Bird Flu, Schmurd Flu

Title: The Stand
Author: Stephen King
Publisher: Signet
Publication Year: 1990
Rating: A+

At 1,141 pages, The Stand is a force to be reckoned with. It’s epic in nature, and horrifying in its details. Not only will this story scare the bejeezus out of its reader, it will also force them to ask what they would do in a similar situation.

The Stand is an old tale, one that has been told in many forms for centuries. It is the story of good versus evil, light versus darkness, God versus the devil. It is the story of an apocalypse of sorts.

The government has created a flu virus, one that has leaked and wiped out most of mankind. Only the immune have survived, but they have lived to watch all the people they loved die a gruesome death. Not only are the details of the flu’s symptoms horrifying, the psychological trauma of watching the world crumble for these characters sets the tone for the entire novel. King is brilliant at telling the survivors’ stories from beginning to end. He hits home the fact that their slates have been essentially wiped clean. They are no longer the people they were before. Circumstances have changed them.

Two characters in particular exemplify this. Stu Redman, a worker at a calculator factory in a small town in Texas, never finished school. He was always considered the quiet one, more of a follower than a leader. He had struggled in his life, as many did. But he kept much of that to himself. It wasn’t until he was forced into a leadership role after the flu had erased society as they knew it that he really shined. He became strong, forthcoming and proved to be a man of strong moral standing and common sense.

In another instance of metamorphosis, Lloyd Henreid was a criminal before the flu. He had robbed and murdered, was in jail when the epidemic quickly ate away at the human population. He was saved from a death of starvation by the evil Randall Flagg, and eventually became his right-hand man. In the community they set up in the West, Lloyd became a leader much like Stu Redman did. He had always been a follower before, was uneducated and weak of mind. But in this new community, its members sought guidance from Lloyd. He suddenly had answers to their questions, which ranged from infrastructure to their own moral dilemmas.

King’s development of all of his characters contributed to the epic nature of this story. His signature gore and shock was also incorporated, but this is much more than a horror story. This is a book about faith and strength of will. It makes you consider, Would I have the strength to go on in similar circumstances? And it is about the continuation of good and evil through eternity.