahead and begins to run towards it.
That's where the book ends. There's very little description about the world around the walk but you get the sense that it's a dystopian future of some kind where the military rules everything in a seeming state of martial law, as evidenced by Garraty talking about his dad being taken by the squads for his actions against the state and presumably killed. You also know that things are bad enough that they can get enough applicants for each year's walk for the military to be selective about who walks in choosing the 100 participants.
The thing I liked about this was there's nothing supernatural about the setting, there's no monster only people and that almost makes the situation scarier because everyone involved is only human. That being said this was definitely not my favorite King novel and I wish there was a little more description about the setting outside of the walk itself. I gave it a 3.5 out of 5 stars and while I probably won't reread this one I am glad I read it and I did enjoy it. I recommend it as a quick reading for people who want something that isn't the stereotypical King horror novel.
Happy Reading!
Richelle
