Weekly Book Review: ‘The Stand’ by Stephen King

For the few people that have been keeping up with my weekly reviews (hi, mom), I wrote about Stephen King’s memoir On Writing. Last week, so this week it only felt right to talk about an actual Stephen King novel.

Sure, I could’ve gone with The Green Mile, or It, I could have even suggested one of his newest novels The Institute (although I’m only like two chapters into that one so far) but I wanted to suggest something a little longer because, let’s be honest, what else do most of us have to do during the lockdown. This recommendation is The Stand by Stephen King. Trust me.

Iinitially published over four decades ago, the complete and uncut version of The Stand was reprinted in 1990 allowing King to modernize the original story, and include fragments and pieces initially left out during the editing process. Written to mimic some of his favorite epics, King’s The Stand sits at a whopping 1,152 pages and has enough characters in it to make even George R. R. Martin’s head spin.

All of that being said, aside from a book big enough to keep you occupied for a while, why am I suggesting a 30-year-old book? The relevance. Set in 1990, The Stand is about a weaponized strain of influenza that is accidentally released from a United States defense laboratory that kills nearly all of the world’s population.

Yes, that’s right; I’m suggesting a book about a global pandemic, during a global pandemic. The similarities to our current reality end pretty shortly after that though as the book follows many different storylines and the surviving members of society band into different groups to survive and defeat influenza. The Stand follows all of the unexpected twists and turns you have come to expect from a King novel, wrapped up in a (gigantic) dystopian storyline.

I read this book a few years ago and have been off and on rereading the novel during the past few weeks. For being an outdated novel, the story feels as relevant, exciting, and innovative as if it was written today.

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