Life was such a wheel that no man could stand upon it for long.
And it always, at the end, came round to the same place again.
I finished reading The Stand the same day I published the paperback version of Lord Have Mercy. The start and end dates printed on the final page mark The Stand as being a work in progress from February 1975 to December 1988. Given Lord Have Mercy is just a few thousand words shy of its word count, I think the fourteen months it took me to complete it aren't too shabby.
Every time I mentioned being a King fan, this was the book most recommended to me, and I can see why. I'll be honest and say that it's a book I resisted for a long time, mostly because when it comes to being scared, I'd much rather read about vampires, and ghouls, and killer clowns that rampant diseases. Especially in a post-Covid world, I was leery. But as is typical of all his books, The Stand is a book about many things, and the superflu is not so much an antagonist as a catalyst for exploring the horrors - and joys - of humanity.
From a craft perspective, I think it's probably his crowning achievement. But he says it isn't his favorite book, nor is it my favorite of his works. The Clown Book still holds the top spot in my heart. In fact, though I could definitely tell that this was his work, peppered with his particular attention to detail, his music tastes, his idiosyncrasies, the book as a whole felt totally different from his other novels. I see it as one of those monolithic, lightning-strike books that feels like it possesses you, and needs to come out, and which leaves your fingertips as though you're channeling someone else's voice. It's his, but it's a version of him. Him wearing a different hat. I feel the same way when I shift between writing my different series: I can't decide whether I'm more authentically myself when writing Dartmoor, or Sons of Rome, or the Drakes, or one-offs like College Town. I think the answer - for me at least - is that different books allow us to explore different back corners of our minds, and, during the creative process, we exorcise different demons, and experiment with different forms of self-expression.
Funny as it sounds, King handled the characters of The Stand with more gentleness than I've come to expect from him. An authorial voice that was kind and even delicate at points, with Frannie, with Stu, and Glen, and even with Larry. And yet, despite that, it's the overall story that will stick with me, rather than the characters; though I enjoyed their perspectives and felt fondness for many of them, I don't feel the need to scoop any of them up and drop them in my pocket a la Eddie Kaspbrak. I'll never grow bored of the marvel that is the individual reception of books. You never know which book, which scene, which character will strike a chord, and that's the forever magic of stories.
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