The Stand

One of today’s current top writers is not seen often on this list of NYU RAs favorite books so reading a Stephen King best-seller was good to find, albeit a rather long and lengthy read.  The Stand, re-written edition as King felt he missed some things with the first edition, added about 500 more pages.  This is not to say the book was difficult to finish, as it wasn’t.  The story reminded me of Cormac McCarthy’s post-apocalyptic The Road, though this one was written first and dealt with a flu that was released by the US military (by accident) and decimated most of the world.  The story focused on the US piece with the remaining .1% of the population who lived through the 3-5 day total death and destruction of our community.  Placed in the summer days of 1990, King brings to life a series of characters from various walks of life who end meeting to form a new community.  The story is magnificently written and characters lives, pre-flu and post epidemic, are brought together.  The journey of finding others and living without electricity, media, and other every-day necessities make it difficult to fathom.  Of course there are two ways to live in life, right… Good and Evil.  King presents these two types of existences (of course evil is out West and in Vegas!) and the characters in the “good community” attempt to engage the “bad” and what does that bring, the A bomb! While there are some pretty grotesque descriptions of what one finds when a body (or thousands of bodies) has decayed in the heat, this book is griping, well it ought to be it’s over 1000 pages long.  I will say it did go fast as the stories were engaging and interesting.  I was awaiting some pretty scary sections knowing it was a King classic, but this one was more on the grotesque at parts rather than being scared.  Add to your list, preferably if you have a week or two on the beach somewhere.