This is Stephen King at his best. Not at his scariest in the usual horror sense but absolutely at his most insightful. Delving into humanities’ deepest horrors. The real ones that bleed into our everyday lives and fundamentally change us.
In this number-one national best seller, "master storyteller" (Houston Chronicle) Stephen King, writing as Richard Bachman, tells the tale of the contestants of a grueling walking competition where there can beonly one winner - the one who survives.
In the near future, when America has become a police state, 100 boys are selected to enter an annual contest where the winner will be awarded whatever he wants for the rest of his life. Among them is 16-year-old Ray Garraty, and he knows the rules - keep a steady walking pace of four miles per hour without stopping. Three warnings and you're out - permanently.
With an introduction by Stephen King on "The Importance of Being Bachman".
For those who don’t know, The Long Walk is a metaphor for the Vietnam War and the draft. Readers should know this and consider whether it is something they want to read. The content is deeply disturbing and heart-rending, but also beautiful at times. I sobbed. Both in the theater and while reading. I can’t remember the last time a book drove me to such strong emotional distress. But I couldn’t stop reading. It isn’t scary, like demons or ghosts, but a horrifying look at what overreaching government and a society indifferent to, and even enjoying, the suffering of others can produce. It holds a mirror to us, even today, and asks if we approve.
Dip out now if you want to avoid spoilers for both the book and the movie.
Let’s get to the first question for every book that gets made into a movie. How different is it? Well, for the first 307 pages, it is almost the same. The characters are teenage boys in the book and young men in the movie; the book has 100 walkers, and the movie has 50. Some of the book characters are combined when making the movie characters. The movie changes Ray’s father from being taken away by authorities to being shot, in front of him and his mother, by them. The Major, who runs the event, has a larger role in the movies.
Overall, I was nearly done thinking this has to be one of the most faithful adaptations ever. Dialogue is pulled directly from the book for the movie many times. It was honestly an impressive adaptation.
A group of teenage boys compete in an annual contest known as "The Long Walk," where they must maintain a certain walking speed or get shot.
But as with many of Stephen King’s books, it gets you at the end. The final 5 pages are different. The winner is different.
In both we see this group of boys/young men, essentially trauma bond with each other. Over a few days they develop deep friendships, all while knowing the people they stand beside are going to die. The focus is on Ray Garraty and Pete McVries. The two become close in a way that only the shared experience can bring them. (Did you know that the saying blood is thicker than water is actually about this? The bonds formed over blood spilled on the battlefield together are stronger than the water of the womb.)
Both save the other from instant death several times. Days into walking and long past madness, they cling to each other for comfort and the sense that they aren’t alone. In the book, as the final 3 remain, Pete stumbles off the road, no longer sane enough to keep going. Ray screams for the officers to shoot him instead, but that isn’t how this works. He is beyond tears, beyond feeling, and empty as he continues walking. Finally, Stubbins, the favorite to win and one of the Major’s own children, falls, clutching at Ray. Fireworks explode to celebrate Ray’s win, but he is far too gone into himself. Somehow, he keeps walking.
In the movie, Ray and Pete are the last 2 standing. They enter the last stretch, and Pete sits down to let Ray win. Ray can’t keep going without him and hauls him to his feet, asking him to walk just a little longer. With Pete distracted, he kneels, dying before Pete can do anything. Pete screams and sobs while the fireworks and celebration begin. He wishes for the officer’s gun and shoots the Major. Something Ray had wanted to do but Pete had insisted would change him for the worse. Then Pete turns, the world gone, and walks.
I felt different about each ending. But they have a lot of similarities. The winner really wins nothing. He keeps his life, and there are mentions of money, but in the process he lost too much. He has seen too much. Friends, now brothers, have died for this pointlessness. The walkers don’t even know why they’re here.
Eventually, when the gunshots ring out, the walkers hardly flinch. They’ve lost their connection to the world, diving so deep into themselves just to survive. Hundreds of people line the streets to watch them pass, and not only do those people not matter, but they are now somehow separate from the walkers. They are observers, unable or unwilling to stop the slaughter in front of them. Ray/Pete might be alive at the end, but they are alone. There is nothing but the walk.
The end is a tragedy. It feels impossible for the winner of the walk to recover from the trauma. They have certainly changed. A nugget of hope would make us feel better as we close the book or walk out of the theater, but King doesn’t really provide that. There’s no reunion with family or even a break from the endless walk. We want them to win. We have been rooting for them all along. (Rooting for many of them, even though we know they can’t all make it.) But there’s no happy ending here. The evil isn’t defeated; the hero doesn’t get to live happily ever after.
Let me know what you all thought. This was a heartbreaker for me. Given the nature of this novel, I’m going to leave some resources below and a link to donate to the Headstrong Project. They specifically support our veterans with mental health challenges.
See you all next week when I pick something lighter.
Check out the last book/movie comparison I did on Stephen King’s The Monkey.
Donna is an author and engineer with 15 years of IT experience and a lifetime love of literature and cinema, especially horror. She has written a paranormal Holiday novel, What Creatures Are Stirring. She holds and Electrical Engineering Degree from the University of Pittsburgh and an MBA from Western Governor’s University. Donna is passionate about reading and the importance of access to books. She loves writing about her favorite books and movies and sharing it with her readers.
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