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The Long Walk [Mass Market Paperback]

Stephen King
4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (561 customer reviews)

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Book Description

April 1, 1999
On the first day of May, 100 teenage boys meet for a race known as ?The Long Walk.? If you break the rules, you get three warnings. If you exceed your limit, what happens is absolutely terrifying...

On the first day of May, 100 teenage boys meet for a race known as ?The Long Walk.? If you break the rules, you get three warnings. If you exceed your limit, what happens is absolutely terrifying...


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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Ray Garraty--along with 99 other teen boys--has entered the Long Walk, a grueling march at four miles per hour that continues until only one person is standing. The losers receive bullets to the head. As the march progresses, the numbers dwindle, the challenges of continued marching increase, and the senselessness wears on the participants' state of mind. King (writing as his alter ego, Richard Bachman) delivers another psychologically dark tale with commentary on society, teenage life, and cultural entertainment that is still poignant decades after its original publication. Kirby Heyborne's skills shine in the narrative passages, which he executes with a good mixture of rhythm and emphasis. Heyborne's light and youthful-sounding voice exudes the needed attitude of the mostly male adolescent characters. However, some of his character voices for the teens feel created just for the sole purpose of clearly distinguishing them, rather than matching voice organically to personality. His female voices lack substance, but since there are so few of them, listeners will not be too distracted. A Signet paperback.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.

Review

"A master storyteller." - Houston Chronicle
"An illusionist extraordinaire." - Publishers Weekly

Product Details

  • Mass Market Paperback: 384 pages
  • Publisher: Signet; 1st edition (April 1, 1999)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 9780451196712
  • ISBN-13: 978-0451196712
  • ASIN: 0451196716
  • Product Dimensions: 4.2 x 1 x 6.8 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (561 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,612 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

While reading this book, i prayed this book would have a good ending. joe  |  86 reviewers made a similar statement
I have read most of the author's books, and just finished reading (for the first time) The Long Walk. Joan Hall Hovey  |  79 reviewers made a similar statement
The main characters are very real. Cheryl MacDonald  |  46 reviewers made a similar statement
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
409 of 419 people found the following review helpful
Format:Mass Market Paperback
If you ask me, The Long Walk may well be the most fascinating novel Stephen King has ever written. Written back in 1966-67, while King was a college freshman, the novel earned the author nothing more than a form rejection letter. Finally, after a few years of dust-gathering, the manuscript was released into a much more welcoming world in the form of Richard Bachman's second novel. It's a magnificent story - not perfect, but magnificent nonetheless. It's a disarmingly simple tale centered on a seemingly mundane activity, yet in King's masterful hands The Long Walk burrows into the core of a number of characters, lays down miles of metaphors about the human condition, and absolutely mesmerizes you with its emotional force and power.

The setting is an alternate, possible fascist America; King leaves things pretty murky on the sociopolitical end of things, almost surely by design. The Long Walk is really one of your "it can't happen in America" kind of stories, and the horror of it all (and, yes, I would categorize this as a horror novel) is made more powerful by obscuring the lines between our America and this fictionalized America. Here, The Long Walk is the premier sporting event in the land. Spectators turn out in droves, bets are made left and right, and the whole nation watches and cheers. Obviously, this is not a regular walk, nor is it a race in the purist sense. Endurance - mental even more than physical - is the key to victory in this sport. To win, all you have to do is outlast 99 other competitors - and the winner receives nothing less than whatever he wants for the rest of his life. Before you yell "Sign me up," you'll want to hear about the details. You have to maintain a pace of at least four miles per hour; fall below the pace, and you get a warning.
... Read more ›
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157 of 173 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars A compelling tale of human endurance May 5, 2000
Format:Mass Market Paperback
The Long Walk is the second book I have read that was written by King under the name Richard Bachman. It is the in-depth story of how a boy named Ray Garraty must survive the greatest challenge of his life -- the Long Walk. This annual event is summarized as follows: 100 boys start walking; if you walk under 4 miles per hour, you get a warning; after 3 warnings, if you slow down again, you are shot dead. The winner of the Long Walk is the last boy left walking.

Stephen King (a.k.a. Richard Bachman) introduces and develops the characters of many of the boys in the event. As a reader, you get to learn about Garraty, Pete McVries, Hank Olson, Art Baker, Barkovitch, Stebbins, and others, who each have their own personality quirks and ways of looking at life. Each boy has entered the Long Walk for a different reason and I found their discussions about life and death to be quite interesting (a social statement by King, perhaps?). The reader is led along the course and each significant event is mentioned along the way, with some unexpected occurrences that may surprise you.

As the challenge narrows down from the original 100 competitors to less than 50, then to just a handful of boys remaining, the scenario becomes rather intense. Who will die next? How will he die? And most importantly, who will be left at the end to claim the Prize? Although the suspense builds slowly, it tends to add to the dramatic effect of the final moments and keep the reader wanting to read more to find out what happens (I was so eager to find out that I read the last half of the book in one sitting).

Although the story is interesting and held my attention, there are a couple of criticisms that knocked it down from 5 to 4 stars. First, the ending was too predictable....

Overall, I have to say that I enjoyed reading the Long Walk. It tests the limits of human endurance in a unique way and makes the reader think about life and death in a new light (or at least I did). Unlike many of King's other novels, the Long Walk is more of dramatic suspense story rather than a horror story, which is what I have noticed about his writing as Richard Bachman. It is a good read, however, and I recommend it to anyone, whether you are a fan of Stephen King or not. Read more ›

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46 of 51 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Not an endurathon of a read May 24, 2000
Format:Mass Market Paperback
The Long Walk has got to be one of Stephen King's greatest short story accomplishments, up there with the highlights of the Skeleton Crew.

The story is about an endurathon contest, where 100 boys just start walking, and if any competitor falls under 4 miles an hour, he is issued a warning. However, if a competitor slows down to under 4 miles after receiving 3 warnings...he is shot dead.

King introduces many unique characters to us, and we begin to almost feel their personalities, and the annoying little habits that they have. King does a masterful job of removing some of the characters from the story with not much detail, really placing an emphasis on the mental drain that is occuring with the competitors in The Long Walk, they are so tired they dont even notice how or when some of their friends are being killed.

The final surge towards the end of the walk is written quite ingeniously, and is even quite surprising.

Overall, I would highly recommend this short story. ALthough the book may be about an endurathon, it is certainly not an endurathon of a read, the pages will just fly by.

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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars One of the creepiest books I've ever read May 10, 2002
Format:Mass Market Paperback
I first read "The Long Walk" about three years ago, and found that it stayed with me for nearly every step I've taken since then. Any walk of a mile or longer invariably brought up memories of the deadly Long Walk taken by a hundred fictional teenagers in the alternate-history Earth of this early King classic.

As other reviewers have noted, just to read this book is to feel physically tired. The characters start walking, at a grueling pace of four miles per hour, early in the first chapter, and never stop. There are only two ways out of the contest: death or victory... and, out of the 100 contestants, there can only be one winner. "The Long Walk" takes place over five days in May, and by the final day, the Prize may no longer seem worth winning.

As painful as your legs will feel by the final chapter, you'll be equally intrigued by the little alternate-history hints King drops throughout the book. With references to John Travolta and the handover of the Panama Canal, "Long Walk" is still very much a product of the 1970s. But when the characters mention "April 31st", or New Hampshire's provisional governor, or the German bombing raids over the East Coast in World War II, you'll find yourself wondering just how the world of the "Long Walk" came to be. Most intriguing is a fictional quote from the "second Clay-Liston" fight, which ends even worse for Sonny Liston than did the actual Ali-Liston fight in our own 1965.

The only thing that disrupts "The Long Walk" is the ambiguous final page. King points out in the introduction to this edition that his Bachman persona did not specialize in happy endings, and of course we know that King writes insanity quite convincingly.... Read more ›

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Most Recent Customer Reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting early novel from King
I read that this was Stephen King's first novel, written when he was 20 and in college. As I understand it, he later revised it and published it as a "Bachman Book. Read more
Published 3 hours ago by Sean Murphy
5.0 out of 5 stars Simply A Great Book
Each year 100 teenage boys compete in the Long Walk. On May 1st the boys gather in northern Maine, and at precisely 9 o'clock AM they begin walking south. Read more
Published 1 day ago by Steven Brandt @ Audiobook-Heaven
2.0 out of 5 stars No ending here.
This is my first SK book that I have read. The premise behind the book is intriguing and the character build up is also very good. Read more
Published 5 days ago by F. Monjaraz
3.0 out of 5 stars Not terrible but didn't like ending
Was an enjoyable read until the end. For some reason it felt rushed and I don't know why. I needed more.
Published 10 days ago by Dawn M. Jenkins
5.0 out of 5 stars An old New friend
Ever a SK fan, not quite noticing Bachman even when I long ago became aware of the shadow-self author. I am glad I recently stumbled onto this story. Read more
Published 10 days ago by SHARON LUCILLE ALEXANDER
3.0 out of 5 stars Not his best but was had its moments
Was interesting in his thoughts of deAth and the afterlife but was filled with lulls throughout the novel. Just ok
Published 10 days ago by Anthony De Carlo
4.0 out of 5 stars A great short story by Mr King
Stephen King once again mastered in this short story. His narrative and writing style are superb, catching the reader from the benning to the end. Read more
Published 11 days ago by José Siqueira
5.0 out of 5 stars The long walk critique
Excellent! Classic beautiful descriptive old school SK. Only bad thing to say is "not long enough" flash This is lyrical writing!
Published 13 days ago by Sandra L. Leach
5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best
For being written under Stephen King's psydoneum this is a really gripping read. It's not as good as The Running Man but it sure is a good read. Read more
Published 18 days ago by noah 224
5.0 out of 5 stars GREAT
I enjoy all books by Stephen King. I'd walk a mile to get any new ones. Think I may have to do just that too.
Published 22 days ago by Carol Spickler
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squaded?
The glorification of the squads is supposed to emphasize the horror of the sport to the reader. It is meant to intensify realization of how horrible humanity has become due to the Squads to the point they find the murder of men honorable. The reader is supposed to be disgusted by the unnecessary... Read more
Jun 16, 2008 by Bridget Bierman |  See all 2 posts
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