The Stephen King Book Club

King originally published Roadwork in 1981 under the Richard Bachman pseudonym, so don't expect supernatural horror. Instead it presents the horror of the daily grind with its demoralizing defeats and petty humiliations. We meet Barton George Dawes whose life is going wrong in every way possible. When his city's bureaucracy won't listen to his needs, he can only come up with one kind of plan to MAKE them listen.

This is the Stephen King I love: a character-driven story with endless inner cogitation, pages and pages where it seems the plot doesn't move at all, and a final sequence of nihilistic despair. OH, yeah. There are no cinematic action sequences here.

This is Regina and I'm happy to lead the discussion of a King novel that's quite different from what we're used to.

Exclusively to cover the $200/yr Meetup fee, there is a $3 fee to attend (you'll be guided to a PayPal screen). If we cancel this meeting, you will be refunded.

It just so happened at the end of May's meetup we not only voted on what we would read in June but got ahead of ourselves and as a group agreed to what we wanted to read all the way to October. Last month the group went with the Bachman classic Roadwork and from here out we will be splitting The Stand over the course of the next three months.

The story story starts us off when a deadly weaponized super flu is released from a military base and quickly spreads the globe. Those who had found themselves immune are left to rebuild society and caught in a struggle between two forces. A tale as old as time.

Stephen King originally published his epic pandemic novel of good vs. evil in 1978 as a shorter novel of about 800 pages. However in the 90's Stephen King restored 400 pages to the novel, as well as updated the time line and that is the version we have today.

For August we will only be reading through all of Book 1: The Circle Opens. So if you choose to ready ahead we WILL NOT discuss anything you read past for BOOK 2: On The Border. This starts with Chapter 43

Exclusively to cover the $200/yr Meetup fee, there is a $3 fee to attend (you'll be guided to a PayPal screen). If we cancel this meeting, you will be refunded.

Exclusively to cover the $200/yr Meetup fee, there is a $3 fee to attend (you'll be guided to a PayPal screen). If we cancel this meeting, you will be refunded.

At the end of each Meetup, we decide on the next month's book. Watch this space for what we decide. Until then, pleasant dreams...

Exclusively to cover the $200/yr Meetup fee, there is a $3 fee to attend (you'll be guided to a PayPal screen). If we cancel this meeting, you will be refunded.