SLOW READ: The Stand (Chapters 74 - 78)

SLOW READ: The Stand (Chapters 74 - 78)

Welcome to SLOW READ [https://slowread.substack.com/], where we tackle the books you’ve always wanted to read at a pace you can handle. Hosted by Sarah Stewart Holland [https://www.instagram.com/bluegrassred] and Laura Tremaine [https://www.instagram.com/laura.tremaine/] We are currently reading The Stand [https://urlgeni.us/amzn/thestand] by Stephen King (unabridged version) You can find our full Reading Schedule here [https://slowread.substack.com/p/the-stand-reading-schedule] Join the SLOW READ [https://slowread.substack.com/] community on Substack for bonus episodes, book club meetings, and Side Quests with Sarah & Laura REMINDER: Our final book club meeting discussing The Stand will be THURSDAY, JUNE 11 at 6pm PT / 8pm CT / 9pm ET and we’ll be announcing our next SLOW READ! You don’t want to miss it. Mentioned in this episode: * The Shining by Stephen King * Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel * The Crocodile Hunter * “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” (”…if the fates allow”) * Noah Kahan, “Maine” * Steel Magnolias The Stand, or The Walk? Laura: How are you feeling? Sarah: Well, it’s giving Sopranos. You know how in The Sopranos it was the penultimate episode that usually contained the most action? I feel like that show set up that structure — although apparently not, because The Stand has been around a lot longer. The main action, especially a majority of the violence, the falling out between Randall Flagg and members of the Free Zone, the nuclear bomb — all of that happened in our last section. So now we’re getting that real finale. We’re caring for the characters we really loved. We’re seeing where they ended up. We’re tying up some loose ends. Laura: I felt like these last chapters post-nuclear-bomb were so arduous. I felt like King is personally trying to remind us that this whole thing is about the journey and not the destination, which is such an annoying message. I was just like, we are still walking. It should have been called The Walk, not The Stand. Honestly, the whole book is just about journeying. Sarah: Well, I will say this. It’s not standing still, that’s for sure. But there’s a moment near the end where Stu says they’ll have to stand a watch for him. So it really felt like this conclusion of the book was more a philosophy: it’s not that you have to walk forever, but that you do have to stand watch. Maybe the stand wasn’t some sort of high-noon final battle between good and evil, which is what I expected when I started the book. It’s more like standing watch — standing watch for our worst instincts, standing watch for the ways in which humans can perpetuate great cruelty and harm on each other. We’re standing sentry, keeping an eye out. And even though I’m an Enneagram One and I love a black-and-white conclusion, I thought this was truer, wiser. I really liked it. Laura: It also seems to be saying that nothing is ever really over. It might be over for you individually, if you come to the end of your story, but life just keeps on keeping on. I have always quibbled a teeny tiny bit with how we spend these last chapters with just Stu and Tom — and even primarily Stu. We’re in Stu’s mind mostly. It’s no longer an ensemble cast. We started all the way back in Arnette, Texas, at the gas station — Stu is our first point man — and then we also end with so much Stu. I love Stu as a character. It’s just, oh, he wasn’t the one I was the most attached to. How did you feel about Stu being the final stand? Sarah: I loved it. I thought it wasn’t just Stu — it was the combination of Stu, Tom, and Kojak, who I believe is the real hero of this novel. I really liked the way King put the strengths and weaknesses of these three creatures together. It didn’t feel arduous to me. I was excited to see the ways in which they were stripped away and rebuilt. I liked that Nick kept appearing. I liked that we were worried about Franny. And I liked the changing threat — that we went from the heat of the desert and the nuclear fallout to this incredible winter hellscape. And Tom is such a great addition to every scene he’s in. The way they were facing very openly “we might not make it” felt like real learning, as opposed to how people were orienting themselves when Captain Trips first started wreaking havoc. Kojak, the Real Hero Laura: Let’s do a chapter breakdown, because if you’re a regular Stephen King reader, you recognize in this section in particular that he brings out his favorites — which is to say dogs, cars. He loves a car explanation. Sarah: I did feel like there was a little too much detail about what type of car you need to get started, the manual and the automatic. I was like, buddy. Laura: No, this is one of his things. Dogs, cars, ghosts in dreams, recurring themes, and of course abandoned hotels, even if they’re just the Holiday Inn. These pop up in so many of Stephen King’s stories. It’s such a King universe that we’re in. There’s no mistaking what we’re reading. Sarah: How do you feel about Kojak just being such a convenient hero? Kojak can do everything. He can hunt, he can bring the blankets up from the washout, he can go find Tom in the snow. Kojak is a dog of all trades. Laura: Here’s my question, because you’re the Stephen King expert. Does he often use dogs the same way he uses children or people of different abilities — to say, well, they have different skills because they are different? Sarah: Yes. And so that’s what that felt like to me. This is not a run-of-the-mill dog. It’s a special dog. Laura: In the same way that he uses children, there’s an innocence to animals, dogs in particular, that feels like they’re tapped into a god, a universe, a different plane. If you’re a dog lover, you don’t even necessarily deny that. That’s why it’s a convenient tool to use a dog. Sarah: I just want to say, though, that it’s a special dog — because if it was my dog, I would have to eat her by the fire. She would be of absolutely no use. She’s currently snoring underneath my chair. She would not be able to bring me a rabbit or firewood or much else. Laura: Same. Sarah: I’ve never owned that type of dog, but I’ve known dogs like that — super capable, very smart, communicative. I read recently that domesticated dogs have existed longer than agriculture. So I think it could happen. Laura: Definitely could happen. If you’ve ever watched a working dog — a herding dog, certain hunting dogs — they are very capable. I like Kojak. More Kojak. I’m here for it. It didn’t bother me, but also I’m a dog lover. I wonder, if you’re not an animal person, if you’re like, come on with the dog. We’ll have to hear from our community about that. Chapter 74: Tom Shows Up Laura: In Chapter 74, Stu is still broken-legged, starving, and starting to get sick. He heave-hoes himself up out of the washout when he hears the boom and needs to see with his own eyes what’s going on. To me, this is the arduous part — not the plot points. Do we need two pages of him crawling up? Sarah: I didn’t think we needed that part. I get it, he needed to get up there. I was just so happy that once he got up there, Tom showed up. Sarah: Okay, but here’s the immediate thing I thought. You have read this book before. You knew this was going to happen. And still you had all those complaints about them sending Tom. Laura: My complaints about why they sent Tom are separate from Tom ending up being the savior. They sent Tom because Stephen King needed him to save Stu. I still think they took advantage of someone. And here’s the plot weakness: why does he approach Stu when he was very clearly instructed during the hypnosis to stay away from people? Laura: I think King’s implication is that they have to go the same way because they have to take tunnels — unless they’re going to crawl up and down the Rockies. So everybody’s taking the same path because they have to cross through these tunnels. Laura: I don’t mind a plot point of convenience. I get it, they need to be all on the same road. It just needs to make sense. And I like this ending because I love Tom — he’s one of my favorite characters. I just don’t want Tom to be taken advantage of in the first place. Sarah: I feel like this is Stephen King saying he’s not taken advantage of. Look how incredibly capable he is. He is a hero. I love it when Stu says, “You saved my life,” and “You don’t owe me a Christmas present? I wouldn’t be here anymore for you.” Sarah: I felt like Stu waited a month to say that. You’re just saying that now? Anyway, Tom shows back up and Stu is happy to see him, but in the same way as, is this the best helper I’m going to get? Everyone is hesitant on Tom until he shows his capabilities — like Nick with the tornado. Laura: I’ll tell you what drove me nuts about this whole section. Why isn’t Stu asking Tom more questions? He doesn’t ask him a single thing about Vegas. Sarah: Because he’s about to die, Laura. He’s on death’s door. Laura: I don’t mean in his delirium. We’re talking about a man who’s going to throw an impromptu Christmas. He is well enough at points to be like, so Tom, what was happening in Vegas? Did you get us any intel? Literally nothing. Maybe it’s just such a man thing — the man asked no questions. My husband wouldn’t ask Tom a dadgum thing. Sarah: I thought perhaps he was waiting to gather the whole story when there would be more people around, in the Free Zone, so it could be a community interrogation — so Tom doesn’t have to go through it more than once, and so there are other witnesses. I’m projecting a lot, but that was my assumption. I do think Tom is helpful in the same way Kojak is helpful — now suddenly there’s an able-bodied person who can forage in the cars to get medicine, find sleeping bags. That was a huge relief. Sarah: The hand of God. Tom was the hand of God, just like the hand of God touched the bomb. I really felt like Tom was this essential component that you can’t argue showed up out of anything but almost grand design. Laura: Did you have to google the word travois? Sarah: I did. A visual really helped, because even though Tom is brawny, he’s going to drag this man for eight miles up the hill. There are absolutely arduous components of this — climbing out of the washout, the dragging of Stu. The Hand of God and That New Sears Battery Sarah: Definitely getting the car and getting the car started. Here’s my question: was the car left for them? Are we supposed to know who left it? I couldn’t tell. I’m like, should I recognize this person on the key chain? Laura: No. I think Stu is sort of understanding — not an “everything happens for a reason” kind of thing, deeper and more spiritual than that — like, somebody drove this car. Why would you have pulled over and abandoned it in the middle of nowhere? He’s ruminating on what the hand of God really means, because the other cars they came upon were either not stick shifts, or didn’t have gas or oil, or had flat tires. And then they finally come upon the one that’s not perfect — it’s old and dirty — but it’s perfect enough. Got that new Sears battery in it. That’s all that matters. Laura: I did like the reminder. The first car they come upon, the skeletal woman in the flowered muumuu kind of falls out of it comically. But we do need the occasional reminder that there are dead people everywhere. Sarah: Everywhere. Laura: They’re a little bit immune to how weird and gross that is, but we as the reader need to be reminded. Sarah: Especially later, when he’s digging in the snow and realizes they’re on top of the traffic jam — a river of dead people below them. Chapter 75: Fever Dreams and Vitamin C Sarah: What I really liked, moving into Chapter 75 where he’s really sick and delirious and having all these dreams: after the whole book where the dream was real — you were dreaming about Mother Abigail, she was talking to you, telling you what to do, Nick was telling Tom what to do — it became more amorphous. They weren’t full-on predictions anymore. With Randall Flagg gone, even if not dead, there’s almost space in the dream world for unpredictability again. Laura: I see what you’re saying. I also liked that Stu was waffling between, is this an anxiety dream, or is it my intuition pushing me forward? Because if he hadn’t been having those dreams, they might have just hunkered down for the winter — which probably would have had a better chance of survival. Sarah: But the dreams were driving him forward, which is what we’ve talked about the entire book. Those people headed to Nebraska early on for no reason they understood. To end on that same note — I liked the symmetry. He says at one point, “Not all dreams come true, but too many of them had come true during the last half year.” They’re returning to a baseline, but it’s a new baseline, because everything is different, including your relationship to your own dreams. Laura: And listen, I would have stayed at the hotel. It was really cozy. I did love the little side quest about why movies are important and TV isn’t good enough, VCRs aren’t good enough. He keeps it a projector — it’s more cinematic that way. I read recently that Chinese carmakers are putting projectors in the headlights so you can have a drive-in movie wherever you go. How about that, Stephen King? Sarah: We have a drive-in theater where I live and it is fantastic. So I thought this vignette was silly, but I get it. He’s right. It is better that way. Laura: I felt like the scene where Nick appears in the dream to Tom — where Tom seems to be sleepwalking, almost in the hypnosis of Nick appearing, and wakes up at the pharmacy with the bottles. Who set the bottles out? Was Nick using him in his sleep? That felt so reminiscent of The Shining, where it’s ambiguous whether ghost-dream Nick put the bottles there or whether Tom collected them in his sleep. Sarah: It doesn’t necessarily matter — it’s all supernatural. Nick is using his own story of having the infected leg back in Arkansas to teach Tom, so Tom can understand how serious this is and help Stu get better. I am glad that Stephen King is on board with my preferred treatment, which is vitamin C tablets. Get that boy some vitamin C ASAP. Also antibiotics, but I’m a vitamin C acolyte. I believe in it. Laura: But also, why you gotta have Stu have a penicillin allergy all of a sudden? Sarah: He just wants you to understand, Laura, on a fundamental level: you are never safe. Nobody picks up a Stephen King book to relax. You might get a reprieve, but you do not get to relax. A Sprinkle of Cozy Laura: So he gets better enough for them to trudge on. I liked this part where they’re in a town and can go looking in people’s homes for what they need — big heavy coats. There’s an interesting subtext that the population has been wiped out, and yet there’s just so much stuff. Sarah: I always think about those scenes in Station Eleven where they’d forage through houses, and it didn’t take long before there was less of use, especially food-wise. I would think books would be of incredibly high value, but maybe you don’t have a lot of time to sit around and read. Laura: I liked the little detail that this town had more stuff because it just had weed — people came for the summer to get high — while another town had actual helpful snowmobiles. He gets a really good one, but then misses an embankment and crashes it. My question is: is snow burned down your throat real? They fell off the snowmobile, their mouths filled with snow, and their throats were burning. Does that happen? Sarah: I don’t know about the burning part, but you can drown in snow. So I think it’s a way of drowning, sort of. You could easily die like that. Laura: I am the least qualified in the room to talk about snow. If you live in cold climates, please tell us if this is a real thing. Sarah: Now, the scene where they have a little Christmas. First of all, I love a Christmas. I love a Christmas moment at any and all times of year. And you got some grief — that Stu is missing everyone terribly, wishing they were there. Laura: I made a note that finally we are having some grief, because I have not understood the lack of grief in this entire book. Sarah: There’s no better time to look back and realize everything that’s changed. Let us not forget “if the fates allow,” the best Christmas lyric, that we all had to clean up because it made us too uncomfortable. He should have sung that, not “The First Noel.” Laura: Listen, I sang it out loud. I’m reading the whole thing — I’ve read every single word of this book out loud now. When I got to that part, I sang it. And depending on your mood, the little Christmas scene with Stu and Tom could read as cheesy, but I literally got a lump in my throat singing it out loud. Sarah: I didn’t have to sing it and I got a little verklempt. I appreciated that we finally acknowledged some grief when he thinks about his friends in Texas — because he has said he doesn’t miss Texas. He pulls out his old keys; he’s kept his key ring through all of this, his key to his Dodge back in Texas, and that makes him finally feel a little something. And then later, after they get back to Boulder, he’s reminiscing about how they would have called him Silent Stu in his Texas days — a quiet observer — but now all he wants to do is talk and share this story. There are multiple moments in this section where we are finally getting the grief and nostalgia I’ve craved. In Defense of Wolves Laura: Don’t worry, everybody, because if the grief, nostalgia, and Christmas spirit was a little much for you, he immediately pivots back to wolves, Randall Flagg still being alive, scary tunnels. He just can’t help himself. Don’t get too cozy. Sarah: I will give you a sprinkle of cozy, a mere sprinkle, and then we’re going to talk about how the wolves are still his — which I feel is unfair to wolves. They do not need further discrimination, further tainting by this idea that they’re evil animals. I feel very strongly about coyotes and wolves and the way they’ve been mistreated in our fiction. In the same way I don’t feel sorry for snakes being stand-ins for Satan — I hate snakes — but it’s not their fault. They didn’t write that. Until I started watching The Crocodile Hunter in my twenties, I thought all snakes were venomous, and they are not. That’s how badly we portray these poor species that do not care about our narrative arcs. Laura: Speaking of animals, why was Tom dreaming about an elephant? Sarah: Oh, because that’s his hypnosis signal. One of his hypnosis signals. Laura: We get a little hypnotized Tom. He says Flagg never dies — he’s in the wolves’ laws, the crows, the rattlesnakes, the shadow of the owl at midnight, the scorpion at high noon. “He roosts upside down with the bat. He’s blind like them. Will he be back?” Tom didn’t answer. What do you think that scene was about? Sarah: I think it’s to remind us it’s still there — that they’re close, but they’re not there. It’s finished, but not all the way. It’s never over. Laura: It’s also a way for the characters to know that. Stu might have been well within his rights to think that when the nuclear bomb went off, it’s all over. Tom being the messenger for “no, no, he’s still here” is the way they can know that. Just a Bomb? Laura: From a storytelling point of view, this is why I found it arduous. Once the big thing has happened — Vegas has blown up, that’s the final stand — then I just want the book to wrap up. And I’m like, well, I’ve got a hundred more pages. Sarah: What are you talking about? That final scene is so short. This is my husband’s beef — he read along with us and then zoomed ahead. He said: thousands of pages, and all we get is the hand of God touching a nuclear bomb and then it’s over. He wanted a war, a battle. Laura: I’m a little bit with your husband. It’s just a bomb. That’s always been a huge criticism of this story — if you go look at The Stand on Reddit, that’s a lot of people’s feelings. Sarah: First of all, no, we didn’t want a war. I did not want hundreds of pages of three steps forward, two steps back — I’ve read enough Civil War history. But I think it’s because of the cover, the most famous one, with two people duking it out. The way we sum up this book — “it’s about the battle of good and evil” — leads you to expect not a stand but a standoff. When the bomb goes off, who’s left at the end? Larry and Ralph, standing there chained up with Randall Flagg. It’s not a battle; they’ve been taken hostage. But I like “stand watch” better than “standoff,” because it’s more reflective of life, and I think that’s what King always intended. Throughout, stands have been taken. There has been a stand the whole time. We just thought the battle of good and evil was going to be an actual literal battle. Everything Hinges on a Baby Laura: Even into Chapter 76, where they finally get back to Boulder. He’s running to Franny at the hospital. He learns pretty immediately that she’s had a C-section and the baby has Captain Trips. Sarah: I thought the way he described everyone standing watch over baby Peter — they were all invested, all waiting to see if he could fight it — it’s almost like that was the final battle: this little baby against a virus. And again with the biblical nods, everything hinges on a baby. Laura: We get the short Chapter 77 where Stu comes in and they reunite, and the doctors tell them what they think is happening with the baby. The virus was changing — every time your body put up a new defense, it would evolve. And it says, “in a way, it was more similar to the AIDS virus than to the common flu.” What did he use as a metaphor in the original version? Definitely not AIDS. Sarah: That’s immediately what I thought. Now we’re back in the ‘90s, because you wouldn’t have been using that metaphor in 1976. Laura: I didn’t care one lick about the medical piece. Reading this aloud, when I got to the part where Franny says “just tell me the end, just tell me what happens” — that as a reader is also what was happening with me. Just tell me the end. And the doctor says he has to be careful with how he presents it. I was like, we’re all Franny and King is the doctor. He’s telling us he’s going to be careful how he presents the end of this story. Sarah: Even though I knew that baby was going to live — I never thought for one hot second that baby was going to die, even before we knew he had Captain Trips. He did not set us up with a pregnant lady for 1,200 pages to have that baby die. Laura: Especially because other babies have died along the way. So you need Franny’s baby to be the exception, for whatever medical mumbo jumbo he’s going to give us. But that’s not based in any real biology as far as I can tell. Sarah: I don’t think your viral immunity has anything to do with your dad. I think it’s all about your uterine environment and what you’re exposed to through your mom. You’re not going to get viral immunity through sperm. Maybe I’m wrong, and our commenters will roll up and correct me. But I never thought that baby was a danger. Everybody else did — he belonged to the whole community, everybody was watching out for him — but I was like, Peter’s going to be fine. Life Goes On Sarah: So we go forward in time. They put the winter behind them, they’re in the spring, and this May Day celebration scene reminded me so strongly of the end of Steel Magnolias. It was almost distracting. Steel Magnolias begins in the spring and ends in the spring at Shelby’s funeral, with children running around just like they were at the beginning. Life goes on. The children are here, they’re playing, they’re hunting Tom. We’ve been through a nuclear weapon, a pandemic, all these things, and life goes on. Especially sitting in spring, I thought it was profound. Laura: I thought he made an interesting point that could have come over heavy-handed, but didn’t. The guy who wants to be the sheriff now wants to arm everybody up — a certain personality type. “In the same way, the American struggle between the law and the freedom of the individual had begun again.” I underlined that so hard. King’s going to make a commentary on America, always. And in some ways there’s a relief to the “life goes on, people are gonna people” of it. Though I felt there was a little bit of anti-city vibes, and I was like, excuse me, there’s a lot of value to a city. Sarah: So they’re at this May Day celebration, Lucy’s pregnant and due in June, and then Franny breaks out into a rousing rendition of Noah Kahan — “I wanna go to Maine.” I started singing it immediately. Me too. I wanna go to Maine too. Laura: I thought this was dumb. Sarah: You don’t feel connection to place at all? Laura: Yes, I feel deep connection to place. Sarah: But why wouldn’t you want to be back? What’s the most absolute different locale? It would be Maine. If you were in Maine, wouldn’t you be like, God, I’ve got to get out of here? Laura: Maybe eventually. A lot of what I write about is Oklahoma and California. Sarah: But if you stuck me somewhere with no four seasons and heat all the time, I would go out of my mind. If I ended up in Phoenix, it would be a mental health crisis for me. Laura: She gets pregnant again and she’s like, we’ll figure it out, there are books about birthing babies. After she had a C-section? And if we run out of medicine, we’ll learn how to make it ourselves. This was just too hippy-dippy for me. It’s not even that she’s pregnant again — it’s that she has a little kid who could have some weaknesses due to his struggle with a very strong virus at birth. Kids have accidents. Kids get sick. Back in the day, they all died of infectious disease. I might not leave the penicillin that far behind, babe. You don’t know who’s in Maine. Last time you left it, you and Harold were the only people in your whole town. You know what’s helpful? Other people. Sarah: But it’s such a good song. I wanna go to Maine. My other question was — if Mother Abigail is dead and Randall Flagg has left the scene, why are all these people still rolling into Boulder? Why aren’t people setting up settlements other places? Laura: I think people are gathering together — the people who want to gather, like me. I’m a gather-together person. I live in a city on purpose. I do not want to grow my own food; I’m going to partner up with someone who does. We all have our own strengths. And then he also hints at the other people who are like, we’ve got to get out of here. In the same way there is now — there’s city people and rural people, and everyone’s going to take their chances and live their lives the way they want. Sarah: I think he just likes Maine best and wants everybody else to like Maine best too. He lived in Colorado and then had to get back to Maine — it was one of his darkest parts. So literally the story is, Colorado sucks, we’ve got to get back to Maine. Laura: Colorado’s beautiful, too. I think King is putting in his own experience: I’ve got to get back to Maine no matter what. I think he just sped up that timeline. Of all the slowed-down timeline of these 1,200 pages, that part is sped up. Maybe after five years of surviving, I would make my way back to California. But I would not do it ten months in. Sarah: Yeah, with a baby and pregnant. That does seem bold. Laura: Okay, now we’re going to save these last six pages — “the dusk of a summer evening and the circle closes” — for the final episode, correct? Which I did cheat and read. I wanted to disclose that. Sarah: I cheated and read it too. But we still have a lot I want to talk about — not only those last six pages, but in a big-picture way, the cultural relevance of The Stand, the adaptations. I had a fellow slow reader tell me she’d been toting the physical copy around while she traveled, and people kept approaching her wanting to talk about it. So there are things, as we wrap up this journey together, about what it meant to us and what it has meant to the literary community. Next Up: The final six pages — “the circle closes” — plus a big-picture conversation about the cultural relevance and adaptations of The Stand, in our final episode of Slow Read: The Stand. See you on the other side. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit slowread.substack.com/subscribe [https://slowread.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2]

SLOW READ: The Stand (Chapters 72 - 73)

Welcome to SLOW READ [https://slowread.substack.com/], where we tackle the books you’ve always wanted to read at a pace you can handle. Hosted by Sarah Stewart Holland [https://www.instagram.com/bluegrassred] and Laura Tremaine [https://www.instagram.com/laura.tremaine/] We are currently reading The Stand [https://urlgeni.us/amzn/thestand] by Stephen King (unabridged version) You can find our full Reading Schedule here [https://slowread.substack.com/p/the-stand-reading-schedule] Join the SLOW READ [https://slowread.substack.com/] community on Substack for bonus episodes, book club meetings, and Side Quests with Sarah & Laura Mentioned in this episode: * Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging [https://www.sebastianjunger.com/tribe-by-sebastian-junger] by Sebastian Junger [https://www.sebastianjunger.com/tribe-by-sebastian-junger] * 1984 [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/55745/1984-by-george-orwell/] by George Orwell [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/55745/1984-by-george-orwell/] * Paradise Lost [https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/26] by John Milton [https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/26] * Carrie [https://www.stephenking.com/works/novel/carrie.html] by Stephen King [https://www.stephenking.com/works/novel/carrie.html] We Stood Sarah: We have been reading Stephen King’s epic The Stand, and I think we’ve come to the part where we stood. Did we stand? Laura: I think we’re still standing. Sarah: Are we standing? Laura: I think we stood. I think we did it. We are wobbling in our woo! Sarah: We would love for you to join us for our final book club meetings for The Stand. There’s obviously going to be a lot to say as we wrap up this epic novel. All of those are coming up in June. You need to check our Substack for details of our book club meetings, our final episodes, and maybe some announcements for what we’re doing next. All of that is going to be on Substack. You can join us there at slowreadbookclub.com and we’re going to have side quest conversations for you. Tomorrow our side quest will be on summer reading and summer plans. We can’t wait to talk about that with you. Laura: Yep. If you join us at the Slow Read Substack, you will get all of our side quests that we’ve been covering through this time. And they have been wide ranging, friends. Sarah: They really have. Sometimes they go along with the book. Sometimes they don’t. Laura: They don’t. But they are excellent conversations with Sarah and I, only for our Substack members. Over on Slow Read, go to slowreadbookclub.com for all of that and more. Sarah: And more. “Is That It?” — First Reactions to the Ending Sarah: We’re going to talk about chapter 72 and 73, and I deserve an award for not texting you the second I finished the section. It was hard. If I had finished this section before we saw each other in person for the first time in 12 years, I wouldn’t have been able to resist. I didn’t really plan to not read it until after, but I’m glad it worked out that way or I would not have been able to keep my mouth shut. Laura: Because you would have wanted to talk about it. Sarah: It’s so talkable. We stood. Of course I want to talk about it. I’m curious what you think reading it for the first time. Did you feel like dun dun dun? Did you feel the music swell in your head? Laura: Yeah, I definitely did. I wanted to just bare minimum text the wide-eyed emoji, but I didn’t — again, because I deserve an award. And my husband, who had been doing a good job kind of keeping pace with us, sped ahead and finished the book, so he’s been saying some cryptic stuff. It got me all keyed up. But yeah, it kind of snuck up on me, but not really. By the time you get to chapter 73, by the time you’re in Larry’s head, you’re like, okay, we’re here, we’re gonna stand. But then it’s over kind of quickly, and so you’re just like, what just happened? Sarah: I know. That’s what I kind of wanted to ask slow readers — if you’re like, “is that it?” Nicholas was definitely that reaction. Those were the cryptic comments he was making. It was very much, “Is that it, Vang?” Laura: Is that how you felt when you read it the first time? Sarah: Definitely. I was kind of just reading, bopping along, and didn’t realize that was it. I mean, there’s still a little bit more to go, but I feel like it’s a lesson in — it’s in the journey, not the destination. Laura: Yes, but I like the destination. Okay, now we’re getting too close to chapter 73. Let’s back up. Let’s do chapter 72. Chapter 72: The Walk and the Question of Fate Laura: So, chapter 72, we pick back up with our traveling party — Stu, Larry, Glenn, Ralph, and Kojak, the true star of the traveling party — as they continue their grueling walk across the United States. They’re averaging like… I really appreciated the mileage chart. I thought that was very helpful, as a person who travels a lot and plans itineraries. Sarah: I was with them in their analysis around the campfire of like, why are we doing it this way? They know why they’re doing it. Mother Abigail told them: walk with just the clothes on your back. You can’t take food. You can’t take packs. You have to survive this hundreds — 400-mile walk, or whatever it is, 500-mile walk. But I sort of was with them when they’re like, we know why we’re doing this, but why are we doing this? And like, can we cheat a little bit? Laura: I really liked this conversation they’re having about why are we doing this at the beginning of chapter 72, and we get to your theory that you’ve brought up over and over again. They’re having a conversation mainly about the wear and tear on their bodies at first, and then Glenn says: “And 50 years of confirmed agnosticism, it seems to be my fate to follow an old black woman’s God into the jaws of death. If that’s my fate, then that’s my fate. End of story. But I’d rather walk than ride, and when you get right down to it, walking takes longer — consequently I live longer by a few days anyway.” So I thought, here we are, here’s your theme. Is it just fate? Is this story just one long journey of fate? Sarah: Well, I have been talking about this for six months. But I don’t know that that is a direct correlation to them having to do it bare, you know? No food, nothing. Now, I mean, they really talk about how fasting clears the mind. I liked all that. And there’s been a walking theme as much as there’s been a fate theme through this book. Remember? Stu walked out — he walked off his fear of the hospital. Trashcan Man walked himself into delirium. Nadine’s walking. Everybody’s walking all the time. Walk, walk, walk, walk, walk. So it does feel like a sort of preparation for the mind, body, and spirit, if you will, for what’s to come. But it also feels like an unnecessary burden to have to figure out your survival. Like they’re eating chips out of people’s cars with dead people. Laura: I’m into it. Sarah: I’m into it. Laura: Because there is a grounding that happens when you are viscerally aware of your own body and its survival. These men would not have had the bravery necessary in chapter 73 if they’d just taken a car. Sarah: No doubt in my mind. Laura: Because they had to know what they’re made of. Sarah: You’ve got to know what you’re made of. You’ve got to know how far you can push your body, how far you can push your mind. And really, I think this physical experience strips away that dichotomy. You know, the closest analogy I can find in my own life is labor. I had three nine-pound babies with not a drop of drugs. I gave birth to two at home — and sort of knowing that I had to get myself through it, like me and my body and a midwife. I’m not a free birther, please don’t message me. But it’s exactly what they describe. It’s so clarifying in a way that’s not intellectual, that’s not, “I’m walking through these steps.” You do something like that, and that dichotomy of my mind, my body — it just goes away. It’s like people when they talk about running marathons, or extreme marathoners, like pushing your body but really yourself, all of you, to the brink. In this way, I think it prepares you to do some really hard shit. Laura: And these guys, they all know it. They’re on the way to do some really hard shit. Sarah: Yeah. And there’s lots of metaphors or references. I like your birth metaphor, but then there’s biblical stuff throughout, even more so in chapter 73. So there’s walking in the wilderness, there’s people taking pilgrimages. I mean, it feels like a human experience, kind of like what you’re describing — we put ourselves through this. Laura: At the end of the day, they had to put the steps in front of them. They had to make the miles. They had to get over aches and pains and hunger. They were instructed, but then they chose. You know what I’m saying? Glenn Is 57 (And the Dialogue Gets a Little Stilted) Sarah: Before we get too far into this chapter, can we talk about this long conversation about how old Glenn is, and then it’s revealed that he’s 57? What the hell, guys? Laura: I know. My husband’s older than that. Jeff is older than that. Oh my God, they’re just talking — the way they’re talking about his arthritis, I’m like, poor Glenn must be like late 60s, early 70s. 57. Steven, my dog, that’s not that old. Sarah: It might have been a little bit older in the 70s, though, in fairness. I will also say, because I’m reading the whole thing aloud, that this was the first time in the whole book where their conversations — mostly in chapter 72 — I struggled with reading aloud. It was the most stilted. It felt the least flowy. It felt the most sort of like… Laura: Preachy. Sarah: Yeah. And like bookish, as opposed to — there was not a natural cadence to these characters we’ve been with. Because I’ve read all of these characters, I’ve read them aloud for a thousand pages now. And in these exchanges — and I don’t know if that’s purposeful or not — I just was like, the dialogue here is a little weird. It felt a little more like clunky book writing, as opposed to in the past. Especially Glenn, who I love so much, one of my favorite characters in the whole thing. He’s been very flowy throughout, and this was a weird one to read aloud. I wondered how that came across in either the audio or if you were reading it in print, if anyone else noticed that. Laura: I mean, a little bit. I’ve had a stronger reaction to other sections where the dialogue feels like just Stephen King has some things he wants to get off his chest. Which, you know what? It’s your book, buddy. Go for it. But I know what you mean. I kind of went back and forth, being like, I love how this is working out. I love that they’re encountering the Wolfman — whose name I can’t remember in real life — the kid. Sarah: The kid. Laura: Where you’re like, oh, well, we know what happened to him now. And I think the way that affected them, and kind of freaked them out, was really smart. Like, he’s trying to pick up some pieces here as he’s getting them closer and closer to Vegas. And some of the conversations — the conversations about the casting away of things being symbolic, like “when you cast away things, you’re casting away the self-related others that are symbolically related to those things” — Sarah: Yeah, nobody talks like that. That’s what I mean, it was weird. Now, I do appreciate, like you’re saying, him tying up some threads. They come across the kid, they come across Harold Lauder. They don’t seem particularly shocked, although by this point they know that Harold and Nadine are who blew up the committee meeting. But then they also find his journal, and they read his final note. Remember Harold wrote that final note that we talked about, that was really kind of well done in terms of the finality of Harold’s character in life? So now knowing that these guys have read it… you know, because sometimes you’re like, well, will anyone ever know? Who do you write this letter for? Now they know. So yeah, there were some storytelling ends that Stephen King is bringing together, and I think he’s doing a good job in a pretty tight chapter — picking up those pieces and also showing how those moments, where they’re seeing Harold, encountering the kid’s body, feeling Randall Flagg’s presence… I bought the way that he allowed them to both be afraid — really afraid, there’s still a lot to be afraid of — but also let them see that he’s not God. It’s a complex strategy he’s got going on here, but it’s not failsafe. There are weak points. And I thought the way he kind of put that all together for them, while also building them up — he’s doing a lot in this chapter, and I think for the most part he sticks the landing. He’s showing you that they’re getting stronger, that they’re getting clear. He’s showing you that they are picking up puzzle pieces about Randall Flagg. He’s showing you that they’re still afraid. Of course they’re still afraid. And how close they’ve gotten to each other, and learned from each other. I just think he did a lot here, and he did it pretty tightly. Male Friendship, Shared Purpose, and Tribe Laura: I agree. This is also a commentary on male friendship, which actually a lot of Stephen King’s work goes back to friendship. And in this case it’s just guys, but they show a lot of affection for one another, a lot of respect for one another. And I think about that when you think of the average Stephen King fan — and I’m making a gross generalization here — but I think the average Stephen King fan is male and maybe on the younger side. And I like the affectionate friendship threads, the leaning on each other. It’s like the opposite of toxic masculinity that he’s showing here, a long time ago, almost 50 years ago when it first came out. I like that, because horror doesn’t always do that. Sarah: Yeah. I think it’s really lovely, and I think it gets to something with male friendships too, because they’re walking side by side and they have a mission. I think that’s important for all human beings. I think about Sebastian Junger’s book Tribe all the time, talking about how after the Blitz in London people would be like, “I kind of miss it,” because they had a mission, they had a purpose, they were fighting something together — men and women. But I think particularly for men, I see this with my boys. When there’s something for them to do and achieve and face together — you hear people talk about this even with people with PTSD, horrific experiences inside the military, they still talk about with a great deal of appreciation this sense of shared purpose they had with their fellow soldiers. And that’s what these guys are. They’re soldiers on the way to a mission. Laura: Yeah, I feel like it gives men an expression of that when they’re on a mission, versus just in day-to-day life. They don’t have maybe that same camaraderie, that shared purpose. I don’t want to say trauma bonding is a good thing, because no one wants the trauma part. They just want the bonding. Sarah: Yeah, but it gives people something. I don’t even know if it’s trauma bonding. I think there’s just something evolutionarily inside all of us, because we spent millions of years in pursuit of survival together. What kind of leisure time did we have? We were feeding ourselves. We were moving. We were outrunning the weather. We were outrunning predators. That is the majority of the experience of the human brain and the human psyche — it’s a tribal experience. I mean, that book starts with the people who would get kidnapped by the Indians, and they’d go to rescue them and they’d be like, “No, thank you. We would like to stay. Thank you so much.” And I think King kind of gets at this over the course of the novel, when everything upends and you have to be really focused on your survival. He personifies it post-pandemic and really heightens that experience by bringing Randall Flagg into it. We’re not just trying to figure out what we’re going to do post-pandemic — now we have a threat, and there’s not that many of us there to meet it, in a way that can put everybody in a place where they are not only willing to work together but make sacrifices. Laura: The ultimate sacrifices. Stu’s Fall and “Go On Without Me” Sarah: The ultimate sacrifice. We have an accident. They are navigating a steep, treacherous dry riverbed to a washout — which I just did on my spring break trip in New Mexico. And it is scary and hard. I would just like to say, and this was just for funsies in a national park. So I was reading this part like, oh, be careful, guys, be careful, guys. Laura: But Stu slips and falls. It’s really bad. He’s falling and he hears his leg snap in two places. And Stephen King has spent a thousand pages telling us: if you’re injured, you’re out of luck. Sarah: So not great. It’s not great, Bob. And it’s gonna happen to Stu — our sort of beloved, I guess I wouldn’t say main character, but kind of. I mean, he’s definitely the foundation upon which everybody sort of rests a lot of the time. Laura: Nick was like the brain, Stu was like the steady strength, and Larry’s like the heart. They’re like — hey, that’s it — Nick is the Tin Man, Stu is the Lion. Do I have these? No. Stu would be the Scarecrow, Larry would be the Lion. Sarah: I like this, I think I did a good thing there. It’s a nice wink that Stephen King does — they’ve all been so worried about Glenn getting up the hill, like all the things, nobody’s worried about Stu. Old 57-year-old Glenn, he makes it up. But the strength, like you said, is the one that falls. Which happens throughout the book. Mother Abigail, supposed to be the ultimate good, God-given strength character — she kicks a bucket. Laura: And then Nick. Nick too. Sarah: So what do you think he’s trying to say with all these “you’re depending on this person a little too much”? Laura: Maybe. Or just like, the ones of us that we think are the strongest are as vulnerable as everyone else. Sarah: Well, I think that’s it. And I think he’s saying, you don’t need a savior. It comes from the numbers. It comes from the community. It comes from everybody willing to step up — not just depending on one person. Depending on one person, to me, is what he is warning dramatically against with Randall Flagg, right? You people have sacrificed everything, including your own ethics, on the idea that he’s gonna save you and he’s gonna protect you because he’s scary. It’s almost — is he making an anti-fascist, anti-populist argument here? I don’t know, maybe. Laura: Well, he’s definitely making — back to your point about a tribal argument — for sure. There’s real differences. I think it’s interesting how he weaves the differences and the sameness between the Free Zone and the Vegas people. He’ll make the point, like, we’re all the same, we’re all just people, people make choices, nobody is all good or all evil. He’ll sort of make that point, and then he’ll make a point like — yeah, no, there are some differences, actually. JK, some of us suck. Some of us are bad. Larry’s Redemption: “I’m a Nice Guy Now” Laura: But this whole section is so relevant. Yeah, they cut bait quick. Sarah: They do. Laura: Larry’s like, no, we’ll get a car. And they’re like, nope, that’s not the instructions. We’ve got to leave him. And Stu’s like, you’ve got to leave me, and you’ve got to leave me right now. And Larry doesn’t like it. He fights it pretty hard. Because I thought this was really great where he was like, no, I’ve spent this whole journey trying to stop becoming a person who ditches, and now you’re asking me to ditch. Sarah: And I think that’s so smart of Stephen King to say, it’s not about just reversing yourself. It’s about becoming wiser, and that’s not an easy rule to follow. It doesn’t mean you’re a better person because you never ditch. It’s that you’ll be a better person because you have your priorities straight and you know what you’re working towards — not about you, or how you want to seem, or what kind of person you want everybody to perceive you to be. It’s about real wisdom, which often requires deep sacrifice, especially in a crisis. Laura: It’s always the moment where you have to do the thing you thought the character had spent the whole book trying not to do. Sarah: I know. And I do feel like he gets there — not just in the fact that he has to leave Stu, but he gets there even spiritually and in alignment, when he has the dream and he’s sort of able to say to his mom, his dead mom, but kind of spiritually, “I am a nice guy. I figured it out. I got there.” You really see that of the four of them in these two chapters — you see it the most with Larry. We get sort of the redemption that you always want from a character, even though it’s only happening within him, because everyone he would want to prove it to is dead. But he knows within himself, like, okay, I got here. I’m a nice guy now. He’s not a taker anymore. He’s a giver. Laura: Except I also really related to his anxiety dreams about the microphones being too high on the stage. Have you had that dream? Sarah: Not that one, but I’ve had my share of anxiety dreams. And he’s like, every rock star, every performer has these dreams where they can’t make the mic work. Laura: Oh, like you’re back in school. In this class, you’ve got to take the test you haven’t been to. Sarah: That’s mine. I’m in a class that I have to take the final and I have not been attending the class. Laura: Oh, I have that one too. But from a performer standpoint, not being able to get the mic to work is so symbolic of, like, you’ve lost your voice, you’ve lost the audience, you’ve lost your only power. And you can’t make it work and you’re just on the stage without a mic. I was like, oh, that’s so relatable. Sarah: Yeah, I do feel like Larry got there. It’s a really, really difficult thing they have to do. I know Glenn and Ralph are kind of head down, “we’ve got to do it.” But I can’t imagine — they just did it with the women, and now they’re having to do it with poor Stu. Laura: I know. But you know what — he doesn’t say this, Stephen King doesn’t say this — but if you just look at who they are before, before the pandemic: Ralph is an Oklahoma guy, I think they made a reference to him being a farmer or a rural guy, who I’m sure had to do the hard decision of shooting the horse or whatever. That’s who Ralph is. Glenn has always had a big-picture understanding of sociology, of community, of what this whole thing is. He’s always sort of understood it. Larry — liberal rock star Larry — is the bleeding heart. He ain’t no nice guy. Sarah: Yeah. It’s like everything tracks. Even Stu, who he is, has to say “go on without me,” like, no questions asked, go, you can’t even stay the night here because you’ll rethink it, you need to go right now. They’re all very clear except for Larry. And I think that also goes back to who they were before. Laura: Yeah, but I also think they’ve had enormous growth, especially Larry. And especially Stu, because remember when we were talking about Stu in the beginning, he was sort of detached. He couldn’t leave the town. There was all that line about how he wanted to leave but he just couldn’t quite do it, he wasn’t really bought in, because his wife had died. And even — we just watched the first scene of the 1994 miniseries, and Stu starts in the doorway with his back to all the guys in the gas station, kind of looking out, very detached. He’s kind of participating in the conversation, but his back’s to it. Sarah: I think all of them, even Glenn and Ralph, were looking for something in the before times that wasn’t quite there. And maybe Larry thought it was fame and success, and it wasn’t, because he got enough of a taste to realize, oh, maybe this just causes more problems. So their journey from the before time is realizing what they thought — especially Larry — what they thought they wanted wasn’t whatever was going to make them happy. And just this sense of, with the whole point of the scene being sacrifice, putting yourself on the line for something bigger than yourself, is really, really powerful. And you can see them all reckon with that in a real way. What Mattered “Before” Doesn’t Matter Now Laura: You know, Larry never tells anybody who he was before. And I think that is fascinating, as someone who lives around a lot of famous people, where that fame — whether they’re attached to it or not, and most of them are on some level — it’s sort of part of their identity. Now, he only got a couple of weeks of fame before the pandemic hit, but it’s so interesting that he hasn’t tried to establish who he is by referencing who he was, like, “I was somebody.” Sarah: Yeah, it would be really hard for me to not want to be like, “I was somebody, this is what makes me a leader here, that’s what gives me some credibility here.” It’s just a shorthand for your resume or accomplishments or title. It’s just a shorthand when you’re meeting new people to establish who you are, what your talents are, what your gifts are. And he has never done that, which is fascinating to me. Laura: Yeah. Beyond Glenn, his sociologist, I don’t feel like a lot of people do that. If you’re a doctor, that’s super important and relevant. But like we said, I’m not even really sure what Ralph did. I certainly don’t know what Stu did. Sarah: No, he worked in the factory. He worked in the factory. Laura: Oh, he worked at a factory. That’s right. So yeah, I definitely think he’s making an argument. And there does seem to be this sort of mass decision that it doesn’t matter what was going on beforehand, unless you’re a doctor. Sarah: But does it not matter? I’m curious — we haven’t really run into anyone who was like a CEO, somebody who was a natural leader who will be like, “look, I know how to run things” — not because they’re trying to be cool or superior, but just like, here’s what my talents are. Laura: I would say that Stephen King has some thoughts on that, if he made a factory worker the default — a factory worker, and a mute wanderer hitchhiker, and a little old lady, the leaders. So I think we know where he stands on that. Sarah: I know. I think it’s interesting. Do you honestly think, if this happened, what would you say? Would you be like, “I’m a podcaster” in this world? Laura: I mean, I’m just an extrovert and a people person, so I don’t know if I would lean on my experiences. I would just — I am who I am, you know? I think I would show up as who I am post-apocalypse just as much as I do in my everyday life. That’s what Bess says about me, is that it doesn’t matter where I am, I just show up fully as myself. So I’ve got to believe that would still be true. But some people don’t like that about me. Some people, that might not have been the type of leadership people like. I’m an acquired taste, man. So I don’t know. Sarah: I just wonder if our listeners could think of this as an exercise — in a post-pandemic world, in this type of pandemic, if Jeff and I both survived and we wandered into the Free Zone and we were like, “we’re a director and a podcaster.” Okay, well, we are useless. We are literally useless. Not because those were our titles, but because the skill set you were developing in the pre-world is not helping us here at all. Laura: Yeah, I think that’s why the judge with legal experience, doctors with medical experience — you have the whole conversation with Dayna where she’s like, all the stuff we studied is worthless now. I think that’s kind of the conversation people start having: what’s actually relevant and helpful? Sarah: Yeah. It’s interesting to think about. Could You Sacrifice Yourself? Laura: Okay, but let’s talk about this as we wrap up chapter 72. Would you be able to sacrifice yourself? Would you say, like, “go on without me, guys, I’ll just stay here and die in the desert”? Sarah: I mean, I think it is the only choice, but I don’t know that I would be able to do it so beautifully as Stu does. Laura: Yeah. I would be crying. I’d be weeping. I’d be sad. It’d be hard. It’d be so scary to know. I think I’d take those pills right away. Sarah: Even with some morphine pills at your disposal, I don’t know, that’s still hard for everybody involved. Chapter 73: Kojak, and Maybe Stu’s Not Done For Laura: But wait, don’t give up on poor Stu yet. Chapter 73, we start with Kojak. The traveling party’s like, hey, where’d Kojak go? And we find out that he went back to Stu — he brings him a rabbit, he brings him firewood, and we’re all like, oh wait, maybe we shouldn’t count Stu out quite yet. Sarah: Because the last sentence — under which I wrote DAMN in all caps — of chapter 72 is, “and they never saw Stu Redman again.” Laura: Right. But we know we’re going to see Kojak. We know Kojak lives for another 15 years. So it’s got to be a good sign for Stu that Kojak’s with him. Sarah: It is a cliché male thing to me to be like, “we haven’t seen Kojak for hours.” The women would have clocked, like, we’re missing one of our party, even if it’s the dog. Laura: Especially Glenn. Glenn loves that dog. Sarah: Yeah. So we know that Kojak is back with Stu. I feel pretty good about Stu’s future. And maybe because I flipped through the pages just a little bit to see if his name showed back up. Just saying. Laura: Oh, don’t. You’re a cheater. Sarah: I have not done that at all. And I didn’t text you, so you can’t get on to me. But when you read that, you know that we know — throw me a literal bone, since we’re talking about dogs. Laura: Were you putting together the clues all at once? Like, oh, then that means… Yeah, a little bit. Barry Dorgan and the Limits of Law and Order Laura: So we’re back with the traveling party. About 20 days after leaving Boulder, they finally get to some of Randall Flagg’s interceptors, led by Barry Dorgan, who’s like the captain of law enforcement in Vegas. And Glenn and Dorgan end up having this back and forth where Glenn picks up pretty quickly that Dorgan is not a monster — that he does seem to believe in law and order, in some sort of standard process, rule of law, and that this ain’t that. What’s about to happen to them is not that. So I found, from the second they were picked up, the way they all clocked what was going on — particularly Glenn — and were able and willing to articulate and call out, at every opportunity, what was happening. Sarah: I thought that was really astute on King’s part, especially if you’re coming out of the 60s and 70s when this is being written, when there’s gonna be some complicated feelings around — they mention it later in the chapter — police brutality or whatever. And you realize that he’s just a good guy who’s trying to do his job, who has complicated feelings about it. Maybe “good guy” is too strong of a word, but he’s a normal guy with complicated feelings, who feels an obligation to do his job and to do it well, to carry out these orders. It feels very understandable to me. Laura: Yeah. And he’s frustrated by being called out on it, kind of. And Glenn’s calling everybody out. Sarah: Yeah, yeah, yeah. No man is marked safe from Glenn, okay? He’s just… he’s the best. He’s calling out the hypocrisy. Peak Glenn: Laughing in the Face of Evil Laura: And then we get peak Glenn. I feel like Glenn is the GOAT in this entire chapter. So they get stopped, they get cuffed — and I really don’t think “arrested” is the right word here. This is not a real law enforcement agency with any sort of procedure. It’s just taken. Taken is probably more accurate. They get put in prison, and Larry is acknowledging, like, oh, I’m back on the West Coast, what a long strange trip it’s been, and starts reciting “I will fear no evil, I will fear no evil.” But Glenn’s approach is different. He’s gonna laugh in the face of evil. That’s what old Glenn’s gonna do. Sarah: What a badass. This is so relevant to right now, I feel like — that when people in this particular type of power, on this power trip, get laughed at, that is their worst possible nightmare. They only want to be feared or respected, but to be laughed at, to be ridiculed, is like a hair trigger. I love this: “Glenn laughed heartily. He threw back his head and laughed long and hard, and as he laughed, the pain in his joints began to abate. He felt better, stronger, in control again. ‘Oh, you’re a card,’ he said. ‘I tell you what you do. Why don’t you find a nice big sand pile, get yourself a hammer, and pound all that sand right up your ass.’” Laura: Glenn! I underlined that too. Glenn! Sarah: And then he talks about “Flagg’s face grew dark and the smile slipped away. His eyes, previously as dark as the jet stone Lloyd wore, now seemed to gleam yellow.” There’s a few things there. I did like that laughing made his pain fade a little. Laura: Yeah. Like his physical pain. Because Flagg’s presence makes it way worse at first. Sarah: Yeah, there is a spiritual component to laughing, I deeply believe that. But I also was like, is he really laughing or is he fake laughing? Laura: I feel like he really was laughing. His ability to control his own pain and present what he wanted to present to Flagg had to be based in something real. Nobody’s that good of an actor. Sarah: And I think — again, because of the process they’ve taken on the journey, being stripped away and understanding what you’re capable of and understanding what you’re facing, which is most likely death — it’s the same way with Dayna, right? And even Nadine. Okay, if all fear of Randall Flagg is based on fear of death, when you accept “yes, I will die and I will die soon,” then what can he hold over you? And I think Glenn was really like, you have nothing. You’ve controlled everybody through this fear of what you’ll do to them. Well, I accept whatever you’ll do to me. You have no control over me. You are powerless. You are a joke. Laura: Also in Glenn’s mind, who has studied this kind of thing for his entire career — how satisfying or sad or full circle, to realize this thing that they’ve been in such fear of. He’s just a man. And I know we understand he’s a little bit more than a man, but he’s not all-powerful. He has a lot of weaknesses. And so for Glenn to realize, oh, this guy in the boots and this getup… Why Doesn’t Flagg Kill Anyone Himself? Sarah: But why do you think — Glenn says, like, okay fine, shoot me, and Flagg won’t do it. He makes Lloyd do it. Why do you think that is? Laura: Well, does he directly kill anybody in the story? He’s a little bit of a Charles Manson. Sarah: Yeah, I mean, except for when we get to the crowd in just a minute with poor Whitney. Laura: But he doesn’t shoot him. Sarah: No, that’s still spiritual. You’re right — there’s never any, even with the guy Lloyd is so freaked out about, “he just kind of looked at me, went crazy” — there is never a moment where he takes a human means to kill someone. Laura: He does know body-to-body violence. Combat. He beats up poor Dayna after she’s already dead, but who cares about that. Sarah: That’s interesting. I wonder why we think that is. I want to hear everybody’s thoughts over on Substack, because I know that y’all will have them. I can’t plug that into a theme I see within the book of why he wouldn’t — only in the same way Mother Abigail doesn’t save them in any real human way. Maybe he’s not going to kill them in any real human way. You know what I mean? Laura: Yeah, I feel like to me that goes to a little bit of what is horror about this book. And as we get to the end, I really want us to have a good conversation about genre, and first-time readers, if this was what they expected in a book that’s so classically labeled horror — and is so different than what you might have expected. Because all of his violence is of the supernatural variety, instead of just the shootout with Poke and Lloyd. There’s a lot of human-to-human violence in this book, but if there was only that, that would change the genre of what we’re reading. That becomes a thriller, or — versus the horror part. He’s just a serial killer, that’s kind of different. Sarah: It’s different. He’s like a devil figure, a Lucifer figure, and him just shooting somebody would be a little out of character. Laura: Well, sadly he does get Lloyd to shoot Glenn. Sarah: Yeah. Glenn dies laughing, but he does get shot by Lloyd. He kind of tries with Lloyd — he’s like, dude, you know he doesn’t have what you think he has. But Lloyd is ultimately just loyal, and he’s like, “well, he told me more of the truth than anybody else has in my whole lousy life.” And I was like, man, I hate this payoff for Lloyd. It’s not like I wanted good things for Lloyd, but I feel like King was showing us — Laura: And maybe that’s the only reason Lloyd was around, was to show us, like, people are figuring it out. Sarah: Yeah, because he hesitates. He hesitates. Laura: He does hesitate. I wanted Lloyd to figure it all the way out, but that wouldn’t work. I mean, he couldn’t just shoot Randall Flagg. That’s not going to work. Sarah: Because we tried that with Harold, and Flagg pushes Harold. So I don’t think Lloyd would have even been able to shoot him. But I don’t even know why I’m out here wishing good things for Lloyd. I’m not. I guess I’m just ultimately into redemption in all forms. Laura: Also, Lloyd does hesitate. You can see Lloyd is having second thoughts, like Lloyd is really starting to understand that Randall Flagg is not all-powerful. But Lloyd has no attachment to Glenn. His hesitation is only within himself, like, God, is this guy speaking the truth? But his hesitation is not, “should I let this Free Zone guy live?” Sarah: Yeah, he doesn’t care about Glenn. Laura: Well, Glenn does. RIP Glenn. Sarah: RIP Glenn. In a blaze of bullets. Laura: In a blaze of bullets and laughter, like a badass. Sarah: Pour you a creek-cooled beer out for one Glenn Bateman. That’s all I’ve got to say. The MGM Grand Lawn and the Uneasy Crowd Laura: Okay, then Larry and Ralph are taken to the lawn of the MGM Grand Hotel. They know it’s about to get real bad. And what has been built quickly is basically cages, where they’re going to pull them apart limb by limb. They’re going to draw and quarter them. Sarah: They’re going to draw and quarter them with vehicles. Laura: Yeah. God, it’s so gnarly. Sarah: It’s pretty gnarly. It’s not great. Laura: I love this visual. So they get there, but you see, oh, well, the reason this is important is because everybody else is there. It’s a spectacle. We’ve gotten everybody in place at one time. That’s why we needed these two dudes. They are the honey trap. They are the way that we’ve got to get everybody in the same place. Sarah: But the crowd is uneasy. They’re not loving it. They’re already, I think, doubting him. This isn’t a mob thirsty for blood — it’s clear, sort of from the beginning. And Flagg comes out and says, “It’s them. They’ve been spying. They’re the ones who shot down all those airplanes. They did it all.” And Whitney, to his eternal credit, comes out and is like, “the hell it was. It was not them. You know it.” Laura: We already know that Whitney’s one of the ones who planned a ditch. He was already defecting. Sarah: Yeah, he was gonna defect. But good on him for standing up and being like, no, that’s not what happened. “Don’t Believe Your Own Eyes” — Flagg’s Lie and the Crowd Turns Laura: But someone else realizes — so this says: “Larry’s eyes touched those of a man standing on the front rim of the crowd. Although Larry did not know it, this was Stan Bailey, operations chief at Indian Springs. He saw a haze of bewilderment and surprise cover the man’s face, and saw him mouthing something ridiculous that looked like ‘Can Man.’” So he’s just a character we don’t really know, but he’s a sort of stand-in for, like, hold on. Sarah: Yeah. I mean, I think there’s a lot of people at this point who knew that was Trashcan Man. Laura: Yeah, we all know it was Trashcan Man. And you’re lying straight to our face. Sarah: Yep. Again, I want to point out what is an exact parallel to what is happening in America, when people are realizing without a shadow of a doubt that this person they’ve been following is outright lying to them. It’s every meme that everybody has been posting on both sides for years, from 1984 — “do not believe your own eyes.” And now it is just so blatant. What is happening in America is what is happening in this crowd. Laura: Truly. People who came to the dawn of realization. Sarah: Well, God, Laura, I hope not, considering what happens next. Laura: I hope the metaphor is there. Sarah: I’m like, well, don’t take it too far. Flagg’s Ball of Fire and the Return of Trashcan Man Laura: Okay. So Whitney comes forward, and to scare everybody shitless and put himself back in charge, Flagg summons this ball of blue fire that incinerates Whitney. It kind of goes up over his head. They talk about the smell of his burning hair. It’s pretty brutal. Sarah: This was so visual. When he sears his mouth shut across his face. This was very visual. Reading this out loud, I feel like I saw this more than I did the first few times I’ve read it. You’re sort of skimming over like, oh God, you know, skimming to get to what’s going to happen. But to read every word of this out loud, I was like, oh, this is rough. Laura: Should this be the chapter you read out loud for people, that they can have if they’re paid subscribers? Sarah: I don’t know. Maybe it should be. So we’re like, oh, shit, well, he’s going to shut it all down, he’s going to shut this dissent off, and nobody’s gonna do anything — which seems to be what happens. Everybody’s like, well, I don’t want the ball of fire to sear my mouth shut, so I’ll just shut up and let this happen. And Larry and Ralph are like, “I will fear no evil, I will fear no evil.” And then who shows back up but old Trashy, in his cart, with his skin falling off from radiation poisoning. Laura: And I thought that he was getting this bomb for himself. But really, it seems like he was getting the nuclear bomb to take it to Randall Flagg — like a sacrifice, an apology, a tribute. Take me back here, I got you the biggest bomb humanly possible. Is that how you read it? Sarah: I feel like it’s a little unclear, and maybe even purposefully, because when we last saw Trashcan Man, when he had discovered these bombs — he knew where these bombs were, like underground, and he’s trying to get to them, avoiding all warnings about getting near them. Laura: It feels like when Trashcan Man’s mind is as clear as it’s going to get. It’s never fully clear. But in that scene, when we last saw him, he did seem more vengeful. He’s mad. He’s blown up the airplanes — or the helicopters, whatever they were — because he got his feelings hurt. He’s vengeful, and we can’t totally tell why he’s trying to get the nukes out of the ground. But in this scene, you don’t know if he’s changed his mind, or if that was always his intention, to bring it back to Flagg or not. But it doesn’t matter, because he’s obviously completely lost his ever-loving mind. Sarah: And in some lights, this scene of him parting the crowd, coming in with a tractor pulling this thing — it’s either horrifying, or there’s almost a — I hate to say it — almost a comic relief to it. Like him coming in just melting, being like, hey everybody, I’m back, did you miss me? It’s almost like the infamous prom scene in Carrie, where there are some moments in the way Stephen King writes that scene — we’re so used to the movie version and how horrifying it is — but you’re almost like, is this… there’s something about this that is funny? “Funny” isn’t quite the right word, but it is horror mixed with this borderline funny visual. It’s like a mix. Laura: A classic Stephen King mix of imagery that is just so iconic. “The Hand of God” and the End of Randall Flagg Sarah: Well, and people start to run. Laura: Well, yeah, because they see what that is. Even if you don’t know exactly what it is, you know what it is. Sarah: And so Randall Flagg is like, “stop.” That doesn’t work. Then he tells my favorite, Lloyd, “tell him to get rid of it.” Oh, friend. And he’s fully deflated of his power, until literally poof — his clothes just drop down empty. Because the little shape he sent out, the little fire he used to torture and kill poor Whitney, transforms basically into the hand of God, touches the nuclear bomb, and that’s all she wrote. And what’s the last line in this chapter? “And the righteous and unrighteous alike were consumed in that holy fire.” Wow. Laura: Under the end of this chapter I wrote WHOA in all caps. Do you feel like, when it describes that he disappears and his clothes are left standing there for a second and then they drop — is he being incinerated along with everyone else, but a smidge early? Or is he escaping? What’s happening there exactly, because he bounces throughout time, you know? Sarah: Yeah, I think the dark energy that animated the person that was Randall Flagg — because he says, you know, “I used to remember who I was before,” like he could, and then he stops being able to. So it’s like that energy was so tied up with the real person, that at the moment that energy can’t exist anymore — because what was feeding it was the people’s belief in him — it dissipates. And I’m sure it goes to another time and place. We don’t get rid of evil. But it was so tied up with the person of Randall Flagg at that point, and their ability to levitate and create white balls of fire and all this stuff — it couldn’t exist. The real Randall Flagg, whatever the real Randall Flagg was, could not exist without it. So the second it moved on to another timeline, universe, multiverse — that was all she wrote. So I don’t see any more threat to this. Did the Free Zone Actually Bring Flagg Down? Laura: It was the sense of, like, this right here, this is over. But how do you feel about — that wasn’t our Free Zone committee, that wasn’t our men on a mission, they did not bring this about. Nobody — everybody would have been standing there. It doesn’t matter. If they’d all been safe in their homes, when Trash King comes back with his tractor pulling the bomb… Sarah: But listen, if we’re getting biblical — which Stephen King clearly is — there’s something about the presence. The chosen presence, the energy of everybody being there to see these two men, these particular two men, die. The white-hot flame of his hand had to come about. That’s what touches the bomb, right? If everybody had been in their home, if they weren’t sacrificing these two men, why would Whitney have come out and said, “this ain’t right”? And if he didn’t touch Whitney with the fire, there’s not a bit of that that happens without Larry and Ralph being there. It doesn’t happen otherwise. There’s too many pieces. Laura: Well, there is interesting how many Jesus figures are in the book. It is not one character that is Jesus-y. You’re having them now be Jesus, or the thieves, or however you want to assign it to Ralph and Larry. But you’ve had moments where Randall Flagg himself has some sort of Jesus moments, obviously Mother Abigail — there’s a lot of, I don’t know what the point Stephen King would be making is, of like, we all are children of God, we all are vulnerable to sacrifice, we all have spiritual powers. But it’s interesting that it’s not like he has one Jesus figure. We have Jesus imagery, biblical imagery, the whole book. Sarah: I think what he’s saying is that there is a plane of existence — he deals so often in ESP and stuff — that gets dampened, lessened, turned down from our everyday perception because of our modern lives and the status quo in our everyday existences. And so in this book, he’s creating a scenario in which those are gone. Because also, when we meet Randall Flagg, they say he shows up when there’s chaos — maybe it’s a protest, maybe it’s a terrorist organization. So I think he’s saying, okay, but what happens to this plane of existence he clearly thinks exists — and I think you could make a strong argument is present in the Bible and biblical stories — like, this is where it surfaces to the top at this particular moment in history. So what if something happened that surfaced it again? What happens in a moment where everybody can access parts of themselves they usually can’t, be it evil or good? Self-Destruction, or the Way Good Works on People? Sarah: I also think he’s really strongly saying that you bring about your own downfall. It does not come from outside sources. Like Trashcan Man, Randall Flagg himself — I understand what you’re saying about them all needing to be gathered for this sort of thing to be quite so epic. But his downfall was coming even outside of that. People were starting to figure it out. He’d alienated the most dangerous person of his community, Trashcan Man, who was gonna come back and wreak havoc upon all of them. Laura: But that’s interesting, though. Did he alienate him? I don’t know if he alienated him. I think he empowered him. He alienated Lloyd by not telling Lloyd everything. Sarah: Right. I guess he empowered Trashy. Laura: But then he was going to get rid of Trashy. It’s just that he escaped after blowing up the aircraft. Sarah: Well, that’s it, right? He uses everybody. Laura: Talk about relevant to now. He treats everybody transactionally. What can you get me? Sarah: That’s what I mean. Laura: I do not feel like the Free Zone committee had anything to do with the downfall of Flagg and Vegas. Sarah: Well, I don’t know. I think that he had weaknesses, but that allowed the opening — again, all those pieces, of Trashcan Man and them showing up. And I think they all had to be there. First of all, he had to have some antagonists — he was gonna bomb them to oblivion. There had to be some sort of pushback, because I think he would have even bombed the Free Zone. It might have been sloppy, and maybe he didn’t wipe them out completely, but they had electricity, and he had Rat Man and all these people working for him. He could have really done some damage. If they hadn’t come and made the sacrifice of walking across the country and sacrificing their own lives, I think he would have killed more people. I don’t think he was on the precipice of downfall anytime soon. Laura: No, maybe not. Sarah: But he’s not all-powerful. Laura: I think he wouldn’t have gone on forever. Something would have happened, but he might have taken down a lot more people in the process. I still think that it’s his own failings in every way — either betraying his own people, not taking care of people, plotting them against each other. It’s all his own failings. I feel like the Free Zone guys were a sacrifice and sort of brought this all to a head, but I still don’t think it was really them. I think it was him. He messed it all up. Sarah: I don’t know. I think they played a role. I think they had to be there. I think you have to do something, and you have to be the antagonist. The whole thing to me is really giving Paradise Lost — this sort of “I have power, why can’t I use it?” There’s some sort of paranormal power. It’s not a jump to say if I have this excessive power, it was given to me by a greater power, why can’t I do with it what I want? But also, like, no real strategy. It’s just power for power’s sake. What did he want? What did Randall Flagg want? To just secure this power, take out his enemies, and keep it for this kid he was gonna impregnate Nadine with? It’s never really clear — whereas with the Free Zone, maybe it was clear that the Free Zone wanted something different, and that’s why he felt he had to eliminate them. I think good is always an antagonist for evil, and you can’t just trust that evil is going to self-destruct. Laura: No, I don’t think you can trust it or count on it. But it seems to be, a lot of times — not always, but a lot of times — sort of what happens is they self-destruct, as opposed to an outside power taking them down. Because that would have been a really different story. We’re not totally sure what he wants, other than dominance, world dominance — which is what a lot of powerful people want, just some sort of world dominance for dominance’s sake, I suppose. That’s not really what they’re after. And it does feel like a self-destruction, which I also think sometimes happens. Sarah: Well, and is it self-destruction, or is it just the way good works on people like that? Laura: Mmm, I like that thought. Sarah: You know what I mean? Ultimately, they live in the world, and there’s good in the world, and there’s laughter, and there’s people that aren’t scared of you, and there’s people willing to make enormous sacrifice. Because part of that self-destruction was the presence of — I still think it really was Larry and Ralph, but let’s say you don’t buy that — Dayna sure as hell played a role in fundamentally undermining his perception of himself and others’ perception of him. And the judge. So the Free Zoners did play a role in not just accelerating — maybe it would have happened inevitably — but really exposing his weaknesses, for sure. Laura: Well, I like that thought, that just their presence, and his lack of control of them — so Dayna killing herself, the judge also sacrificing, just being out from under his power — their very presence sort of changed his decision-making or his trajectory in a way that became self-destructive, but wouldn’t have been without their presence. I hear what you’re saying. Yeah. I like it. I like it. The Book’s Not Over Yet Sarah: But the book’s not over. Laura: The book’s not over. Do not think the book is over. It’s not. We’ve got a couple more sections left. Sarah: I’ve got about a little under 100 pages left in the book. God, there’s so much to talk about as this book ends, that I want to talk about with our fellow slow readers — about the experience. And so I want people to come to our final meeting that they can share with us. Laura: In summary: come to our final book club meeting. Or put a comment on Substack. Sarah: I just really want to hear from — this is my first ever slow read. I know a lot of people, it’s also their first slow read, or their first Stephen King, or their first horror. I really want to hear, as we wind it down — yes, we’re going to talk about how the book winds down, but also just like, if this has shifted your reading life, if it’s changed the way that you have read books, if you did this on pace with us, or you skipped ahead, or you binged and caught up. I really want to hear, not only about The Stand, but how spending this much time with one work affects you. Laura: Yeah. So join us over on Substack so we can talk about that. Sarah: We will be back next week with chapters 74 through 78, and tomorrow we will have a side quest where we’re going to talk about summer plans. We’re going to lighten it up after the nuclear bomb. Laura: Summer plans, already. So join us there and check that out as well. We will see you on the other side. Sarah: See you on the other side. Next Up: Chapters 74 through 78 of The Stand. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit slowread.substack.com/subscribe [https://slowread.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2]

Join Laura for STEPHEN KING SUMMER 2026!

The 6th annual Stephen King Summer Book Club [https://www.lauratremaine.com/stephenkingsummer] kicks off next week and I want you to be a part of it! Stephen King Summer is part of Laura’s Secret Stuff [https://open.substack.com/pub/secretstuff] Substack and when you sign up for it, you’ll get the Stephen King Summer Book Club [https://www.lauratremaine.com/stephenkingsummer] + all her other Secret Stuff content AND the full Stephen King Summer archives. JOIN STEPHEN KING SUMMER [https://secretstuff.substack.com/subscribe] For Stephen King Summer 2026, we’re reading: HOLLY [https://urlgeni.us/amzn/eZ3O_] The Life of Chuck [https://urlgeni.us/amzn/QgoSOm] CUJO [https://urlgeni.us/amzn/8YGAV] and we’ll do watch alongs each month in addition to our zoom book club meetings. I would love to see some Slow Readers over on Secret Stuff [https://open.substack.com/pub/secretstuff] this summer! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit slowread.substack.com/subscribe [https://slowread.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2]

SLOW READ: The Stand (Chapters 65 - 71)

Welcome to SLOW READ [https://slowread.substack.com/], where we tackle the books you’ve always wanted to read at a pace you can handle. Hosted by Sarah Stewart Holland [https://www.instagram.com/bluegrassred] and Laura Tremaine [https://www.instagram.com/laura.tremaine/] We are currently reading The Stand [https://urlgeni.us/amzn/thestand] by Stephen King (unabridged version) You can find our full Reading Schedule here [https://slowread.substack.com/p/the-stand-reading-schedule] Join the SLOW READ [https://slowread.substack.com/] community on Substack for bonus episodes, book club meetings, and Side Quests with Sarah & Laura Mentioned in this episode: * Michael Pollan on the Ezra Klein Show [https://www.nytimes.com/video/opinion/100000010802886/michael-pollans-journey-to-the-borderlands-of-consciousness.html] * Rosemary’s Baby [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063522/] (1968 film) [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063522/] * The Sopranos The Announcement Before We Begin Laura: Hello, I’m Laura Tremaine. Sarah: And I’m Sarah Stewart Holland. Laura: This is Slow Read, where we tackle the books you’ve always wanted to read at a pace you can handle. And we are in the final chapters of The Stand by Stephen King. Sarah: If you have been reading along with us since January, lordy, things are finally happening. And if you are binging and catching up with us, well, welcome. Laura: There is a lot to discuss, including whether or not Randall Flagg is a bride’s dream come true. Sarah: He is not. Laura: Spoiler for the whole episode. He is not. Sarah: Now, we would love for you to join us for our last couple of book club meetings for The Stand. Our May meeting is next week. And then we’ll have a big final meeting in June to process the end of The Stand and our whole slow reading experience together. You will want to be there for these meetings because they’re going to be very satisfying to discuss this novel after being with these characters for six months — and each other for that matter. And we’ll be revealing what our next Slow Read is going to be. It’s a big one. It’s a big announcement. Laura: These book club meetings are for our Substack paying members only. And when you join us over there at the Slow Read Substack, you will get not only our book club Zooms with me and Sarah, but you’ll also get a host of other goodies, like all of our Side Quests where we share our personal stories about our dreams, death, parenthood, love triangles. Don’t you want to hear us talk about those things that are tangentially related to The Stand that we have been discussing for the last five, six months? Join us over on slowreadbookclub.com. That’s on Substack. The Balance of Good and Evil (Before We Even Get to Chapter 65) Laura: Okay, Sarah. Chapters 65 through 71. Wow. Sarah: It’s weird because Stephen King has spent the whole book setting up how powerful Randall Flagg is. And then the closer they get, he’s starting to poke holes in that power — which felt like a lot of what this section was. But it hasn’t really lessened my trepidation for our boys as they get closer to Vegas. You know what I mean? Laura: A lot of things I think are happening. He is poking holes in how all-powerful he is, but it feels like sort of the yin and yang to what he also did with Mother Abagail. Sarah: Yeah. Laura: So there’s a real balancing happening in this part of the book, which for me was a little jarring — to go from all of these hundreds of pages spending in the Free Zone with these characters that we love and how they’re setting up their community and all this, and then now to spend the last couple sections in Vegas. I’m like, this is a decidedly different vibe. And I agree with you. It doesn’t make him any less scary. Sarah: But that’s because we know from life experience — not to mention our own literary tastes — that just because he’s not all-powerful doesn’t make him any less terrifying. It’s almost he’s almost more terrifying now that he’s feeling a little desperate. Laura: Right, because he’s backed into a corner. People backed into a corner are dangerous, for sure. Sarah: There’s a lot that happened in this section that sort of brought up so many questions that we have been teetering on the edge of in terms of: what is good and evil? What is all-powerfulness? Who is Mother Abagail and Randall Flagg, like — are they, if they’re not exactly God and the devil, are they angels, demons? And there’s just a lot of questions about those characters, but then also about our community characters in terms of like, nobody is all bad or all good. Laura: He feels all bad to me, but the bad is complicated. Well, he does. He might be all bad — but I guess I meant the community people as they’re starting to have doubts. Sarah: Yeah, I mean, I think that’s what opens up the most interesting moments, especially with Lloyd and Nadine and everyone not operating out of a place of pure fear. Because the holes that King pokes in Randall Flagg’s power break the spell just enough that people in Vegas can start to assess their own decision-making. In the same way that Mother Abagail disappearing freed people up to take leadership roles and make some decisions in the Free Zone — it’s a very similar situation, I think. Laura: Yeah, that’s what I was feeling in the balance of it all. When Mother Abagail goes on her walk to the woods, it’s kind of disappointing, but you still have this human nature thing of like, all right, we’ll buck up, we got to come together and do it in her absence. But when we start to see the failings or the humanness of Randall Flagg — “disappointing” is not a word that covers it. It feels like terrifying. Like, oh no. Because we know men like this who start to lose their grip on power — if it slips even a little bit, they get very erratic and dangerous. Sarah: Well, and the reasoning of the people around him — they’re like, oh no. I did so many things, I made so many decisions, based on the premise that he is protecting us. These people have made some moral and ethical sacrifices on the premise that he was gonna keep them safe. And he couldn’t even keep them safe from Trashcan Man. But I’m skipping ahead — let’s start with chapter 65. Chapter 65: Randall Flagg in the Desert Laura: Chapter 65 opens with Randall Flagg out in the desert. He’s just cooking a rabbit and thinking. This is, I think, not the first time we’re in Randall Flagg’s head, but it’s the first time this whole section where we’re getting a bit more of a fuller picture of how he thinks. And it is substantially more human than we’ve experienced him. Sarah: He’s frustrated with himself and his powers. It’s almost like he has also taken his powers for granted. He cannot see who the third spy is. He cannot figure that out. He’s baffled that Harold Lauder attempted to betray him in the end by shooting at Nadine. He’s having trouble levitating, which is this — Laura: Oh, my God. Sarah: Well, considering what happens to poor Nadine, I don’t think so. Laura: He comes through in the end, as the case may be. Sarah: Oh, my God. I was so freaked out at the beginning of this chapter — how he would look at the wolves and they would fight. We’re going through a lot of the diminishment of his powers, but King is still like, don’t forget this dude is scary. He would just look at the wolves around him and they would start to bite each other and fight each other, and I thought, oh, that’s just such creepy dark imagery. That he is just like violence personified and a mere glance can bring it out in these creatures. I was very freaked out by that. Laura: Yeah, he’s so creepy in this part. But to me it was giving more demon than devil. Sarah: Yeah, and I thought it was so interesting how he talked about how he couldn’t remember his life or experiences before the super flu. He was no longer strictly a man if he had ever been one. He was like an onion slowly peeling away one layer at a time — only it was the trappings of humanity that seemed to be peeling away. Organized reflection, memory, possibly even free will, if there ever had been such a thing. He can only remember the events since the super flu. He was losing himself is how it’s described. So to me that’s so interesting. That feels like something that would happen as his power grew — but maybe there was something in his power and connection and ability to control other humans that was really linked to his own human experiences. Laura: Well, and he also says — this is skipping ahead, but it’s relevant — he says later in this section that there might be other versions of him. What if there was one in China, what if there was one in Russia? He’s kind of assuming there are other versions of him, but that’s something to deal with in ten years is how he thinks about it. But as this whole story has been set up with Mother Abagail representing the good and Randall Flagg representing the bad — now that Mother Abagail has died, it’s interesting that it’s not then just like evil reigns. Because the evil is faltering. The evil is faltering in the face of her death. Characters throughout this entire section are starting to mention: this all changed when she died. When that power — it’s like they keep each other in check. There is a natural order of things, and when there is one to balance the other, that’s what keeps it in check. Now that one has died, instead of evil becoming total dominance, it’s become chaos and confusion. Sarah: She must have known that. She must have had a sense that that was going to happen. I think there is a theme here, beginning with Nadine and continuing, that this isn’t going to end the way everybody expected it to. Nadine thought she knew what was going to happen when she got to him, that she was going to have this ecstasy. Instead, it was horrific. Nadine and the Desert Laura: I underlined the whole thing — because I think it’s one long sentence. He battered into her invader destroyer and the cold blood gushed down her thighs and then he was in her all the way up to her womb and the moon was in her eyes cold and silver — and it just goes. It’s like a paragraph. The sentence just keeps going and going and going describing that. It’s wild. Sarah: So after he cooks the rabbit and has his philosophical thoughts or whatever, cut to Nadine on her Vespa with her white hair — very visual, very kind of cool image in a way — driving to the desert. The Vespa ends up dying. She’s totally dehydrated and delusional, sort of. And she turns around and he’s sitting there on his car. And she knew he was going to be there. To me, the image of her turning around and him sitting there was like, you know, the hot guy, the cool guy who sits on the hood of the car looking — I don’t know if that’s a 50s image, like from Grease, but it really sort of comes all the way through into present time — the hot cool guy sitting on the hood of their car. And you almost expect her to be grateful to see him. She’s been waiting for him since her own college days. Laura: She’s walking in the desert. She’s delirious. She’s dehydrated. I also made a note here about the walking. He is known throughout King canon as the Walkin’ Dude. He is the Walkin’ Dude. And yet in this book, people just walk. They have to walk. They walk in ways that annoy me — instead of using easier means of transportation. Remember Trashcan Man walked until he was delirious and dehydrated into Vegas? The four men coming over from the Free Zone, they’re walking, even though there are other ways to do it. There is something about walking in this story. I don’t know if it’s supposed to be an equal playing field, like we all have to walk. I don’t know if it’s supposed to be a reference to pilgrimages or journeys — the Camino de Santiago, things like that. I just am like, we return to walking always. And that is obviously a thing that we’re supposed to pick up on. Sarah: Well, I was just listening to Michael Pollan on the Ezra Klein Show about his new book about consciousness. He talked about all the brain science around walking and how it makes you more creative. It’s such an embodied experience that it really connects all the different pieces of your consciousness together. That’s definitely my experience walking — it’s where I feel clearest. But I think it’s interesting that in this book there’s not a consistent conclusion about walking. Sometimes people walk and it helps them, and some people walk and it pushes them to the brink and they make a bad alliance — like Trashcan Man, and Nadine here. She walked straight into insanity with this encounter she’s been waiting for for decades. Sarah: Yeah, I don’t know what it is. But maybe that’s the point. When all else fails, in a post-pandemic world, when all else falls away — it’s walking. We revert to walking. That’s our most primal thing. Before agriculture, we were wandering tribesmen. That is fundamental to who we are for sure. Anyway — she turns around, sees him at the car, and it should be this grand — reunion isn’t the right word — grand meeting. And it just isn’t. It’s gross. She’s repulsed. She calls him an ageless pimple. Sarah: So gross. An ageless pimple finally brought to a head and about to spew for some noisome — How do you say that word? Lauren: You know what, I was reading this out loud and I got to that word and I was like, what is that word? Sarah: We can leave this in the edit. Nobody knows how to say it. Noisome fluid. Some sweetness long since curdled.That’s disgusting. Laura: When I was making some notes about this scene, the first thing I wrote was that he rapes her. And then I was rethinking — this is just me thinking out loud, nobody come for me — I was like, this was always the plan. This has been her plan since pre-pandemic. They were going to come together and have a union in this way. She has saved herself for this person. So at first I was like, is that rape? And then I reread the scene and I was like, oh no, this is rape. She is screaming. She’s trying to get away. Sarah: It doesn’t matter. It is weird though — she had so many points to turn around. At so many points she understood consciously that he was dangerous, that this was a place from which she could never return. Nadine — of all the characters — Lloyd makes a certain amount of sense to me, Trashcan Man makes a certain amount of sense to me, even Harold. But Nadine, I’m like, I don’t get it. You didn’t want anybody to die. And then you turn all the way. You had Joe/Leo. Except for that moment with Larry when she’s like, please, please, please help me — there are just so many moments where I’m like, you knew how bad this was going to get. Your subconscious bubbled up into your conscious thought many times, like: no, abort, this is a bad idea. Laura: I don’t know if she’s meant to be like a sacrificial lamb, or if she’s meant to be, as he calls it, an incubator. Sarah: The implication to me is like his child could not be conceived willingly. She had to be taken this way and sort of put into the land of insanity for his child to be born or whatever. That to me was the subtle implication of the whole thing. Laura: Well, she is one of the most complicated characters in that there are glimpses of her being good throughout the whole novel. So why is she saving herself for this sort of ultimate evil? And then she doubts herself right up until she meets him. We also have these unusual ideas about what she was doing with Harold — not completely consummating, but doing everything but. And I got the impression she didn’t hate that. Maybe she was just doing that to manipulate Harold, but you kind of get the implication that she likes it. There’s that whole scene where she sort of wants them to go all the way and she has to stop herself. So she’s enjoying these sexual acts with Harold, but then when it comes to this act she’s been waiting for all this time, it’s just so horrible and violent and so —Rosemary’s Baby. Laura: Yes! Which by the way came out in 1968. That had to have been in his mind. Sarah: Well, what also happens in the midst of this is that Randall Flagg feels somebody pass by. He also understands that the men from the Free Zone are coming for him. So he hasn’t lost the eye completely — he gets these senses that somebody’s passing by. It’s a full moon, so we’re all putting together the pieces of who that somebody might be. That’ll be confirmed in the next chapter — chapter 66. But he’s still, the holes are showing. I loved when he got back to Vegas with Nadine — he saw the questioning in everybody’s eyes. So he knows everybody knows things aren’t working out the way he planned. But there’s still a lot of power here. Laura: And I think he’s trying to hide the slippage. Like, he’s trying to act like he’s still all-knowing. He definitely does not want people to know that he is, quote-unquote, losing himself. Sarah: But that’s what’s so interesting about this chapter — you’re in his head, so you know what he knows, including that somebody passed by. It’s complicated. Laura: Also — how relevant is this to our current world? Just desperate to cover up lapses in brain functioning? Sarah: Whatever could you be referencing, Laura? Sarah: Well, also, people backed in a corner are dangerous. That’s hyper relevant on many, many, many stages. Laura: Look, I feel like I could say this about our past two presidents — our current president and our past president — that there is a misstep and then a desperation to show that there was not an age-related mishap. When there’s a slip and then they double down. Yeah. Chapter 66: Lloyd Shows Up Sarah: And I think in chapter 66, we start spending a lot of time with Lloyd. That’s where I thought Lloyd was one of the most interesting characters in this whole chapter — the way he was kind of processing Randall Flagg’s slips and processing his own choices to begin with. I thought that was one of the most interesting themes through this section. Lloyd really showed up. He showed up and he showed out in this section, and I kind of dug it. Laura: Listen, I have much to say about Lloyd. Except to say — how far has Lloyd come from his shootout with Polk? Sarah: He even says that. That’s one of my favorite parts of the chapter: he got better. It’s like, it’s giving Larry. It’s giving Stu. There were people on both sides of this battle who, being chosen and stepping up and finding some leadership, really changed them. And I think Lloyd’s one of those people. So we get to chapter 66. Lloyd’s back in Vegas and he’s gotten word that Trashcan Man — apparently not always the easiest of allies or tools to keep in your control. Go figure. Who would have guessed? Laura: I mean, Lloyd isn’t just that he’s been chosen — he’s become a leader. Are we all on our own path? I’ve said this throughout the whole book, because I think a huge theme of this book is your path is your path. I think that’s what we’re exploring a little bit with Nadine also. Even though she doesn’t want to fulfill this thing she’s been on a path to fulfill the whole time, I don’t know how much choice she has in the matter by the time she meets Flagg in the desert. But we’re all on our own dedicated path. We have our roles, like it or not. Sarah: That’s why I don’t think “your path is your path” fits this quite so well — because I think there are so many people in this book who the path changed. Lloyd is different now. He was in a place of desperation and he threw in with Flagg, but that has changed him. And I think he could be a very different kind of henchman than Stephen King portrays. If you’re a Sopranos fan — it’s the difference between like Paulie and Silvio. There’s a kind of blind adherence, like you just follow the boss. And then there’s a more conciliatory approach. He even says, like, who would have become a diplomat — who would use that word to describe old Lloyd when he was hanging out with Poke? So it’s kind of changed him. His assessment — so first he learns that Trashcan Man has booby-trapped a truck. Spoiler alert: it gets worse from there. Then Julie Lowry comes and tells him about Nick Andros and Tom Cullen. And so he’s starting to put some pieces together. And watching him put these pieces together and decide what it means for him, what it means for the community, what it means for Randall Flagg — it’s not a level of complex decision-making or analysis that I would have predicted Lloyd able to do. Laura: Well, no. That’s why I’m sort of asking what exactly is going on here, because at the end of this chapter, Tom Cullen realizes it’s the full moon. It’s time for him to hit the road. And he is also thinking more clearly. His time in Vegas has changed his brain. And so this is what I’m trying to ask about both Lloyd and anyone in Vegas — what King’s commentary is here. It’s not just that they have been entrusted with a leadership role, or that they’re in a place of belonging, or any of those philosophical things. It seems that there is something in this orbit, in this community, that is making them think more clearly. It’s literally making them — I don’t want to say smarter, that’s a weird word — but Tom Cullen has actual disabilities and he is without a doubt thinking more clearly as he sets off to go back to the Free Zone than he was in any previous iteration of his life. And so I was thinking, what is King saying here? Because you would think the narrative would be: if you’ve chosen evil, you’re cloudy, you’re muddy, you’re brainwashed or something. But he seems to be saying that these people are having more clarity than even the Free Zone people. Sarah: I don’t think Tom Cullen is thinking more clearly because of his time in Vegas. I think he is thinking within the framework of the hypnosis. To my mind, the hypnosis is like an on-off switch and it’s still on. It fundamentally changes his brain. The hypnosis puts him in a future-oriented place that he doesn’t usually exist in — he’s very present-oriented. And so with the hypnosis and the mission in front of him, it changes the way he’s processing events because he has a goal. I love how he says that the people in Vegas were nice folks, not much different from Boulder folks as far as he could tell — but they had that smell about them. It was as if these people were wearing happy folk faces, but their real faces, their underneath faces, were monster faces. Sarah: Their underneath faces — so good. And I think that’s what King is getting at. He’s not making the argument that people are fundamentally good or bad individually. He seems to be saying: people make all kinds of choices, and he’s walking us through how people get to these places where they’re facing this battle between good and evil. It’s not like Stu, or in particular Larry, woke up and were like, I’m a good guy and now I’m going to make all the good right choices. I thought it was really interesting in chapter 66 when Lloyd is talking to Julie Lowry and she says, nice fucking guy — which is such a throwback to Larry. Because I don’t know how you read this section and don’t see that Lloyd is trying to make good choices that, if not protect the people of Vegas, at least live up to his responsibility towards them. And even — I know this sounds crazy — even when he kind of says, like, I’ve made this choice, this is who I have pledged my loyalty to and I’m gonna stick to it — I wouldn’t call it honorable, but I would at least call it consistent. And I think he’s really pushing this idea that people can change. The circumstances change you. And there’s no neat and tidy way to unpack how you get to even a very black-and-white battle between good and evil. Individual vs. Collective Laura: The more we’re talking through it, the more I think this might be a little bit of a commentary on individuality versus collective. The people in Vegas are very individualized in their decision-making — even with Trashcan Man, Lloyd — my allegiance is to Flagg, or I am making this choice. And maybe that brings some kind of clarity, or just a sole, s-o-l-e, soul mission — or s-o-u-l, a soul mission — that is a lot more defined. Whereas when you are trying to make decisions for the collective, or for a greater good, as they’re doing in the Free Zone with their community meetings and all of these things, that brings sometimes more of a muddiness when you’re trying to choose for others. I’m not saying one is good or bad. Obviously I’m all for the collective good. But I am just wondering if the people in Vegas, although they are doing things that ultimately benefit the community, are making decisions on an individual level. Sarah: Yeah, but that’s in real contrast to like Lloyd in chapter 67, where he figures out — when he’s trying to trace down the Nick Andros/Tom Cullen connection — he calls the guy who tracks people. I thought that was also one of the creepiest parts of this book. The sort of secret police that Randall Flagg had. Talk about current applicability. A version of real surveillance and tracking of people. It was like he had a Facebook algorithm file on people before there were social media algorithm files. So Lloyd learns that there’s this red list of people that Flagg has been keeping from him. And that really disrupts his understanding of Flagg — because ultimately that was a mistake. If Lloyd had known from the beginning about this connection, maybe he could have acted and caught Tom Cullen before he left town. And here’s the thing: Randall Flagg can’t even articulate why he kept the red list from Lloyd. So this other information comes in and it disrupts Lloyd’s understanding of not only his relationship with Flagg, but what Flagg is doing for the collective — and therefore what Lloyd is doing on behalf of Flagg for the collective. Laura: But it still reads as individuality to me. They’re doing it for their own benefit, even if they don’t understand it. They’re not doing it to protect others or for a greater good. Those that are starting to defect never had any real loyalty to Flagg in the same way that those who might have had a loyalty to Mother Abagail. It’s a version of loyalty — but it’s an individual loyalty. It’s a loyalty to Flagg. It’s not a loyalty to the people of Vegas. Sarah: Well, I think everyone’s loyalty — even if it was individual decision-making — was based on this assumption that Flagg was all-powerful and would protect them. And the more and more that gets disrupted, the more they’re questioning. That’s why people start to leave. There was a sense of like, I’m not saying to keep myself safe — I’m saying because he’s so powerful that if I step one millimeter out of line he’ll kill me. But the more people that he cannot control — well, then people start thinking, maybe he can’t control me either, and maybe I’ll bounce. Laura: But again, their assumption that he can protect them is individual. They’re not worried about who he can protect for others. There is no us here. This is a political idea. Sarah: Well, it’s so interesting though, because even the people who defect from Vegas — they have relationships with each other and they leave together. It might not be everybody in Vegas, but King does poke a lot of holes in the every-man-for-himself reading. There are relationships in Vegas. There are people who have aligned together. Chapter 67 and the Red List Laura: The first major hole we see — with the red list thing and everybody understanding that maybe Randall Flagg is not Satan himself — is Lloyd gets on to him. He tells him about the Tom situation and basically says, if you had told me about the red list, I could have stopped this. This is your fault. I couldn’t believe it. And he says this with Nadine in the background, catatonic. Sarah: So weird. And she really — she turns it on a dime. So they get into this fight, Flagg screwed up, Lloyd sees that — sees an opening to say this is your fault, not mine — which is a huge shift in people’s understanding. And then all of a sudden Nadine is not catatonic and really is back to the old Nadine. I found that turn kind of hard. Laura: Well, listen — you can’t skim this section, because you will miss a really pivotal part of the book. I actually kind of feel like King didn’t totally give this its due for what is about to happen. We have read a thousand pages leading up to Flagg’s consummation and impregnation of Nadine, for her to just flip a switch in two paragraphs or whatever. I was like, wait — I mean, I knew this was coming, of course, but I did not remember as I was reading it aloud how quickly this turns. Sarah: Well, I wonder if it makes more sense when you put together this slow drip of the holes in his power — Harold, Dana, Tom Cullen escaping, then the first Trashcan Man blowing up the trucks, then the pilots — the dominoes are falling pretty fast at this point. And so you kind of wonder, like, was Nadine there the whole time? Was her ultimate purpose to get there and get impregnated as she thought? Or did she, as these dominoes start to fall, did something awaken in her to realize: no, my ultimate purpose is to tell him that the four from the Free Zone are coming, that he’s screwing everything up, and to basically bait him into throwing her over the parapet at the MGM Grand to her death? When I think about it, it feels sudden — but then I’m like, no. Maybe back to the path. This was ultimately Nadine’s path. Maybe that’s why we needed someone who felt like they were questioning the whole time. So that when her moment came — maybe what I’m arguing is that Nadine was the ultimate Free Zone spy. Laura: Oh, that’s interesting. But she also gained some knowledge that I’m not sure where it came from. When she and Harold leave the Free Zone, as far as they know, they’ve blown up the whole committee. Until she gets to the MGM, pregnant, traumatized. I guess she’s starting to realize she’s given her whole life over to someone she thought was going to be a god. And then when she gets there, he’s a devil. She either overhears all the ways in which he’s failing, or maybe that catatonic state was some sort of — like the hypnosis — maybe when she’s in that catatonic state. But suddenly she knows that the guys are coming from the Free Zone to get him. Sarah: She has that knowledge. Maybe she sees it in her catatonic state. Laura: Then where does that knowledge come from? Is it bestowed? Does it come in dreams — because dreams are such a big thing? Sarah: Stephen King has been making the argument that moments of trauma and disruption open up levels of consciousness not usually available to us. That has been pretty consistent. So you can see why the moment in the desert could have perhaps unlocked some things for Nadine — because it’s pretty freaking traumatic. My favorite thing she says to him, though, when she baits him into throwing her over the edge: Everything you made here is falling apart. And why not? The effective half-life of evil is always relatively short. Sarah: I love that line. I thought that was so good. Laura: With Nadine, you also can’t overlook the mother instinct. She doesn’t want to be pregnant with his baby. She doesn’t want this to continue on. She doesn’t want to carry this demon to term. She wants to rid herself of all of this. And she’s obviously wildly manipulated Harold, attempted to manipulate Larry. It’s not that the ultimate manipulation — making him so mad he throws her over the edge — was out of character. It just felt like a lot of buildup, and we kind of think maybe we’re going to get to see the next gen of this. It really severs an enormous storyline of Flagg’s. Sarah: Yeah, but people are dropping like flies around here right now. You know what I mean? The closer we get to the end, it doesn’t matter how long you’ve spent with this person — everybody’s on the chopping block. Chapter 66 Continued: Tom Cullen and Love Sarah: What I think is so interesting about this chapter too is that he doesn’t end it with Flagg’s failure to levitate. A quarter of an inch; they would go no higher. We end it with Tom, and Tom saying that the biggest difference in Vegas was simply love: There were nice enough people and all, but there wasn’t much love in them because they were too busy being afraid. Love didn’t grow well in a place where there was only fear, just as plants didn’t grow very well in a place where it was always dark. Laura: I underlined that section too. Sarah: And he’s talking to Nick in his dreams. Nick is keeping him safe. But it’s really sad because he talks about waiting to see Nick again, but for some reason he could never understand — Nick had turned away. He doesn’t know yet. Laura: It’s also interesting that in dreams, Nick can talk and hear — and in Nick’s own dreams he could hear. Sarah: Well, he had to do something — because what’s he going to do, write a note Tom can’t read in his dreams? Laura: I’m telling you — the fact that Randall Flagg can’t get up is an obvious wink that he can’t get it up. I mean, he can, but he can’t. It’s an impotent kind of — Sarah: Okay, but look — isn’t that back to our theory? It’s easy and almost intuitive to think if somebody is all-powerful, they’re all-powerful forever. And Stephen King is like, no. Our choices, their impacts, the consequences, the energetic exchange are all connected and nothing’s written in stone. Something can change at any moment, including with the Walkin’ Dude and his ability to levitate. Laura: Well, I think there are so many doubts. When everything was going his way and everything was falling into place exactly how it was supposed to — he carries himself with the confidence of a man that everything’s going their way. And then when everything starts to fall apart — because the pilots blowing up are his fault — when Flagg finds out that Tom Cullen is the spy and is now on the move, he’s told that by Lloyd. He was not able to know that himself. And when Lloyd tells him, he sends the pilots after Tom for no reason. He even thinks in his mind — how bad would it be if Tom Cullen got back to the Free Zone? It wouldn’t be that big a deal. What’s he going to tell them? We’ve got the electricity going over here. He doesn’t have much to report back. I could just let him go. But no — his ego makes him send the pilots after Tom. And because Trashcan Man had rigged those helicopters, which might have sat there for weeks — instead, Flagg sends all the pilots after Tom Cullen, blowing them all up. So again, that’s all his fault. It’s all his misstep. Everyone in the room, Lloyd and Nadine, is seeing: oh, this guy — there’s no plan. He is losing his power. It’s getting sloppy. Sarah: Listen, what’d you expect bringing on somebody like Trashcan Man? Chapter 68: Trashcan Man’s Story, Told Twice Sarah: So we get a whisper of this, but we get in chapter 68, from Trashcan Man’s perspective — some of the pilots cracked a joke at his expense and he lost it and blew everything up. Then he kind of realizes — I love this line at the beginning: he was walking proof that a man finally takes on the look of what he is, because his skin had burned, peeled, burned, peeled again, and finally had not tanned but blackened. So creepy. Sarah: And you would think — okay, he’s blown everybody up. All is lost. The Trashcan Man is the burning man. We’re done here. Except now his ass is out here looking for a nuclear bomb. Laura: Well, I think this is all about trauma. They made a joke about fire starters or bedwetters or whatever silly thing they said. It brought up all of his trauma of being bullied, and he just goes to a place of destruction. What I thought was interesting from a storytelling point of view is that we hear this story twice. We hear it when the guy comes and tells it to Lloyd — this is what happened, the guy made a joke, here’s the exact joke he made, Trashcan Man loses it. And then we get to hear that exact same story with the exact same line, but from Trashcan Man’s point of view. And Stephen King — my buddy Steve — doesn’t do this over and over again throughout. This is one of the times that is interestingly repetitive. He does it purposely. It’s a storytelling choice to hear this story twice from two different angles. And you even hear that Trashcan Man almost realizes, like, oops, I might have overreacted. Sarah: But that’s back to the theme I’m pushing — that these pivotal moments, instead of just being this march down fate’s predetermined journey, there are these pivotal moments that might not mean anything to you. The pilots weren’t trying to be mean. It was a throwaway line. Randall Flagg’s decision to keep the red list to himself — he couldn’t even explain it to you. Doesn’t even know why he did it. But to Trashcan Man, this moment was wildly impactful. Because everybody is their own sort of bomb waiting to go off, right? Everybody has this one particular combination that could unlock good or bad, creativity or disaster, whatever. With somebody like Trashcan Man — it just feels like we could have all seen this coming. It’s another sort of Flagg hubris. You thought you were going to be able to control somebody who could find weapons and can’t even explain to you why or how. Laura: It just feels like a nod to history too. If you look throughout so many wars — if this hadn’t happened, this might have happened. In this case, if Trashcan Man hadn’t blown up the pilots — it’s a sliding doors moment. If he hadn’t been triggered by some offhand remark, if he hadn’t blown up the pilots and the helicopters, would the Vegas contingent have completely annihilated the Free Zone? Maybe. Sarah: Trashcan Man was a liability always. Even if they’d taken out the Free Zone, Trashcan Man was gonna stay a liability. Laura: But without Trashcan Man, they wouldn’t have had their weaponry. So you have those people that are both a liability and an asset depending on the day. Sarah: And you realize — everything Flagg is putting together is so fragile. Yeah, he has a Trashcan Man, but he has so few pilots. That’s it. There are no other pilots. And yes, he can draw Nadine to him — but when you draw someone that way and make them so fragile, they might throw themselves off a roof. I just think Randall Flagg’s fundamental weakness is that he sees everybody as pawns. And what Stephen King is sort of saying, particularly in this section, is: these are not pawns. These are people. And people are inherently messy, complicating. Chapters 70-71: Defection and the Final Balance Sarah: So we get Chief Whitney and Horgan coming and saying, we’re out, we’re leaving — which is not something you would have predicted hundreds of pages ago when they were crucifying this dude in front of everybody. Laura: I was mad that the chef came and told Lloyd he was going to bounce. Why would you do that? You know Lloyd is loyal to Flagg. Why would he keep your secret? I guess he’s giving him an opportunity to come with them, or giving him the respect of not just leaving in the night — but I just was like, why would you ever trust Lloyd? Laura: I liked it because I thought it was showing that they have built real relationships here. There is trust between the members in Vegas. And I think it was also meant to show us how far the understanding that Flagg has weakened has gone — not just that they’re willing to bounce, but that they’re willing to tell Lloyd about it. One of these lieutenants is like, he ain’t the same. He’s slipping. Laura: What did you think — and I’m asking you this because a lot of our Slow Read community has discussed this in the comments on Substack, y’all — you’ve got to get into the comments on Substack. We have the best Slow Read community. People say the smartest, most interesting things. They pick up stuff Sarah and I miss. You could be one of them. Go participate on Substack. But what did you think about Dana and Nadine dying in such similar ways, out the windows of the MGM? Sarah: Is this lazy storytelling? Is this purposefully a parallel? Is it a Shakespeare allusion? I meant to look that up and I forgot. Sarah: Usually the safe bet is yes. Bible or Shakespeare, you’re probably pretty safe if you cover both those bases. I think it is a metaphor for his power. He’s at the top floor. He’s in this penthouse. He is at the pinnacle of his reach and vision — you can see from far up there. It’s supposed to represent that he’s at the top. And then that is ultimately twisted and used against him. It’s a metaphor for the inherent vulnerability of that much power. Laura: But both of the women who are betraying him dying in this way — it was a smidge unsatisfying for me. Sarah: Oh, I don’t know how else they could have gotten away from him. They’re not going to fire a gun. She tried to pull her knife, he turned into a banana. What else are they going to do? These are their options. I think it was a really smart way for them to use the bare minimum of what they had at their disposal to get out of there. Laura: And in this chapter — the women angle has been discussed so much on Substack — in general, this is a very male-dominated section. It is all men. Yeah, we have Trashcan Man out there looking for the bomb, we have Randall Flagg, they’re looking for the Free Zone guys coming this way, and we spend a lot of time with Tom Cullen. Sarah: There’s just a lot of journeying. Tom is journeying. The Free Zone guys are coming. Randall Flagg starts out in the desert. There’s just a lot of traveling going on. Laura: Yeah. Chapters 70 and 71 are both short little looks at what’s happening, including — Trashcan Man is in the desert. And he has, by his own ways of divination, found a bunker that has what we can only assume is a nuclear warhead. Sarah: This is wildly unbelievable to me. You don’t think it just feeds into all the conspiracy theories of this is where America hides our bombs, in the desert outside of Vegas? Yeah, but they hide them really good. Laura: Do they though? Sarah: I feel like there have to be so many security protocols — if it loses power, if something like this happens — I’m not saying you couldn’t get to them, but you couldn’t get to them as like one random guy, and you sure as hell aren’t bringing out one on a cart. That’s not how nuclear weapons work. Laura: Listen, when I first read this, as a teenager and in subsequent readings, I’ve always been kind of confused by this section. Not by the logistics — he’s obviously found a bomb and trying to bring it above ground — but it’s like, suddenly in this section things got weirdly technical. I’m just going to skim this part because I don’t understand all these things. Laura: Yeah, I don’t love where this story is going, logistically speaking. Sarah: I do buy that Randall Flagg still has this vision. And I certainly buy that Kojak understands that he’s there and looking at them. I want to say that for sure. Laura: Also — we have been given a nugget hundreds and hundreds of pages back that Kojak is going to live for like eighteen more years. I hold on to that like the hope that it is. Sarah: Because it is. I was disquieted by this moment at the very end of chapter 71. When Randall Flagg is spying on them — peeking at them through his eye — and Kojak can see him: What he had forgotten was so staggeringly simple that it was humbling. They were having their problems too. They were frightened too. And as a result, they were making a colossal mistake. I thought that was such a powerful turn. He’s not all-powerful — but look, neither are they. Laura: Yeah. And they’re without their — I don’t know, spiritual leader. I’m not sure what you would even call Mother Abagail at this point, but as far as we know, they’re working in human realm only. Sarah: They’ve lost their leader. In Vegas, it’s the opposite — he’s lost his people. Laura: Oh, so smart. Laura: It’s true. And it feels like — obviously with all the things we’ve parsed through that are storytelling or silly or supernatural — what you just said is the part that feels the most human about this story. Leadership and warring factions making mistakes, making assumptions, but also having some similar parallel problems. Getting Close to the End Sarah: Laura, we’re getting so close to the end. Laura: I know. Laura: What do you think? Are you excited for the end? We only have 100 pages left — less, maybe. Sarah: I don’t even know. I’ve just been hanging out with these people for so long. I’m stressed about who’s going to die because I know some people are. I’m feeling a lot of stress about that. And I feel like I’m gonna get to the end and be like, okay, but so now let’s go back to the Free Zone — you tell me what happens for the next hundred years in the Free Zone. Which I know I’m not gonna get. But I mean — I’m excited. I’m ready for them. Let’s have it out. Let’s do this. I’m not scared. It’s go time, Laura. It’s go time. LauraThe Stand is coming. And hopefully we’ll see all of you on the other side. Sarah: But I don’t think we’re going to see all these characters on the other side. Laura: I hope you come and tell us at our book club meeting — our May book club meeting next week — what y’all think as we enter these last hundred pages. I also just want us to think about — because this is my first Slow Read and we’ll dissect all of this when we get to the end — the difference that it makes in your reading life to have spent six months with these characters. It’s really changed me. Both the Slow Read aspect of it with a book I’ve read multiple times before, and the reading aloud — which I know I’m the only one doing it that way. There’s going to be a lot to say as a Slow Read community that I want us to talk about in terms of just the experience. It’s a little bit separate from the book itself. Because you know — it’s never too late for an old dog to learn new tricks in terms of shaking up your reading life a little bit. This has been really, really good. Sarah: I bet Kojak’s going to learn some new tricks over the next eighteen years. Laura: Come on now. Yeah, I bet he is. Sarah: All right. Well, we look forward to seeing all of you at our book club meeting next week. We will be back covering chapters 72 through 73. And until then — see you on the other side. Laura: See you on the other side. Next Up: Chapters 72–73 This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit slowread.substack.com/subscribe [https://slowread.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2]

SLOW READ: The Stand (Chapters 61 - 64)

Welcome to SLOW READ [https://slowread.substack.com/], where we tackle the books you’ve always wanted to read at a pace you can handle. Hosted by Sarah Stewart Holland [https://www.instagram.com/bluegrassred] and Laura Tremaine [https://www.instagram.com/laura.tremaine/] We are currently reading The Stand [https://urlgeni.us/amzn/thestand] by Stephen King (unabridged version) You can find our full Reading Schedule here [https://slowread.substack.com/p/the-stand-reading-schedule] Join the SLOW READ [https://slowread.substack.com/] community on Substack for bonus episodes, book club meetings, and Side Quests with Sarah & Laura If you prefer to read instead of listen, below is a cleaned up transcript of the episode as well as links to all the books and Substacks we mentioned in this episode…and several fun bonus links and videos! Mentioned in this episode: * The Lord of the Rings [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33.The_Lord_of_the_Rings] by J.R.R. Tolkien [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33.The_Lord_of_the_Rings] * The Tune of Things: Is Consciousness God? [https://harpers.org/archive/2025/12/the-tune-of-things-christian-wiman-consciousness-god/] (Christian Wilman in Harper’s, 2025) * Moby Dick [https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2701] by Herman Melville [https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2701] * The Scarlet Letter [https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25344] by Nathaniel Hawthorne [https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25344] * Paradise Lost [https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/26] by John Milton [https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/26] * “Top of the World” by The Chicks (Official Video) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxRiVkdO9VQ] * Stand By Me [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092005/] (1986 film) — IMDb [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092005/] The Writing in This Section Sarah: Laura, after a very long time in the free zone, we are back with Randall Flagg and his crew, which have been varying levels of infiltrated by the committee spies. How did you feel about this section? Laura: I thought these particular chapters were some of the best written of the whole entire book. I have two standout sections that I consider the best in terms of incredible sentences and just the craft of it — this is one of them. Not a ton of wild imagination necessarily, but the sentences in this section, I was like, oh, that’s so well written. How he looped back several different things, and then the section many hundreds of pages ago with Glenn Bateman — that one felt really well written too, really poetic. But this section feels different. Like he was in a flow state, Mr. King, when he did this part. Sarah: I totally agree. I thought it was really engaging. And I also want to say — in this section as a whole, King makes a ton of literary references. He references Edgar Allan Poe, he references Lord of the Rings. I looked up the law book that Judge Ferris is reading, the one King mentions multiple times, and that’s a real book — it’s literally about racial social justice. I looked at it and was like, okay, he is doing some things. King is doing some things. This is pre-Black Lives Matter as a movement, but obviously these conversations were being had. We’re coming out of the 60s, back in the 70s when this was first written — it makes sense. Laura: And back to the writing style changing — I feel like that’s also part of the fact that we’re now in Vegas, and we haven’t been there for hundreds and hundreds of pages, and the writing is just different. It almost feels like these little sections — Judge Ferris, Dana, and then Harold — could almost be novellas with just a little more structure put in. They’re so well done. But it’s a really different tone from the time we’ve been spending in the free zone, which is a little folksy, a little quote-unquote normal novel stuff. This is really different, and that feels intentional. The Vegas parts have a different flavor. And I also like that he’s making the connection that not everyone in Vegas is evil. People are people. It’s not black and white. Chapter 61: Poor Judge Ferris Sarah: Well, let’s start with chapter 61, because poor Judge Ferris doesn’t actually make it to Vegas. Laura: God bless him. Bless his heart. Sarah: There’s a lot going on in this chapter — the plot happens, but also King is pulling together a lot of things. So we find Judge Ferris making his cross-country trip, and we know that Randall Flagg has sent patrols to stop him, to kill him — but please, please, please protect his head, because I’m going to send it back to the free zone and freak them all the way out. Some very specific instructions. At first I’m like, why are we taking this beloved character and sending him directly to his death? But there are two moments where I start to see the pieces coming together. The first is Judge Ferris is in a hotel room and a crow taps on his window. And Judge Ferris realizes this crow is Randall Flagg. He pulls a gun — and what I thought the most affecting part was, the crow slash Randall Flagg kind of panics. Oh no, if he shoots me, that’s it. Luckily for the crow slash Randall Flagg, the safety’s on. But Stephen King is giving us this insight to realize he is not immortal. He’s very powerful, but he can take on these other forms, and that means he’s vulnerable the way those forms are vulnerable. Which I thought was really interesting. Laura: Well, I also thought it was interesting because we haven’t encountered much supernaturalness for many hundreds of pages. It’s been kind of practical for a while. Sarah: What are you talking about? Are you forgetting the drive-in scene where he took over the speakers and was speaking to Nadine? Laura: Yes, but it’s all Randall Flagg–based. The percentage of supernaturalness in this story is on the lower side than I think most people might expect from Stephen King. This has been more of a practical, post-apocalyptic novel. Sarah: We’ve just spent a lot of time in committee meetings and town meetings. Even when Mother Abigail’s healing Franny, it is a moment among a lot of secretarial work. Laura: Yeah. I was like, bring it, Crow. I was ready for something like this to happen. Sarah: But there’s also — not just that the crow gives us insight into Flagg’s vulnerabilities — the whole time I was thinking, why are you so worried about him? Why are you so paranoid about Judge Ferris making it all the way to Vegas? You know he’s a spy, you hunt him out immediately. There is sort of a “thou dost protest too much” situation. Why are you sending parties all over the United States to stop this one guy? Laura: Don’t you think this is the first real glimpse we have that Randall Flagg is scared? Sarah: Yes. Exactly. I think that’s what this whole section is about — he is paranoid, he is not all-powerful. For one thing, he has to depend on animals to be in a lot of places at once, which is a vulnerability we’re learning. And then he has to depend on these dum-dums like Bobby Terry — what a name — to institute his orders, and they’re ding-dongs who can’t do it. The one instruction was: don’t shoot him in the head. And Bobby Terry kills Judge Ferris so dramatically and terribly that he’s unidentifiable. So even if they sent the head back to the free zone, they’d be like, who dis, we don’t know. Laura: I feel like there are parallels here — not just to our current moment of a wannabe all-powerful dictator, but to past moments too. There’s a lot of bravado in that type of person, but there’s an underlying fear. And also, the people surrounding them doing their bidding are statistically often dum-dums. Sarah: Well, that’s definitely Dana’s observation in the next chapter — that there are more ding-dongs in Vegas than there are in the Free Zone. Laura: Yeah, but they work harder. Sarah: They work harder. Then Bobby Terry screws up, and Randall Flagg transforms into some — I couldn’t quite put it together. Beast, man, crow? Laura: All I know is there are teeth involved. That part I picked up on. There were teeth, and he died in a very gruesome manner. I wasn’t sure — maybe weasel-y, animal-y? Sarah: Did you have to get a map out and be like, wait, the sentries are in Oregon? How do we get from the Rockies to Vegas? Laura: I was so confused. Sarah: He’s going up and around, obviously. Listen, I’m a big national parks person, so my baseline geography of the mountain ranges and the middle west to far west is probably a little better than most. Laura: It must be, because I literally was like, Oregon, where are we? What’s going on? I just think everybody — including Randall Flagg, because apparently he materializes like a ghost — is moving around awful quick in this story without airplanes or helicopters, and sometimes just on bicycles. Sarah: Okay, I didn’t want to nitpick this because I complained earlier in the book about why they were all using bikes. But now that we are into cars, like Judge Ferris doing all the driving, I do have a nitpick of — can you just stop at the empty gas stations and get gas? Laura: I mean, yes, I guess. Maybe. But it must be a big deal, because poor old Larry is still out there remembering the fact that he could have lost his fingers getting gas and that Harold had such a better way of doing it. Sarah: And also, I am living in 2026, but they did address it — he got a key from the empty front desk and just let himself into a room. Laura: I’m assuming it’s a physical key, because now everything would be digital. This is the 70s, where they had physical keys. You’d need electricity to program the key cards. Sarah: I did think that would be a different thing if this type of super flu took out everybody in 2026. The digital dependency we have now would add a layer of complication. Laura: Alright, Judge Ferris. You’re the best. R.I.P. Next chapter. Chapter 62: Dana Juergens, Absolute Badass Sarah: Dana Juergens. What a badass. Laura: What a badass. What a badass. Why has he been keeping Dana Juergens from us this whole time? I’m kind of angry. Sarah: Did your book have an illustration of her? Laura: Yeah, but she looks — it’s a weird illustration. It’s not how I picture Dana. She looks like a man. And I just don’t think that would be Lloyd’s type, because that’s who she’s sleeping with. I was picturing her as curvy and— Sarah: I love where he writes that she always thought women looked best on their backs. Like, are you saying that, Stephen King, or is she saying that? Laura: I feel like you’re just sharing your thoughts, dear sir. Sarah: I did like the Vegas of it all — she’s in a round bed with a round mirror. That tracks. So she’s sleeping with Lloyd, gathering all kinds of information, like the fact that they’re putting together weapon systems out there. I thought the part about Trashcan Man was so creepy — Lloyd is like, he’s so smart, he’s as strange as the big guy himself, and how he just disappears and sniffs out weapons all across the country. Laura: Isn’t it funny that Lloyd, who was a common criminal in pre-pandemic life, is interpreting Trashcan Man’s abilities as genius? I’m not disputing that it is a level of genius, but we have experienced Trashcan Man differently as the reader. I think it puts some things together though — that chaotic, vulnerable internal dialogue we’ve seen from him, paired with the prioritization Randall Flagg clearly places on having him there. And Trashcan Man is working under a totally different set of rules — he can come and go. Whereas the rest of Vegas has these really defined work assignments. Dana’s been there ten days and she’s assigned to a crew, they work nine to five. It’s very serious and structured. Sarah: Kind of like it or not, what Dana is doing — manipulating Lloyd through their relationship — is part of the women’s stereotype that some people critique King for. But she is doing so much more. She’s gathering intel way beyond just that relationship. She’s building relationships, she’s working, she’s putting pieces together. And the way she’s so thoughtful and smart even to the very end — when Flagg tells Lloyd to wait, she was like, I knew immediately that wasn’t what was going to happen because he would have jumped the second you said go. Like, she’s so sharp about the motivations of everybody around her. And what she gives us is all this color and texture around the fact that not everybody there is a monster. She talks about one guy and says something like, the odd thing is, he sounds really genuinely sorry — too bad he’s also so genuinely scared. She’s adding so much nuance. It’s not just a bunch of Trashcan Mans out there. There are regular people who are just terrified of Randall Flagg. Laura: It’s like giving Voldemort the whole chapter. They won’t talk about him, they won’t say his name. He was “the great there, not there.” His presence is lurking even when he’s not in the room. Sarah: Weren’t you fascinated by her friendship with Jenny? Laura: I was. And I also thought that was actually, if we’re going to talk about the way he writes women — if she’s manipulating Lloyd, she’s also trying to find a bestie. She’s really friend-crushing on Jenny. She likes her and doesn’t understand why Jenny would have been drawn to Vegas in the first place, but she knows she can’t really ask her without showing her cards. Sarah: Well, that’s because Dana is a badass and is not motivated by fear at all. That little pep talk she gives herself — “my name is Dana Roberta Juergens and I’m afraid, but I’ve been afraid before. All he can take from me is what I would have to give up someday, anyhow — my life. I will not let him break me down. I will not let him make me less than I am. If I can possibly help, but I want to die well, and I’m going to have what I want.” That is not the motivation of people terrified out of their minds. That is a completely different orientation to the world. Dana’s a stoic, I think. Laura: That speech is so good. But I do think King is also trying to show us why people end up on the quote-unquote bad side. It’s not because they’re evil or want to torture people. It can be because they’re scared. It can be because, as he’s alluded to in the past, they’re techie — so they’re excited to work on the airplanes and get the power grid going. And some of the good people in Vegas are out there loving on little Denny, right? He’s trying to show that they love this child. They want what’s best for this child. It’s complicated. Sarah: I really hooked on how Dana described Flagg as “glamorous” at one point — especially when we find out Julie Lawry is in Vegas in the next chapter. Some people are drawn to that. Jenny kind of articulates it: I know what I’m getting. I know he’s in control. I might not like it and I’m scared of it, but I know somebody knows what’s going on and is figuring it out. And there was some of that in the free zone with the worship of Mother Abigail too. Laura: When you get these little short lines, these small tangents and backstories to characters who are inconsequential to the main plot, you are understanding the layers of why people do what they do — or why they’re numb to their own actions and end up in these situations. That’s what makes this book so epic to me. Even to the guys who killed Judge Ferris — we get a few nuggets of backstory to understand how scared they are, how bored they are out there. It gives the story so much richness. Sarah: And we’re getting complex portrayals not just of everyone in Vegas, but of Flagg himself — who gets bested by Dana. She figures out immediately that he’s playing her, that he’s smiling. The theme of this book, by the way, is that smiling is creepy. Does Stephen King smile? Laura: I think maybe not, based on what I’m picking up from this novel. Sarah: So Randall Flagg is smiling at her, being like, listen, babe, we’ve got no reason to — we can both live beside each other. Why are y’all sending spies? I don’t want to hurt anybody. It’s so creepy. Laura: But she says it was goddamn persuasive. And hypnotizing. There is an element — even without the supernatural part, it can be persuasive. We know people like this who really make us falter. But he is also employing his voodoo, his hypnosis, and she has to keep fighting it. Sarah: Who the other spy is — I saw Tom Cullen at the top of the cherry picker while she was changing streetlights, and I was afraid Tom was just going to be like, “Hey, it’s my friend Dana!” and blow her cover. That’s why they show up — as the transcript says — at four in the morning, “the hour of the secret police.” Loved that line. And then she realizes pretty quickly, because she’s a badass, what information Flagg is actually trying to get from her. Her mind keeps going back to Tom, and she’s worried he can read her mind, so she’s trying not to let him get inside her head. Laura: Sarah sent an article last month that was actually about consciousness — I think Stephen King would really like this article. We’ll put it in the show notes. But one of the things it also discusses is the historical precedent of religious figures levitating. I did not know enough about big-C church history to realize, when we first see Randall Flagg levitating, that this is a reference to saints who reportedly levitated — who would fast themselves from a religious point of view and that would give them powers, like levitation. There’s historical documentation of this. I didn’t fully understand that reference when it first appeared. Sarah: I just think he is doing such a complex dance. Flagg is powerful — everybody’s terrified of him, he made one guy go crazy just by looking at him, he can become a predator anywhere in the world. But he’s not all-powerful. He’s not immortal. I loved it at the end when Lloyd says, “I think he’s around somewhere. I think he’s around waiting for something to happen. I don’t know what.” Even his acolytes in Vegas are seeing the chinks in the armor, just as we the reader are picking up on it. Laura: And I think there has become a bit of an equality — which we didn’t get in the beginning — between Randall Flagg and Mother Abigail. My initial impression was that Mother Abigail, as the one with a direct connection to God, would be in the stronger position. But we see all the ways in which she is vulnerable. And then the same with Randall Flagg. Both of them are emissaries. They are not God or not-God themselves. Chapter 63: Julie Lawry, You Suck Sarah: Next up in chapter 63 — ugh. If Julie Lawry ends up getting Tom Cullen killed, I’ma be so mad. Laura: You know what’s funny? I saw a comment from our slow readers — if y’all aren’t in the comments over on Substack, please go see. People say the most interesting, thoughtful things. We’re having great conversations over there. But someone said a few chapters back, “I’m so glad to be done with Julie.” And I was like... we’re not done with Julie. Sarah: Denny, this little boy who apparently has a rotating cast of mothers, is at the park with his newest mother Angelina, and she’s sitting next to this woman who’s going on and on about her obnoxious life and sex — and we should have known from the second she mentioned sex four or five times that it was Julie Lawry. Because Tom Cullen comes through the park too, the child loves Tom Cullen, Julie Lawry realizes it’s Tom, and is Cheshire Cat grinning at the thought of blowing his cover. It’s a very short chapter, that’s all we know, but this is such a big reveal. Remember — right before this chapter, someone notes the moon’s almost full. So I’m like, oh, maybe it’ll just be in time — Tom, get out of here before Julie gets with somebody and puts this all together. Fingers crossed. Laura: Although I feel like when Angelina tells Julie that Tom Cullen got booted out of the free zone — that’s actually a kind of decent cover story. And we know why they believed it: because Flagg can’t read Tom Cullen’s mind. He can’t give them the same intel he gave Harold and Nadine. But also — this is amazing storytelling. She was always going to show back up. That’s definitely where she was going to end up. Sarah: She sucks. She just does. Chapter 64: Harold Comes to Rest Sarah: Chapter 64. Oh, Harold. How do you feel? Laura: I felt bad for him. That’s rough. That’s a rough way to die. I was picturing that Ali Wong TV show where they end up in the desert and injured in the exact situation Harold is in — it looks brutal. You are thirsty, you are hallucinating. It’s not fun. Sarah: So Harold and Nadine are fleeing to Vegas, and Harold wipes out on an oil slick — which he now thinks, after many hours suffering alone in the desert, was probably Randall Flagg. Because where did the oil come from? It’s been months. He suffers multiple leg breaks, he’s lying there, he tries to crawl back up to Nadine, and she refuses to help him and leaves him to die. He tries to shoot her, but he feels like Randall Flagg also interferes and pushes him out of the way. And I think that’s what else King is telling us: the more you let Flagg in, the more he can mess with you. Dana didn’t let him in — so Dana had the capacity to take back a little bit of her life and take some action he didn’t control. But Harold had let him in so far that he could put an oil slick down. He could shove you away from shooting Nadine. You let him in, dude. You knew you shouldn’t have. Laura: Oh, Harold. So he sits there, suffering. He got his punishment for killing Nick and the other members of the committee. But over the course of his suffering, he does seem to regain some of his humanity as he continues writing in the ledger. Sarah: This is the chapter I was referencing — the most well-written in the whole book. I underlined so many things. As Harold is coming to his conclusions, writing longhand — he’s been writing his whole life, he got really good at it, he feels this connection between writing longhand and how important that is. “That was the whole world after all. Nothing but thoughts and plots.” And then he talks about the great works written longhand — Moby Dick, The Scarlet Letter, Paradise Lost. Again, King pulling from so much literature in this section. But then when he’s like, I could have been something in Boulder — and when he signs off as Hawk, his name from the Free Zone — he has so many moments of self-clarity and self-realization. He says he had fallen victim to his own protracted adolescence. Well, I believe it. I’ve seen it. And then: “when the end comes, when it is as horrible as Goodman always knew it would be, there is only one thing to say to all those good men — approach the throne of judgment: I was misled.” Like he tries to kind of foist off responsibility — and then ultimately is like, no. It wasn’t. It wasn’t anybody’s fault but my own. Like, I did have my own free will. Laura: I thought the last moment — where he’s talking about other people jumping off the quarry but how he could never do it, which was part of what led him to his demise — and ultimately he jumps and shoots himself in the head, and that’s what kind of saves him, gives him back a little bit of control over his own life. It was just so sad. Sarah: Because he realizes, as I’m sure many people have in the last moments of their life, like — I just ended up like everybody else. Quote-unquote misled. I just ended up like everybody else. I could have been something in Boulder. I love that. It reminds me of the Dixie Chicks song “Top of the World,” about the man sitting in his living room letting his family live their life in the other room. The song is like, I could have loved Jesus the way my wife did. I could have been different. It’s giving Harold in this moment. I just let it happen to me instead of taking the moments that I knew I had. Laura: And he’s still — even here, you still get glimmers of the insightful Harold we knew. It’s not like he offered nothing. Like, I thought it was so smart when he pushes back on Nadine saying Randall Flagg feels someone who would betray one side would probably betray the other. Harold’s like, really? You think you passed that? He’s arguing with her, sharp to the very end. And when he takes Hawk as the way to sign off — “on my school papers, I always signed my name Harold Emery Lauder” — it’s like he’s saying, I lived as Harold, I made all these choices as Harold. But I’m going to die as Hawk. Sarah: And it’s such a bummer. I know he has been sort of the villain and we’ve been as annoyed with him as Franny has been. But this is heartbreaking. A hawk is not a crow. Not a crow. I love a hawk. I hate a crow — it is the only bird I hate. Laura: Did you see the parallels to Harold shooting at Nadine, and the surprise on her face, her not even moving — to the Judge shooting at the crow who suddenly panics and is like, oh my God, these people are actually going to fight back? They’re going to fight to the very end. Sarah: Yes. Just like Dana — they’re going to do what they can do, and you won’t be able to control it always. I think that is definitely the takeaway of this section. Is This the Book You Expected? Sarah: We didn’t talk about it, but this section we just read was the beginning of Book Three, and there are opening epigraph quotes, including lyrics from “Stand By Me” — the song. I love that he quotes those lyrics, because obviously this book is called The Stand, but then his probably most beloved adaptation is a short story originally called The Body— the movie version is called Stand By Me. And I was just like, God, he loves an intertwining sitch. Laura: He does. Sarah: And I’m starting to feel, at the end of this section, all those branches coming together. I’m feeling more comfortable in where he’s taking us. I think it’s going to be rough, but I get where we’re going now. Okay — I want to ask you this, because I haven’t in a few episodes, but as we’re now sliding into home: is this book what you expected? Laura: No. I’m not really sure what I expected, but this wasn’t it. This has been such a different journey. The only other Stephen King book I’ve read was Carrie, which is so short and so contained — so the expansiveness of this has been really surprising. There are some elements I was prepared for because I’ve watched enough Stephen King movies. But it’s been much bigger and more complex and interesting, and definitely went places I didn’t expect. I didn’t expect we’d be talking about sociology and the best form of government. That’s for dang sure. So no — it’s been a very pleasant surprise. Sarah: In a slow read context, do you look forward to picking it up and doing your pages? Laura: Yeah. And I think the closer we get to the end, the harder it’s going to be to stick to the schedule. Sarah: For sure. Well, I’m scared about what happens next. Next Up: Chapters 65 through 71 — and if you can’t wait, become a subscriber on Substack and check out our side quest, which is going to be all about Viva Las Vegas. Also, two book club meetings left for our Slow Read members — two crucial ones. You are going to want to talk with your fellow slow readers about these last sections of The Stand. If you can’t make it live, you can always watch the video or listen to the audio replay. Until next week — see you on the other side. 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